The Grass is My Rug, The Earth is My Floor – A Mountain Story

It was the first week of the first Spring that we lived in Marble. Daddy had bought a piece of vacant land that was nestled in a forest of aspen trees and his plan was that we would spend the Summer building a cabin on the land so that we could sell it and make a profit. With no home to live in yet, daddy moved his 23′ RV onto the land as well as a storage container to hold his tools and things. Daddy also pitched his wall tent near the RV. A queen sized bed was put directly on the dirt floor of the tent and this became my brother and I’s room for the rest of the warm months that year. Although we had seen many adventures during my short life, this move way up into the mountains was the biggest yet. I was twelve years old…..

I opened my eyes and felt the damp gentle heat coming off the canvas walls where the sun was hitting the tent. The warmth was welcome after I had spent most of the early morning shivering under my damp blankets. Each day just before sunrise the dew would settle onto my comforter and staying warm was a lost dream after that.  I rolled over on my side and yawned. The smell of the dewy earth and the sweet grasses that made up my floor washed over me. something caught the corner of my eye; a narrow garter snake was just slipping his brown tail under the bottom of my tent wall as he left my canvas room. I shuddered. I accepted that spiders, mice and bugs would be my room mates but I did not have any kindred feelings towards snakes. I sat up being careful not to brush my feet against the ground and get them dirty. I immediately noticed my tennis shoes sitting neatly next to my bed. I groaned and smacked myself against the forehead with the palm of my hand. Daddy had warned me to put my shoes under the tarp before I went to bed so that they would not get wet from the dew.  I probed the right shoe with my big toe. The shoe made a soggy gurgle where I pushed. I looked at my feet all covered in blisters from wearing wet shoes for the past few days. Daddy had already been irritated that I was not taking care of my shoes, or my feet. “He’s going to kill me” I thought to myself. I couldn’t stand to put the wet tennis shoes back on again and with no other shoes I was only left one other option. I set my feet on the soft dirt beneath my bed.

The damp cold soil felt delicious between my toes. I wiggled my feet back and forth across the dirt the same way people do in the sand at the beach. I loved the way my bare feet felt against the earth. I stood up and shuffled to the tent fly that was already open. My brother must have left earlier and forgot to close it. The air was crisp and fragrant and filled with yellow morning sunshine. I threw a damp flannel shirt on over my Betty Boop nightgown and headed out.

I walked out past the white shipping container and past the worn out RV. I walked quietly in hopes of not being noticed. From the RV I could hear the low hum of my families voices and the smell of sausage wafting through the mountain air. My stomach rolled over on itself. Elk sausage! “How can those people eat that stuff?” I thought to myself. My parents had attempted to mask a particularly gamy elk my Dad had shot by turning it into breakfast sausage. An array of spices had been added to the ground meat, but sage and garlic are hardly worthy opponents for the manly flavors found in a seven point bull elk. While Mama had optimistically called the sausage a great success, the rather meditative effort required to swallow it suggested otherwise.

I walked on until I reached the tree line and I glanced back at the shanty town that was now my home. I had hoped our dog would see me and follow but she must have been inside with the others. I was not afraid to go into the woods alone, but I never minded the company of our beautiful Siberian Husky. There was no path to follow except the one in my mind as I daydreamed and walked through the woods. Soon I found myself on the bank of the river just a couple hundred yards from my tent.

The river was bulging with spring run off. I stood at the edge with my bare toes just close enough to have the icy water lap against them. The banks were lined with tide foam all frothed up in the rush of the river. The water pushed little piles of yellow river foam over my feet until I could not see them anymore. I scooped the foam in my hands and looked at it. I heard William Allingham’s poem “The Faeries” in my mind;

“Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare ‘t go a-hunting
For fear of little men……

….down along the rocky shore
Some make their home —
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;”

I had found my way into Allingham’s world. I now lived up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen. I squinted trying to find the little men that might be living on the yellow tide foam. There they were. Two tiny men sat at the edge of the foam with their feet dangling over the edge. I silently sat down on the cold mossy rocks and put my ear near the foam. The two small men were deep in conversation. “Why, just this morning,” one short round little man was saying “I woke up on a giant toe! The same thing happened to my Aunt Buella a few summers back, except that was a great big shoe that she got beached on. Blimey if we never did see her again. dagum giant people!” and he spit next to his foot.

The other little man pulled a blackened corn pipe from his narrow lips. “Well, my sister’s son,  that lazy no count bum Roger, saw one o’ them giant people just a few nights ago. He said they took to throwing stones at him and it was all he could do just to keep his head from being knocked off. You shoulda’ seen the way he came in panting, his body in terrible spasms over the fear of it! Dagum giant people!” and both of the little men spit.

I was just about to speak up on behalf of the giant people when I heard in the distance Mama calling me. I sighed, no doubt she had found my bed empty and was worried. I stepped into the numbing river and set the tide foam in the current and let it slip through my fingers. I watched as it churned and spun and disappeared into the white caps of the rapids below. My feet ached and screamed in the ice water. I stepped out of the river to find my feet had turned a mottled red from the cold. Mama was calling me again and I heard daddy whistling for me. I plodded back through the forest on my red numb feet while hollering to my parents that I was coming.

In those first days that we lived on the mountain everything was fresh and new. It would not always be like that. Days were coming when my shoes would be forgotten and I would run bare foot every day. I would trudge through the woods and down to the river so many times that I would make a distinct trail anyone could follow. The little people of the woods and the river would become my friends and I would know them all by name. The trees would be my hiding places when I wanted to run away. I would tell all of my secrets to the mountain. The grass would be my rug and the Earth my floor. The sky was my ceiling. And one day soon, Mama wouldn’t worry about me, she would know when she could not find me, that I was just wandering somewhere on my mountain.