Somewhere in western North Carolina, there is a facility for mentally handicapped people where I spent a day volunteering. Somewhere near there is a park or nature preserve where we went afterwards. Somewhere in there is a creek where our Outward Bound group did our “solo”. Somewhere along that creek is where I turned downed branches and leaves into a shelter for those three-days and two-nights. Somewhere up the creek from that shelter is an overhanging rock I shaded under for the hot part of the day.

I sat and wrote sappy poems in my journal, and sappy letters to a girlfriend.I ate all the figs that first night, and didn’t have anything sweet to eat for the next 36 hours. I spent a considerable amount of time wishing I’d had more figs. I spent a morning watching flying insects couple in mid-air and flutter down to the surface of a rock to make more flying insects. I refrained from doing David Attenborough-like voice over, because we weren’t supposed to talk. Despite that,  I made up a song and sang it to the setting sun. 

I crept along the rocky bank of the creek looking at every detail. I found a section of blue granite with lovely white crystal streaks. I collected a golf-ball sized piece that hung from my keychain for twenty years. I used to lick that rock occasionally because it tasted like the water from that stream.

Sometimes people, mostly on TV, say “Go to your happy place” or “Find your quiet place”. That’s mine. I couldn’t find that place again, even with google maps, but I would recognize it in a second.