God Rock

5 yrs old.

my sister and i explore through the woods behind our house.

we take our dog (sam) who we call wolf, and our cat (bobcat) who we call bobcat. the world is filled with wonderment and adventure and we lose ourselves in the trees and our imagination.

we go a little further today, into the woods behind a neighbor's house. and suddenly. there. in front of us. a boulder so big and round, that we are in awe. we marvel at our discovery and fall in love immediately.

somewhere in my 5 yr old child's mind, knowing this rock is special, i give it life. i whisper to kimi... "it's a god rock, we need to protect it."

and so we do.

in secret, we visit our rock every day.

we grow concern for this rock.

haiku is rainy, and we worry about our rock being wet and cold, so we steal blankets from the closet.

being that it's a "god" rock, we make sacrifices. kimi picks her treasured strawberries (that she doesn't even like to share with me) and puts them into her pretty shell jewelry box. a hefty sacrafice from a 4 yr old. and i... i donate my pack of colored pens that i adore. they have colors of aqua and tourquoise. i've never owned a pen set like this before. and i feel sad as i lay them at the base of the rock, but for me, there is no turning back. god rock deserves them.

we live in our new religion. worshiping this rock. playing around it, and finding comfort in a big round boulder that takes life in our imaginations.
and then we forget.

time goes by and the world, still filled with wonderment and adventure, continues to call.

and one day... many days later... our brother and cousin happen across our forgotten rock. happen across moldy wet blankets, ruined pens and a soggy jewelry box with rotten strawberries.

and later, when our mom demands to know what the hell we were doing. our words fall short. and suddenly the thought that a rock could be a god, seems, well... silly.

at 20, my sister and i will find our way back to this rock. sneaking through the yard that once was our home, into the woods that once were our playground, we will search for our god rock, and though older and wiser and less prone to believing in silly things, we will smile at each other and admit, that it is, even at 20 yrs of age, a damn impressive rock.