My Narnia

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We all need that timeless place: a piece of childhood where the world cannot change, and the only sounds are that which you create. When I was a child, my parents often helped a school friend run his summer day camp. It’s located in a forgotten chunk of central Wisconsin—not north enough to be considered North Woods, but not south enough to be considered Suburbia. I could run round this camp as much as I wanted, and did. There could be over a hundred kids, and other families with tents, and I’d never see or hear them. The fields and forests spellbound me. I could see the talking beavers emerge from the wildflowers and warn me of the White Witch’s secret police.

This land is my Narnia.

I returned after a twenty-year absence. A few new cabins, a few new signs. But the fields and the forests: unchanged.

Find a place where magic glows in the air you breathe. Stand in its majesty. Imagine.

26 thoughts on “My Narnia”

  2. Beautiful! I’d enjoy the wilderness a lot more if I could overcome my fear of daddy-long-leggers. Every time I’m in the woods, my eyes are peeled for those sinister things! I appreciate the beauty of the outdoors, but it would help if I wasn’t looking down every few steps for those darned things!!

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    • Oh heavens, daddy-long-legs are nothing compared to deer ticks, which ABOUND in that area. I loved the stroll, but yes, I was feeling my hair every few seconds, just in case… Glad you enjoyed the pictures!

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    • Thank you for viewing my post! Autumn is positively breathtaking in this area. It’s one of the reasons I adore this state so much–so little changes, yet the beauty is in constant transformation, always for the better. I’m glad you feel the same!

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      • Sadly not near, beautiful as this part of the world is…if I had to choose it would be the WW1 Cemetery in Etaples in Northern France. Although not a battlefield cemetery it is a place near the coast where the injured, soon to be dead soldiers lived out their last hours…amid the gravestones, and although I know it is impossible, my mind is at a peace that seems to be unending…stood there for a couple of hours one time. Indeed, I may look it up again tomorrow as we are off shopping in La Belle France!

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      • You should! And yes, there is a peace to be found in cemeteries, though Shey mentioned one in…was it Dundee? Don’t think so…anyway, there was a cemetery where one gets this sense of being pushed OUT. But many cemeteries feel easy to me. I wrote about another one a looooong time ago on the blog. “The Need for Place,” I think. Regardless, I’ve been keen to write about the loved ones who’ve passed on in my life, and where their graves reside, but between kids and travel, I’m not sure how I can go about it…

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      • Kids and free time…I now it well, thankfully mine have all grown, just G here and he has his own space on the top floor and the converted attic. Odd thing…my parents don’t have a grave, just scattered ashes. I think that’ll do for me also…the odd book or two I write should tell my offspring and theirs enough about this old fool.

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      • My wife and her photo albums…she often shares them on FB for the fun of it. So she, when I get my act together will share the newer stuff (if truth be told about 3 years of it). Shirley Blamey is her name, shall I get her to follow you…she’s as mad as a box of frogs I might add?

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  7. This made me smile and yearn for a Narnia of my own to visit. I have only a photograph of myself holding a sunflower aloft. It was a field by our house and it overflowed with the flowers. For whatever reason my sister and I would beg my parents to let us run through it. I remember the tall stalks and the sunshine and how time simply stopped. A builder plowed the field under. But I have the picture–the Narnia in my mind.
    Thank you for evoking the memory!

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