HOME | DD

Description
Once again, once again, that phrase crawls through my brain like the ivy snaking up the brick of the college walls. It became my mantra, ringing through my mind with each noticeable pattern, of breath, of stepping in footprints frozen in ice the day before. It let me rediscover a moment, my first trip back home as a college freshmen, that I did not truly understand until I was introduced to Wordsworth’s once again.
I remember, stepping out of the car and once more facing my house, while my parents fawned over me in a manner reminiscent of when my Aunt Betty visited for the first time in twenty years. The feeling was not so much a homecoming, but more one of a strange déjà vu, with my room filled with boxes, my desk glazed in dust and the bed laid out in fresh white linins instead of my old sheets with stars or twisting blue dragons. I wandered down to the lake, haunted by old phantoms of memories, longing for a childhood once again. I poked my way down the shore, each step echoed in the whisper of lake ripples rolling the sands at the toe of the gnarled root held banks until I came to him, the old tree who had long ago half fallen into the water, so as to seem a long scaled creature who had eased his belly into the cool lake and stretched his head to the sun, until leaves grew from his horns and moss settled on his spine. He had always tolerated me, as I sat astride the scaly back, so long as I was careful not to disturb the palm sized spiders that prowled along his ribs, hunting parasites just as a little Plover bird would for a great crocodile.
I crouched down on my stomach, and pressed my ear to the mossy neck, listening for the moaning breaths I had once sworn were there, and idly traced my reflection in the swaying ripples. Before my eyes, my image warped, and once again I saw. The memory came to me, of when I was young and scorned by peers, I had come crying to the old drake tree, while the wind painted feather ripples on the lake canvas and the sun splashed the sky in a sunset’s evening gown. I made a wish then, and gathered wild flowers to twist into a wreath crown while I danced ankle deep in the sandy shallows, humming a tune to call on the fey lake lady for aide, feeling an old power warm my small form. I pulled the flowers from my brow and stood once again on the old tree, and placed them as an alter offering to the lady lake, watching as she swept them back to her veiled depths. So in memory I remained, until the frantic voice of my mother reached me, calling me back from my trance for dinner.
I stirred from the vision of my own past, to stare at my own hand reaching into the water, as if I had just reached down into myself, and touched what I had once been. What else could I do but smile, and pluck a few wild violets to place on the old drake’s back. I only caught a glimpse, of the wind blowing them to the lake’s grasp, as the little flowers twirled and spun with the ripples, drifting away while I turned for home, once again.

Description
Once again, once again, that phrase crawls through my brain like the ivy snaking up the brick of the college walls. It became my mantra, ringing through my mind with each noticeable pattern, of breath, of stepping in footprints frozen in ice the day before. It let me rediscover a moment, my first trip back home as a college freshmen, that I did not truly understand until I was introduced to Wordsworth’s once again.
I remember, stepping out of the car and once more facing my house, while my parents fawned over me in a manner reminiscent of when my Aunt Betty visited for the first time in twenty years. The feeling was not so much a homecoming, but more one of a strange déjà vu, with my room filled with boxes, my desk glazed in dust and the bed laid out in fresh white linins instead of my old sheets with stars or twisting blue dragons. I wandered down to the lake, haunted by old phantoms of memories, longing for a childhood once again. I poked my way down the shore, each step echoed in the whisper of lake ripples rolling the sands at the toe of the gnarled root held banks until I came to him, the old tree who had long ago half fallen into the water, so as to seem a long scaled creature who had eased his belly into the cool lake and stretched his head to the sun, until leaves grew from his horns and moss settled on his spine. He had always tolerated me, as I sat astride the scaly back, so long as I was careful not to disturb the palm sized spiders that prowled along his ribs, hunting parasites just as a little Plover bird would for a great crocodile.
I crouched down on my stomach, and pressed my ear to the mossy neck, listening for the moaning breaths I had once sworn were there, and idly traced my reflection in the swaying ripples. Before my eyes, my image warped, and once again I saw. The memory came to me, of when I was young and scorned by peers, I had come crying to the old drake tree, while the wind painted feather ripples on the lake canvas and the sun splashed the sky in a sunset’s evening gown. I made a wish then, and gathered wild flowers to twist into a wreath crown while I danced ankle deep in the sandy shallows, humming a tune to call on the fey lake lady for aide, feeling an old power warm my small form. I pulled the flowers from my brow and stood once again on the old tree, and placed them as an alter offering to the lady lake, watching as she swept them back to her veiled depths. So in memory I remained, until the frantic voice of my mother reached me, calling me back from my trance for dinner.
I stirred from the vision of my own past, to stare at my own hand reaching into the water, as if I had just reached down into myself, and touched what I had once been. What else could I do but smile, and pluck a few wild violets to place on the old drake’s back. I only caught a glimpse, of the wind blowing them to the lake’s grasp, as the little flowers twirled and spun with the ripples, drifting away while I turned for home, once again.