The woods are a vertical wall of old mixed trees, straight, twisted, fallen. There's a stream below. In summer the stream dries to a path through a tunnel smelling of willows and nettles, in winter it must be crossed carefully as it's a place to drown. Walk along the bottom edge of this green wall to a cottage with a gate, one door and four windows. It's reached only by a steep path out of the woods that carries the buried taste of aniseed and hidden water. As a child I was fascinated by this cottage. I lived by the stream between the ages of eight and nineteen. My house was new, one of many arranged in a cul de sac on an old nursery. I played on building sites after we moved in. At end of the road is a scout hut, a couple more cottages and bus stop. The cottage is part of my life on foot, seen from the stream bed on summer days through grasses, cow parsley, weeping willows, on the way to pine woods. Here I place the grandmother I never kn...
For the time being it was the great fact of the world. (Willa Cather)