I came back several times to see the water, even if it was dirty. I returned, trekking through mud and down a slope, removing my shoes for the simple pleasure of feeling the sand between my toes – the finest, whitest sand I’ve ever felt. I marked my progress by the circles of trees that grew along the path, calling them faerie rings and wishing upon them.

I listened for the sounds of faeries, imps, and elves. I talked to driads. Ideas threw themselves at my feet, begging to be written into my story. My imagination threw out its vine-like tendrils, latching onto anything and everything it could. I had fallen in love.

I talked to myself and the Earth constantly, imagining who I’d love to take to the place that was so very my own, let into the recesses of my soul.

Seeing traces of human life…deep footprints in the mud too big to be my own, a wood crate here, a bike ramp in the dirt there, felt so alien. This was surely my place! I had discovered it! Ha…like Columbus discovered America…