The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/author/abby-wolcott/page/7/)
When we were growing up, my best friend and I liked to channel our inner primate by heading for the trees. We’d spend lazy afternoons climbing towering white pines with all their branches about to give way.
These wintry days I am dreaming of the ocean. Days with my feet in the sand listening to the lapping of waves and casting my eyes on that big expanse of ocean until it merges with the sky.
Some people just know how to beat the cold. My friend in high school was one of them.
One November night in an attempt to get away from my roommate’s clutches, I toddled down to the triple on the other side of the dorm where my friend lived. There, as the skies were darkening, my friend told me about the night she lost her dad.
Recently, I had a chance encounter with a wildlife biologist in the woods. It was on par with meeting a rock star, and I briefly lost my ability to speak, which is something my family has been wishing for. I hung on her every word as she talked about migratory birds and habitat until eventually her narrative turned towards rabbits.
I have always thought of running as a solitary endeavor. Traveling around the beautiful roads of Suffield this time of year it is easy to spot runners and their telltale washboard abs.
There were many great things about my childhood best friend. One of those was her family’s school bus that they had turned into a camper long before the word glamping was coined.
These days a few of my friends and I are participating in the Suffield bird census. We are clutching our lengthy list of birds hoping to check as many off as possible as we peruse all the open space we have here in our town.
When we were kids, one of the highlights of any trip downtown was the possibility of stopping at the gas station on Mountain Road. While the service guy sauntered out to fill up the family station wagon, the four of us would have our heads out the windows taking deep, gasoline infused breaths as, believe it or not, we loved that gasoline aroma.
The way I see it, it all started as we sat around the dining room table, my dad telling us stories about growing up while I was trying to hide my peas under my mashed potatoes. He was a good storyteller, and it was important to him that we knew what life was like growing up on the farm around the corner where he was the seventh generation to take his first steps on that patch of land.