Edgar Allan Poe dubbed it “the imp of the perverse,” that strange impulse to yank the steering wheel to the right and drive off the road; wondering, when you are on the edge of high place, how close you are to stepping off. Something about the power of momentum, force, pull, weight, raises these thoughts, appearing out of nowhere as if you weren’t the one who put them there, popping in uninvited to frighten and exhilarate.
My sister was only four years old when I plunged us both into the backwoods of South Carolina, following that wild instinct to let go and just follow the slope, down, down, down, into the forest with no thought of how we might return. Her favorite purple coat cinched at the waist with elastic, clambered up her baby skin, exposing a hint of soft, round tummy.
We scuttled through the thick underbrush, sometimes snagging ourselves on thorny vines stretched out along the ground like claws. I’d only intended on a small exploration, a short walk in the woods near the house, but something gripped me as we settled into walking, and some fifteen minutes later or more, I thought we should turn back. But I didn’t.
Sis was tired, and I heaved her up onto my back, carrying us both over fallen logs, crackling leaves, and failed to notice when the woods grew still and silent around us. We couldn’t see the house anymore, it lay far behind us somewhere up the hill, maybe a few acres back by now. What is it to plunge deeper and deeper, to throw oneself into the undertow, or to drive willy-nilly trying in earnest to get to a place you no longer recognize?
Late afternoon shadows grew long, and I strode as if we were being pursued, as if something were at our back, and we had to escape. But I wasn’t afraid; I was given over to wild freedom and abandonment and recklessness and carrying my tiny sister on my back.
A loud crack shook us momentarily stopping me in my tracks. “Dat, Iggy?” My sister asked. “It’s fireworks,” I told her. Now that I’d stopped moving, sweat popped out at my hairline, and under my jacket. I squatted down, gently easing sis, with her tiny Velcro sneakers, onto the forest floor, and removed my jacket, tying it at my waist. The woods were quieter than I remembered them being minutes ago, and I wondered if someone was hunting deer out here.
“Well, I think we should go back now,” I told my sister as she climbed back up, wrapping her tiny fists around my neck. Another shot rang out, and she again asked “dat, Iggy?” I didn’t answer as my heart was pounding and I wanted to fast-forward time and be back home.
Going back uphill with my sister on my back was so much harder than I thought it would be. Slower and more arduous. Each time I looked at my blue rubber watch, I hoped it would match up with the inner sensation of hurry and hustle, that it would tell me we’d come some 30 minutes higher and closer to home, but seemingly time slowed down and did not pass.
My sister, growing itchier and more irritable, squirmed to get down, but her tiny toddling steps would make us slower, so I held firm and tipped forward to keep her mounted. Sometime in that long stretch of time and trees, I knew we weren’t going to make it. I didn’t know the way back, the hill went up much longer than I remembered, and the house did not appear in the distance.
Deep regret settled into my aching stomach; tears welled but I wiped them away. I could not have my sister crying and panicked, wailing, and struggling. “What does the cow say?” I asked her. “Moooooo,” she whispered back into the back of my right ear. “What does the dog say?”
We continued on, I don’t know how long. In my ten-year-old mind, we were gone for hours, but soon a group of adults were coming down the hill to our left calling for us. Our mom and dad and their friends who we were barbecuing with that day.
Relief washed over me, cool, damp, chilled, and my sister and I were warmly gathered up and led back up to eat hotdogs and hamburgers by the firepit. I don’t remember anything else about that day except the way my sister gazed up at me smiling, and how in my child’s mind, I’d almost gotten us killed.
Rocks & Roots 