Charlotte Olver 

Mrs.Hero

English Composition 170 

September 9, 2019

Modern Day Mowgli

I was raised by the forest. The Arboretum, a vast nature preserve next to my house that was my home. I always remember the smell of crunched fallen leaves, and the parental trees, and the deep sticky swamp where the purple skunk weed grew. I had “lived” in a castle (a gazebo) and I ruled over that kingdom, with my father’s antique sword in my belt loop. I could protect my people the pirate way, and would hide in the trees, ready to attack when any trespasser (someone walking a dog) should pass through. 

The land was mine and mine alone. My initials carved in my trees with a stolen pocket knife, I was a crusader. Shirtless, scraped knees, and twigs in hair; to my mother, my uniform was alarming. I fantasize of the days spent playing war with Julien and Francis in the swamps. Each of us would colonize a patch of dry land and, with our wooden swords, we would duel until someone fell into the mud and we could claim their land. We played for hours. I recall stumbling into my house drenched in mud, ripped clothing, blood on my needs, and my mother screaming that I was getting mud on her carpets. I remember the sweetness of my father calling me his wild thing, and then lecturing me on how his sword was real from the Civil War and cost more “monies” than I could count on my fingers AND toes. I obviously still stole it every day.  

Next to the nature preserve was a golf course. This was not just any golf course. It was invite-only and cost three hundred thousand dollars a year to be a member. I remember Mom and Dad always told me never to trespass, as I am sure there was a hefty fine, but six-year-old me saw the golf course as the rival nation that had stolen my lands, and we deserved to be free. My favorite game was to sit in the Arboretum on the border between the reserve and the course and would wait for someone to hit a ball over. When the ball landed I would sprint out, steal the ball and then retreat to the woods. As it turns out, golf balls are expensive, and the owners were not very pleased. In my defense, I believed I was robin hood. 

The Arboretum raised me when no one else would. The air in my house was always suffocating and barren. When you are six, you can never understand, but you can always feel. Doors shut, deafening silence, and everything exactly where it was supposed to be. When I was young, I always secretly envied my friends. Their families were so whole. Their siblings would pull pranks on them, they had family photos from Lake George, and they spoke to each other. My brother would roll me up in carpets, our photos were all of singular people, and we only ever had state dinners with folded napkins and diplomatic love. 

I found out my parents going to get a divorce when I was in second grade. I had always thought that I just never cared when Mom moved out, but I know now, that we never felt like a family to begin with. What was always so alluring about the woods was that it had that wholeness in chaos. Trees grew where they wanted, mud collected where it wanted, and beauty sprouted out of the mess, but always together in symbiosis. My house was always perfectly set tables, brushed hair, and passive-aggressive antagonism. 

I spent almost all of my time in the Arboretum after my mom and my half brother Josh left. The empty rooms and quiet halls became unbearable. Just me and dad, what was once a great and proper household decayed into TV dinners and spots on the walls that were once colorful from my mom’s paintings layered over with a sickening shade of eggshell, that my father thought would make my mother disappear. My life became a never-ending treadmill of packing up my things to go to moms and then repacking them to go to dads. 

When I was 7 I ran away. I couldn’t tell you why at the time, but I concluded that I was done. While Dad was locked away in the office to avoid thinking of mom, I packed my compass, a box of cheez-its and my vineyard vines hoodie and like Thoreau, I went to the woods. After six hours of collecting rocks and playing pirate, I realized I was out of cheese-its and bashfully walked home, preparing myself for the worst. The whole walk back I was convinced there would be police cars and a huge ruckus like when Josh was out past curfew. I walked up to my driveway, past the recently crooked mailbox, down the path with the bleeding heart flowers, and into my house. It was quiet. No one had noticed I left. 

The house eventually got too expensive for us to live there with dad paying child support, so we moved. I had no emotion leaving that house because my entire life till then was running away from that house. By the time we left, it was a shell of what a family could have been. Skeleton of a home. Four rooms too many. 

 That house may have gone, but I never left the woods. As a climber, my entire life revolved around when I could run back into the woods again. It never mattered what house I moved into, or who mom was dating or that I slept on couches because I could always run away to nature unnoticed. Something about the smells of the foliage, carried by the wind always gave me that sense of home I yearned for. I could ignore the fact that my mom had kicked me out and that my father was choosing his girlfriend over me if I was in the woods. Cool and shaded, maple trees can always protect you when no one else will. Like a vacuum, school stress, budding drug addiction, and sexual abuse ceased to exist in my fantasy oasis. Alone, nature was and always will be mine and mine alone. 

  When I was 16 I ran away again, but not as outright. Having graduated high school, the last thing I wanted was to stay in the suffocatingly silent houses that I lived in so I did what I had always done: disappeared into the woods. I moved to Portugal and then Germany, working on farms, retreating into nature, the world I left behind ceased to exist. I would talk to my family once every three months.

 

I did come back though. 

When you always disappear, you never learn what it feels like to miss someone, or the fear you get when lose someone in a crowd. All the emptiness from that first house solidified in my veins over time, and I became committed to solace. My solitary silence got really loud. Twenty missed calls from mom. 

I haven’t been back to the Arboretum since I left. Maybe it’s because I can never find the time, or more likely, it’s just because I don’t want to see the new parents living in the house. I have room to learn, connections to earn, tendanies to burn, but I hope I don’t visit again. I hope I will be able to fill the void with my real life and leave my kingdom to the next kid that needs it.