younger then

When I was much younger I would go to Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, sometimes alone but usually with a friend or two. Highways traveled to smaller roads, out from the town of Jaffrey on Route 124. I or we would pass the state park entrance and drive up to a place we’d discovered, a small, pine needle-covered parking area off 124, and hike the quickly elevating ‘Halfway House Trail’ which led to an open area at one time home to a hotel. A nice place to rest, the splendor of seeing for miles and miles offered up there. Some of the view seen in the photo.

On one of those climbs I discovered a smaller trail through the thick pines and brush heading off to the east from the halfway pausing place. I followed it to an abrupt dead-end, a ledge overlooking a vast meadow stretching way down below, pushing its far boundary like it was trying to make it all the way to Boston. I traveled that path at least twice, if not more, and I never remember being there, sitting on that edge of the world, with anyone else. Just me.

I often call up visions of that place, at that time, me still something of a kid, looking out on the big, big world. I’d like to think my eyes were filled with wonder.