TheBanyanTree: We found a place

[NancyIee at aol.com]

Easter Sunday; church was over (we sang in both services), the brunch eaten, 
a couple of church Easter lilies delivered to special people, and the 
afternoon stretched ahead of us.

 We didn't feel like going to a movie, and we certainly were not hungry. We 
didn't feel like just going home and making this any other day. So, we got in 
the car and meandered off our usual country routes and took narrow lanes.

"Where does this go?" she asked. I did not know. We were just following the 
curves and turns, taking the "y" divisions by nothing else but whim.  We drove 
through and explored an old and quaint riverside community, a strange mix of 
shacks and modular homes, all with too many pickups parked in rutted driveways, 
and a few large mansions, straight out of "ye olde south".

Then we ventured down a winding road where the ancient trees hung low with 
Spanish moss and banks of fern and towering stands of pine and oak crowded 
together with the palmetto and saw grass. It was along this road we took a short, 
sandy turnoff and found the river.

There was a place to park among the trees, and we sat there and watched the 
tea-colored water sigh by, marking its slow movement by the lazy floating 
leaves. We walked down a worn path along the banks, found a place where a small 
boat could be launched, and sat there a few minutes. A sign down aways warned of 
manatees in the area, "no wake".

It was not a wide stretch of river. Even I could probably throw a stone to 
the other bank. The trees grew close, branches trailing down, Spanish Moss 
reflected in the dark water.

The water slid by beneath the old trees. Birds I had not heard before called 
from the shaded branches.  There was a peace about the place and we didn't 
need words to share its magic. It was a place before developments and 
condominiums and shopping malls. Unspoiled, old, unaltered by the few folk that lived 
within the seclusion.

A man and woman in a small, flat-bottomed boat, slide into view from around a 
bend in the river. They maneuvered the little craft to the shore,  dragged 
the boat out of the water, and into the back of a rusty pickup parked near our 
own vehicle.

"Good fishing out on the river, today," the man said to us, holding up a 
couple of catfish and a bass on a stringer.

They loaded their cooler into the pickup, and left, and we had the river to 
ourselves again. It was a droning, drowsy kind of place, and we sat there until 
the trees cast long and mellow shadows and the sun turned into golden dusk.

I think we will be back to that place. Perhaps, bringing our kayaks, so that 
we might explore those silent bends and distant banks. It was not far from 
where we live, yet we had not even known of its existence until this day. It was 
a sort of secret amidst the highways and bustle and intrusion of concrete and 
noise.

I bring it to mind as we returned home and our many chores and backed-up 
messages to be dealt with.


NancyLee