A memory I wish was mine

My Safe Haven

Enjoy!

It was autumn and the leaves had started to change from the earthy green to nice crisp oranges and pink hues. It was my favorite season and I couldn't wait to get out of the suffocating confinement of my grandma's house. Sadly, I had to finish unpacking before I could go outside and explore where I would be living for the rest of my high school years because I knew otherwise it probably wouldn't get done. I played Hold Me Down from Halsey on repeat to pass the time.

From the outside the house looked really homey with its cottage-like look. The house wasn't very big but nor was it small. The outside was painted cream and the roof a dark red. It had a porch and the stairs were right in the center with wooden handles on each side of the steps that went around to the side of the house forming the patio. The house had two windows at the front and on the sides. The roof was triangular and had a chimney. There were bushes that looked to have had carried roses in the front on each side of the stairs. The land around the house was glorious with trees everywhere with the leaves already changing color and the grass turning dark, it all looked like a painting.

On the inside, the house had a really cozy feel. There was no T.V, not that I minded. I had brought my laptop, so it wouldn't be an issue. The floors were pine wood and the couches and chairs, cream colored with maroon and brown plush pillows. A stone fire place with a wooden mantle that had a few glass figurines dancing and a radio spewing out old school love songs that I hear my parents sing sometimes. On the coffee table she had some flowers in a vase right in the center. She had a book shelf full of books that formed a rainbow of colors with their covers across the shelves. There were a few empty shelves in the middle, where she kept some cute little trinkets. That was only the living room, the other rooms all had their own allure, including mine. My grandmother said it was my aunt's old room and it was painted coincidentally, orange, my favorite color. It had a closet and bed with strange but beautiful carving on the wood and the light bulb gave off a really luminescent light that showed drawings on the wall that weren't visible without the light. It made me really like the room.

As soon as I was done unpacking, I scurried out the room to the smell of cookies and hot chocolate. I made sure to grab a cookie out of the kitchen and to slip on my black hoodie with a blue crescent moon on the back before I headed out. As soon as I stepped out I deeply inhaled the cool crisp air and looked around the area at the trees and bushes. I decided that I would explore the back of the house so I trudged along, the leaves crunching under my feet, watching the trees and the way they stretched to the sky as I went by. It was beautiful but not as beautiful as what I had found a little further down. There was a little pond and next to it a huge willow tree its leaves hanging down over the pond, almost touching the water. I found a rock big enough to sit on and moved it under the tree in the space between the tree and the pond and watched the water and the leaves floating in it that had probably been blown in from other surrounding trees. Once I'd found the spot, I had made sure to go every day after that. It was someplace where I felt kind of invincible and after feeling so inadequate at school. It gave me this growing feeling in my stomach that seemed to extend to my chest that made me feel like I could float away like a cloud and I just felt magical. The place itself was magic, and I'll never forget going there, listening to the wind, feeling myself breathe, watching the vapor of my breath and the leaves fall and float in the seemingly mystical pond. I'll never forget climbing the tree only to be scared and confused on how to get down. I'll never forget how it made me feel nostalgic, even though I'd never been there before. Like it was where I was supposed to be, like I was home. The memories of this willow tree are ones I'll treasure forever, especially the first time I ever found it. The first time I ever found my safe haven.