A trip to my family home in the Piedmont of North Carolina is always full of the hidden. Shadows of the past; remnants of the present. And Christmas of 2019 was no exception.
Some remnants of the present were literally remnants. There’s a place called the Scrap Exchange in Durham, run by a not for profit organization, that houses bins of about anything you can think of. Egg cartons, for example. Door knobs. Left over and partially used craft projects. I scored 6 Christmas stockings for a dollar each (you can never have too many), two Irish linen handkerchiefs in their original souvenir packaging for fifty cents (my brother had the temerity to ask what I would do with them), and a holiday adorned roll cover for my mother (there is such a thing). The latter two were in a bin optimistically labeled “vintage linens.”
Beyond that, there are always hidden things at Five Oaks, the weekend home my parents bought many years ago north of Durham. There is now only one big oak tree, four having been felled by various hurricanes, but “One Oak” doesn’t have the same ring. Over the years, my father has created multiple vistas designed around one or more objects he’s made from whatever happened to be on hand. But as time has crept (leapt?) by, the underbrush has become above brush and said objects peek forth through a chaos of leaves and branches. Can you see the pot?
Five Oaks was also the scene of a hide and seek adventure this year – involving Teddy, my parents’ extremely large furry 8 year old dog, who looks like a Swedish Lapphund. As a dog, he is allowed to be identified by his full name, rather than an initial.
We all took a walk across the meadow through the woods and down to the bluff that overlooks a creek. Teddy lumbered along beside us, staying quite close, until we reached the bluff. At which point, N (boyfriend of daughter A for those of you who don’t read this regularly) confidently predicted Teddy wouldn’t try to make it down because he’d be worried about making it back up. At which point Teddy decided to prove N wrong and took off down said bluff, across the creek, over and through a neighbor’s pond. Repeated calls by humans were much less tempting than the gobble gobbles of the wild turkey he had decided to chase. It was particularly disconcerting because we could hear loud cracks of gunshot from some nearby hunters.
Ultimately S (as in daughter S’s boyfriend) undertook the task of tracking down Teddy (who by now was a blur in the distance), which required S heroically removing his shoes and socks, wading through creek and pond, and somehow convincing Teddy that he was more interesting than a wild turkey. In the meantime I had run back to the house to get Teddy’s leash to prevent any further escapes. Teddy rather sheepishly made his way back up the bluff and N has now been banned from speaking things into existence.
Downtown Durham itself has turned hidden things into an art form. Who knew that the rundown Jack Tarr motel I remember from the 1970s really wanted to be a fancy cocktail bar all this time?
So as we close out 2019 and roll into 2020 – the beginning of a new decade after all (will they be roaring?) I hope we all appreciate the hidden things around us, whether human, animal, or other. The 2010s were full of summits for J and me, most of them very visible. I hope the 2020s will be the same. But it’s important to remember that not all summits are mountain peaks, and some of those hidden ones are just as significant. Happy new decade, one and all.
FromSwamptoSummit 