I knew it was coming, for years, but this week the trucks arrived. They are tearing down the big woods behind my neighborhood to make a road in order to "improve traffic patterns".
I thought I'd said my good-byes but find I keep needing to walk what is left of my old paths and do some sort of grim death watch.....the old farm machinery left to rust in place, the hill we sled on, the fox dens and bird nests, the snake holes, the stream bank, the blackberries, the huge old trees, the tire swing, the tree house, the silly out of control bamboo grove are all being pushed together in big dead piles.
The noise is horrendous but comforting. It's like an acknowledgement of the destruction. I don't mean to trivialize the pain of others, I know this is small on the larger scale of things but still, it makes me very sad.