This morning it’s different. I remember things differently. The bracken fern is greener and this time I see the insects, like sparkling dust, and I hear the grasshoppers, the buzz of wings, the birds. We are running and we are children, no more than maybe 10 or perhaps 12.

We run from gardens overcome with joy and hard work. It’s a work we regretted when it came around to us, but later we’ll come to pride ourselves about how hard we worked. Thinking we know something about what it means to pull together and harvest the fruit from the knarely pear or the apple tree with a bird for a heart.

We used to make spears from the bracken fern. We’d pull them fast from the earth, strip them clean of the curling frond, and then weighted by the earthy root, fire them across the field with a burst of hollers until our pile was depleted. The heavy drone of summer, the twist of river, the shrieks of excitement, the dread of leeches, the long walks, the crack of popsicle against the counter of the general store where we all hoped, in our own way, for a bigger half.