A Liminal World
Do you know the word “ecotone,” Gentle Reader? It’s a liminal space, where, between biomes, where one environment and another overlap.
I love the suburbs. They seem to be full of ecotones, for better or for worse–the places where nature tries and tries to take over. The place where man beats it back. Dandelions push up through the cracks of the sidewalk. Tall grasses edge along the highway. Overpasses thrust up out of temperate rainforests.
I’ve always been a country mouse, ever since I read The Secret Garden as a girl, went out with my plastic recorder and pretended to be Dickon, trying my best to romance the New Jersey wildlife. But it wasn’t until seventh grade that I discovered that the wild world was there, too–not far from the cars and exhaust fumes. Ashley M. and Caitlin H. and I walked our bicycles out to the woods, where the boys had worn down paths and sprayed graffiti on the edges of stones. Brooks snaked their way through wild forests. Everything was green, green, green.
Two years later, Nicole and Robbie and I built a paracosm in the same woods, the last great imaginative gasp of a too-long childhood. We came home and tracked mud across my mother’s new carpet. But it was worth it; it was our kingdom.
I think you’re supposed to give up on these wild worlds at some point, when you start to become an adult? I haven’t. A few years back, I managed to get Lyme disease because every day I left the library where I worked and disappeared into the forest. I took off my shoes, dipping my toes in clean brook water. I watched the light filtered golden between branches. I flicked away mosquitoes. I breathed in emerald air and reminded myself I was still alive.
Now, I live in a suburb that’s so little boxes. And yet I’ve still managed to find a twisting, overgrown path. There’s the remnants of a castle there. Bamboo groves worthy of a thousand battles. Eagles (eagles! Bald eagles!) make their nests. I work all day behind a screen but every day I do my best to go out and breathe in the wet, woody air. Every few weeks a tree goes down, blocking the path. Nature still tries to take over.
I can’t blame her. In fact, I understand.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
4 comments
the wood of the suburbs you live in now…so. freaking. beautiful!<3
I betcha a buck if you live near any woods they're just as beautiful! Seriously, this is wedged between a suburb and a major highway.
I grew up with a park bordering my backyard. We called it the Fire Trails, though I’m not sure why.
(A path for firefighters to take if the park caught fire? trails ripped through the woods to create a fire break?)
It was easy to get lost back there and be far from everything civil. When it snowed, the landscape softened. It was an entirely other world.
Which is all to say, I identify.
That sounds awesome. You are officially a member of the Wild Kid Society.