On Yore Side

I haven’t been there in three years, and the signs had changed, so it took a “test exit” or two before finally finding myself on a road that I knew that I recognized. Like always, I never saw the small green “Hostel in the Forest” sign on the left of the road, marking the main road. In fact the only reason I know it’s there is because my band van broke down beside it once upon a time.
So I found myself again on Mister Road at twilight. At the end a small array of parked cars and trucks were lined between the road and the forest, as if they had been recently abandoned by a Book Club just finishing “Walden.”
The back gate to the Hostel had been painted in flower graffitti, reminescent of the art that covers the entry arch into the lawless, broken streets of Christiana in Denmark. Having been so long away, when I took the small path around the gate and stepped into the forest, I felt almost like the kids in bridge to terabithia who swung across the creek.
Amazingly, and immediately, a huge doe sprung from the patch somewhere to the right of the path, and bolted across not 12 feet in front of me. As I watched it dash off into the distance, I noticed that more gardens had been planted among the trees, and decorated benches had been set along the garden trails.
I couldn’t hear any human voices in the forest as I walked along the trails, but the sounds of birds in the underbrush and squirrels in the trees mixed with the familiar sound of ducks sqwawking in the pond and chickens fussing up ahead at the main dome. Flowers buttered the leaves of the plants and trees along the path, and as the wet leaves brushed against me from the sides of the path, the mingled scents of nature began to penetrate my mind. I passed a few treehouses on the way up, and soon was at the main dome complex where you check in, sprawling like a Ewok home from the movie Star Wars on the forest floor before me. I found that it was quiet because it was dinner time, and everyone was chowing down. Instead of checking in I was given a plate and a smile and sat down to have dinner with the people of the forest.
Dinner was garden salad and vinegerette vegetables grown organically at the Hostel itself, rye grain macoroni and cheese, whole wheat brownies and cold cous coux (sp?) which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Not surprisingly, I only knew one person there; a guitarist from England in Savannah named Murray who plays some awesome jazz. After dinner we sat around the fire playing old songs until the first drops of cold rain and thunder forced us to flee for our Martin’s and Ibanez’s lives…