For me, place has played just as an important role in my life than relationships. I think oftentimes we overlook places in favor of relationships we had during our time with them. However, I feel as though many places have taught me just as much as many people. I do not think I have appreciated places enough in my life. Looking back though, I can imagine places with vivid details which conjure feelings that could not be inspired by something that has not played a significant role in shaping me. In overlooking these places, I believe we begin to forget some of the most valuable moments and lessons in our lives. Recognizing this, I chose to write letters to the places I feel as though have had an indescribable role in my life.

To Nonna’s backyard:

You are still a part of my life, though in a starkly different way. What once was the site of what seemed to be an endless world of fascination and joy is now as distant as days filled with plastic toys on the back porch.

Sometime late last summer I stood on that porch, the very real barrier between the past and present. I could see all of you: the long stretch of grass reaching towards the apple tree, still buckling under its own weight, the garden now overgrown with weeds, the once radiant flowers faded against the chipped paint of the garage.

I don’t know if it changed that much. To any other eye, this place may look exactly the same, save a couple of minute details. But to me, it could be a whole new garden.

Many years ago, this was my sanctuary. I could hide in the apple tree for hours, and I think my body still knows the motions of climbing it so well that I could still scramble up there in moments, letting my body hang with the apples. My Nonna and I worked in the tireless way a five year old and a seventy year old can to care for the garden all for the promise of over ripe tomatoes in the heat of late summer. I have never had much in common with my Nonna, but as she fades away, I see that those faded memories are all we ever needed.

During a particularly dull day, when the tomatoes had received all the love they could, my Nonna removed old pink string from a tucked away shelf. I spent what felt like hours making perfection out of old string and bells. My Nonna accompanied me outside while I hung it in the sap coated tree, the piney stickiness rubbing onto my freshly washed hands. Every day, my Nonna told me to go look for fairies among the pine needles, dancing on my string. One day, I swear I’ll see them.

I didn’t know why I was writing this at first. I don’t think I’d allowed myself to see how much my world has changed since those days. And I know that that is natural: growth and change are the only things I’ve learned to expect. But I’ve let so many things just slip through my fingers in the name of change. If I never recognize the role places have played in my life, the lessons and memories will quickly fade away.

I do not know how to thank a tree or a tomato plant or the summer air, but I do know that I am thankful. So in the only language I know how to speak, thank you. I believe that a lot of childlike wonder disappears all too quickly, but those long summer days forced me to have some. Without it, those days would have been dull and empty, but with it, they are some of the fondest memories I have. Unfortunately, change carries on with age, and as this house and the people in it have aged, the memories have become less and less pleasant. But every time I return to the garden or smell a homegrown tomato, I know that I will always have those memories to hold onto, even if they seem impossible now. Thank you for being the perfect place to house those memories.

I hardly know how to apologize in my own language, but I know when apologies are necessary. So I am sorry. I wonder how long I left the tree lonely, how long it took for weeds to overtake our perfect garden beds. I wonder when my fairy string became just another piece of litter. A lot of times in life, forgetting is the only thing we know how to do. And I am sorry for taking the easy way out. I am sorry for passing over your grass like it wasn’t an old friend.

To the Camp:

To call a place home that I only see once a year may sound wrong, but it fits every definition I know of home. Somehow, in my 16 years, you have shaped me in ways I have yet to know. Even 200 miles away, I know every feeling of you. I know what it feels like to run down your path and feel woodchips caught in my sandals. I know what it feels like to jump into your lake while the sun sets. I know the feeling of the early morning fog rising off the lake.

To be entirely honest, the years at this place blend together. Somehow though that is one of the most beautiful aspects of all of it. Every year, I know coming back will be nearly the same, no matter how much the rest of the world has changed. I will always know how to scramble up my favorite rock, I will always know my path to the small creek, I will always know the motions of tugging the kayak along choppy water to my favorite island.

I feel as though my entire life has been built upon the foundation you have given me. I learned the beauty in every simple moment here. Every time I return here this love is fueled. I do not know if it is the way the loons cry at dusk or the way the water feels like silk every time I jump in. I do not know if it is the way watching fog rise off the lake makes my soul feel or the sounds of all my cousins around the dinner table. I do know that somehow this place has taught me to never stop wondering and exploring, but also to never forget to come home.

An old House:

In my mind it is exactly the same. The off white shag carpet that her stepmom hated so much is still stained, still somehow both soft and rough beneath my bare feet. In my mind, I could return to you and it would be exactly the same: there would be citrusy soap in the downstairs bathroom and her favorite cookies would still sit in the top drawer beneath the microwave. I imagine it as almost a museum to the first 12 years of my life, like I could stand in each place and watch my own favorite memories.

In my mind, I can so naturally return to this place. Slide between the cracks of the fence and run with bare feet along the rough wood of the pool deck, basically guaranteeing myself a splinter. I could still find my way across your slippery polished floors to the unheated guest room or the bright pinks of your bedroom rug.

I am not sure whether to thank you or just recognize your place in my life and move forward. Nostalgia is a liar, and I know the memories playing through my head do not include some painful ones, which are equally part of me and my time with this place.

They play through my head like a trailer for a movie I’ve seen too many times. Summer afternoons spent in the pool, watching Friends for hours, building gingerbread houses, birthday parties and sleepovers and old movies and cups of sickeningly sweet hot chocolate.

I am so grateful that these memories are mine, and that when I think hard enough I can still taste the hot chocolate on the tip of my tongue. But the way this place was nearly ripped away from me was a source of pain for so long.

You became such a source of consistency in my life. I knew every Tuesday after school, I would be here. Every other Friday night and most Sunday’s, this place would be ours, and it would always be the same. We would eat the same dinner, watch one of the three movies we rotated through, and stay up too late talking. The tear was slow, the inevitable prolonged. But when it came, it came barreling at us. I learned afterwards that time can neither slow nor speed up, but at the time that was all I wanted. For a long time thinking back on you caused pain, knowing I had lost something so good, something that had always made me happy. I think that in some ways I wish parts of you were still in my life. It felt like the instability of losing you and everything that came with you wrecked me for years. The pain of leaving is easily just as much a part of you as the happy memories there.

To be entirely honest, I was mad for awhile. I felt betrayed by you and her, but distance has given me so much more perspective. Holding on to old things, clinging to the games we played and movies we watched when we were seven wouldn’t be right. Obviously, you cannot live in the past forever. Though the pain was perhaps unnecessarily large and one sided, that doesn’t mean it was for nothing. As I moved past the tumultuous times that ensued, I was also moving forward. I learned to create my own life and my own consistencies.

Just like anything in life, these have come and gone. Though few as devastating as the first, I know that this too will be a constant in my life. Despite not doing my best job handling it the first time around, I get better each time. I’ve learned to enjoy things while they are still a part of my life, because even what feels like will always be around forever will likely leave, on my terms or not.

So, I guess more than anything this is a thank you. Thank you for many beautiful memories that I can now look back on fondly. Thank you for your spiral staircase that I always tumbled down. Thank you for your shag carpet, for your cookies in the top drawer below the microwave. I am glad that I got to create these memories. I am glad I got to spend too many nights sleeping on your floor, I am thankful for early morning swims while the pool was too cold. I think I am even thankful for the ending, for (no matter how cliche it sounds) everything I learned and the room I was given to grow. I miss you.

To Lowenwood:

There is no knowing how to thank a place that gave me seemingly everything. In my memory, you feel nearly like a dream, a paradise I could barely imagine. The joy I experienced here and the pain it was leaving is unmatched.

From the day I arrived, I knew this place was going to hold a special place in my heart. I’m not sure what it was: the way the air made it easy to breathe, the way the stars seemed to dance with us in the sky or the way the sunrise accompanied me on my way to school, but what I feel for this place is nothing short of love.

I could’ve stayed forever and never been short on wonder. It is hard to even pick a memory, they all come rushing back to quickly with an almost painful beauty. I could fill a book with my love for each little moment here, and perhaps I will. It is hard to put the beauty into words or photographs or feelings. It just was in a way that few others will understand.

I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of beautiful places in my life, but for me this place is unmatched. When you say ‘Northern Wisconsin’ few things come to mind. One of them is probably cheese and if there is another, it’s probably snow. Most people have not been lucky enough to see the stars that stretch in expanses that are impossible to even imagine on the East Coast. Most people have not been able to see the way white birch lights up during the sunset or the way fog rising off the bog can simultaneously fill and break your entire soul with its beauty. But you are so much more than that. You are the sound of singing voices around a campfire, you are the sound of laughter on the trails after school, you are the taste of freshly picked apples and more than anything, you are home.

To not be able to return to my home, hopefully not forever, but likely for many years, is an unimaginable sort of pain. It manifests itself in the rocks I stuffed in my suitcase on the last day that sit on my bedside and in almost constantly looking through my old photos and journal entries, desperate to feel like I am with you again.

You are full of so many stories, and I am so glad that some of them are my own. It hurts that my mark on this place will not last, and that my memories have already been replaced by others. Perhaps I will not always be a part of you, but you will always be a part of me.

In my memory, you are just a series of moments. The way the trail twisted amongst the trees, teetering on the edge of the lake. The way pouring rain sloshed through the fields, water rushing through our feet, our hair. Zipping down the sledding hill under the starry sky. Somehow within the confines of your space we found freedom. Hours spent roaming the woods, and laughter shared over cups of coffee and new favorite authors. Freedom to explore until the sun set and to not stop wandering as the stars rose. Freedom to watch the sunrise every morning and to let parts of ourselves show that had disappeared with the drag of everyday life.

Thank you.

To my spot:

I didn’t find myself with you intentionally. I had been too busy to really pick you out, but as I wandered along the trail early that wednesday morning, I knew you would be mine. I’m not sure what drew me in, if it was the gentle curve of the red pine or just the fact that I knew I had to get to work, but after I settled down there nearly 8 times, I think I found a piece of myself there.

Relationships with anything, a person or a place, are a give and take. I do not know what I can give you that could equate to the things you provided for me. All I have now is a faded notebook of memories and small flickers of light that fill my soul.

I think you might be the first place I truly got to know. The first place I went into with the intention to learn from and learn with. I can describe my small place, nestled between the wedge of two trees, the hemlocks rising towards the lake for hours. I can still feel the soft twigs against my bare legs as I sat there, and the way the snow curled through my hair.

With you, I learned to be quiet. I learned that I do not have all the answers or even all the right questions. I learned that there is so much beauty in small places, that every space has something to teach us and if you take the time to learn and reflect, you will grow.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for always giving me something new to discover. Thank you for letting me in, allowing me to get to know you over those four months.

I do not know how to really thank you though. A teacher recently reminded me how cyclical life is: the good we put into it, both literal and figurative, will come back to us. So, even though it will be from a distance, I will try my best to keep the snow that falls upon you clean and your trees safe for years to come.

Solos:

I was so scared to meet you. I felt simultaneously overprepared and underprepared, excited and nervous. I had no idea what the next two nights were going to entail. I knew they would be challenging, but I also hoped that they would be beautiful.

And they were. My little grey and orange tent beneath tall trees that I was a little too scared would fall on me in the night. My fire dish that I placed probably too far from my tent due to the fear that the bears that were rumored to be around would find me in my sleep. The two trees I hung my hammock between and the creek that I was too scared to venture near in fear of losing my campsite. The view onto the valley and the curiously red lake, all of it was so beautiful.

That beauty was coupled with fear though. I was so cold at night that I clung hand warmers tightly to myself to preserve whatever heat there was in my sleeping bag. I couldn’t get my bear box open, and my fires failed so many times that I found myself more than once eating cheese and crackers in the dirt. When the wolves howled at night, I stopped for a moment between the awe and wondered what the hell I was supposed to do if one came into my site.

But once I got past all that: the cold nights, the wolves, my failures and loneliness, you taught me so much. I learned to be patient with my failed fires and that just because it died out immediately didn’t mean that I couldn’t reignite it. I learned how weird it feels not to talk for two days and how silent the woods get at night. I learned how to properly ration my food and water and that dried apple cinnamon oats mixed with cold water are far from delicious. I have always considered myself an independent person, but there is something special about this level of independence. Setting up your own tent, sitting by your own fire, reading and writing on your own time. With you, I learned how to just be in the simplest way possible.

To Compiegne:

I have not thought of you in a while, but every time I do, my heart is filled for some brief moments. Thank you for two of the craziest weeks of my life. Thank you for your little bakery on the square and your chocolate croissants. Thank you for the music her mom blasted through the apartment, and the hours spent trying and failing to learn how to make crepes. For the warm nights where your entire town managed to light up. For the meringues that melted on my tongue like clouds and for picnics in the park.

Sometimes I wonder if I was given a little too much freedom here. Cutting class to get lunch and wandering a city whose street names I couldn’t pronounce. Taking buses that we didn’t know the destination of, and stumbling into our apartment a little too late. But this freedom has propelled me forward in life. It has reminded me that I am braver than I think, and that there is so much more to see and do in the world. You taught me that even when I am hesitant, to follow my gut because it will lead me to new and beautiful places.

I also learned to cherish moments. Some things I thought would stay forever were gone before the plane landed. But the good things have stuck around in my heart. Her mother grabbing my hand, whispering “run” and pulling me through a parking garage at the speed of light. Dinner table conversations in broken languages whose cracks were filled in with laughter. Lunches in the park, wandering through streets for hours on end surrounded by things we’d never understand.

I am sorry for the reckless moments and not always appreciating what I had. But more than anything I am thankful for what is left.