This is my creek.

 

The culvert bridge from the top of the bank.

 

There are a few places on the planet that feel like home to me.  We moved a lot when I was a kid.   11 schools in 12 years.  In between deployments, or when my Dad was at sea my Mom and I would often return to her parents home in the Napa Valley.  She grew up there, married there and began her adult life there.  She met my father there.  For her it was a mixed  bag.  Comfortable like home, uncomfortable to be a stranger there again.  Each time we went back she would return to work in the family restaurant.    Most days I went to work with her.  I knew all the people  who worked with her and my Granny and would spend some of the morning hanging out in the big booth in the front window, reading or pretending to be clairvoyant.   Later when the other businesses opened she would give me $5 from her tip jar and I would wander off down main street to look in the shops, buy bubble gum cigars and sneak peaks at Playboy and MAD magazine in the smoke shop.  The best part though usually came in the afternoon when it was too hot to be in the sunny front window.  I would head up the side street to Pioneer Park.  Up the street where my Granny was born.  Up the street where my grandparents met, where my Uncle lived in his museum house wheelchair bound and prone to throwing things if you got in his way.  Sometimes I would stop and play on  the playground equipment. Usually I would head for the muddy bank and slide down to the creek.  There is a culvert bridge that was the perfect place to search for polywogs, extra exciting when they were just getting their legs.  I spent hours there in the dappled shade dreaming of places, making stories with polywogs and fish. I built tiny villages with sticks and leaves and peculiar sticky insect webs. After a big rain the water would crash over the bridge and make it hard to cross on the slippery rocks, landing on my butt was not an unusual situation. The creek  was my haven and I was almost always alone. Any secrets I told the creek stayed there, the frogs never betrayed my confidences. From the middle of the bridge you can situate your self in such a way as to not see anything but woods and creek.  The sound of the water obscured the sounds of town.  I was someone else there.  Someone who had plans and roots. 

 Our recent trip to California afforded a few hours to drive up to Calistoga and visit the creek.  There is a real path with steps down now, there are still tiny fish and sticks and places for dreaming.  The creek still obscures the sounds of the town.  We spent some time there playing Pooh sticks, watching the water and the dragonflies.  We were visited by a rare green heron.  Playing in the creek, telling stories, taking pictures and just visiting was a big deal.  I was afraid to go back.  Afraid my memories would give me away and take me back.  Afraid all the things I held close would tumble out in a big mess.  They did tumble out.  But in a strange way, it wasn't a mess.  It was changed but still the same.  S peered into the same creek, leaves still fell into the water and sailed away to parts unknown.  And I silently let go.  It's making me cry now but I didn't cry then.  I didn't even realize until we were gone how much baggage I let the creek take away.  It was the most important place for me to visit on this trip, I had not been back for more than three decades and things for me are very different now than they were then.   It's beautiful I hope I will get to see it again.

                                                        Nothin but creek.  No town here.