Rolling Down the Hill

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It is a deep but indistinct memory.  Rolling down a grassy slope.  It is very much a spring or summer memory. It is also a solitary memory. There is no one rolling alongside me. Just the sun, perhaps a touch of lilac in the breeze, the tang of disturbed dandelions. It is a strangely silent memory. No traffic, no bird songs. A visual moment with just that hint of scent.

There are a couple of possible locales and eras.

Most of my childhood and adolescence was spent in Springfield, Ohio. On the corner of our block was a vacant lot.  I remember thinking that the edges of that lot were slopes leading down to the sidewalk. In my "K through, maybe, 3" memory the slopes are steep, long and verdant. However, my memories from this same era report that my Uncle Allen raised pigs the size of cattle, so a grain of salt may be necessary here. And those slopes of questionable duration terminated abruptly in rather prosaic sidewalks - one bordering a busy thoroughfare. The memory suggests something more rural, a gentle descent, A field? More park-like.

During 5th and 6th grade I attended school at the American International School in Vienna, Austria.  The playground was out back, but beyond the official playground was a rather steep and overgrown slope leading down somewhere. Railroad tracks maybe? But far enough away to allow for a soft landing well before the tracks. Also, along one side of the playground - behind a rambling and crumbling concrete wall - was a large deserted structure with a once impressive garden. This was 1959 to 1961 and Vienna was still liberally dotted with bombed-out and abandoned buildings and homes. This neighboring structure had been, at some time, quite grand. Ponds and battered statues peaked through trees and bushes long left to run riot. Very “Secret Garden.” Toward the rear it, too, sloped. A hill ripe for rolling. I suspect the older students explored other types of rolling in its shadowy bowers.  Even I, callow sixth-grader that I was, stole a kiss along those rose-draped hedges. The object of my youthful ardor was a sweet honey-haired, green-eyed girl whose father had just been transferred in from Paris. I was completely besotted. Yet, as I said, the memory is a solo. No blushing, twirling, twosomes.

Try as I might to pin it down, the memory defies both locale and chronology. It seems firmly ensconced just beyond the edge of conscious recall. Only those subtle sensations reveal themselves. The smell of grass, that Spring/Summer feel in the air, the rushing invincibility youth, and then a sudden pause staring up at the broad blue bowl of the sky. The tracings of birds and the incremental edging of startling white clouds mark the only movement. An ineffable peacefulness. A gloriously harmonic moment. I am caught between wanting to know the where and when of this recurring reflection, and an equally strong inclination to leave well enough alone and simply savor the possibilities.

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