Chapter 1: The Garden Path
I don't remember much about life before we moved into the trailer. My parents were married at the age of eighteen and had me when they were barely twenty- I think they thought my birth would mend the cracks already starting to show in their blossoming relationship. They were in dire financial straits from the get-go, and my arrival only made things worse.
According to my mom, we used to live in an apartment until I was two- but I have no recollection of that home. Luckily, my grandparents owned a good deal of land, which they primarily used for farming. After a generous offer on their part, my parents scrounged together what little funds they had left and put in a down-payment for a trailer that they parked on the back lot of the family farm; we were nestled right between the orchard, and a nearby creek. It was that trailer that I remember growing up in.
The earliest memory I have is paradoxical in nature- as it was me trying to recall the way back home. The farm was vertical in shape, flanked on either side by two paths one could choose to traverse. The walk from my parent's trailer to my grandparent's house took nearly eight minutes. Despite the diminutive distance and negligible complexity of this journey, I still found myself lost. In the moment I felt the worst part of the situation was that my predicament was entirely self-inflicted. Of the two trails one could take through the land, one was a simple makeshift gravel road, nestled next to the neighbor's ranch. But this path had no cover, and the sun would bake the nape of your neck on summer days like these. So, I had elected to take the 'scenic' route, one that I later took to calling 'the garden path'.
The garden path was a made-up route that weaved through all the noteworthy landmarks of my grandparent's land. It led under the ivy-covered pergola in the flowerbed and passed by the barn and pasture. Past that was the garden, a verdurous nursery that always seemed to be growing something, melons, rhubarb, potatoes, carrots... They even had a miniature vineyard with blue-skinned rubbery grapes that I loved to chew on like gum. But once you passed beyond the garden's egress, the ambience around you turned from serene to feral.
The land past the garden wasn't used for much, my grandparents had built a few sheds for storage, but most of it was agriculturally uncultivated- say for a few wild raspberry bushes. The final fragment of the farm where I lived was sealed within a copse of evergreens that jutted out from the forest just across the creek. The ground there was carpeted with moss and dried pine needles, the deceptively thick canopy providing ample shade on sunny days. It truly did feel like passing into another world, as a child at least. But this other world was one I feared, for reasons I still don't fully understand.
The property lines of the neighboring estates grew more and more ephemeral once one entered that coppice. The conifer's shade was quick to turn malevolent, and you could never shake the feeling of being watched. No matter where you walked, civilization seemed to grow neither closer or further- even when my trailer was close. The forest simply 'was' while you were within it and 'wasn't' when you were without. The glade linking our meager yard to the manmade road was abrupt to encounter- like an open wound in the woodland's seemingly infinite expanse. When you entered that sun-filled pocket, the birdsong would return, and the world's vibrancy was restored. But while you remained in the forest, you were trapped in a wooded labyrinth where your ancestor's most primal fears were flawlessly preserved from time immemorial.
I found my way back, of course. After all you literally had to be in the woods for all of two minutes to make it to my home. But no matter what the time or circumstance, I would never feel safe in my yard until the door behind me had closed shut. And even then, I retained an illogical fear that I had somehow found my way into a different, yet identical trailer until my parents returned.
The interior of our quaint mobile home had only 4 rooms: My parent's bedroom, my room, the bathroom, and the kitchen which doubled as our living room. The bedrooms were on opposite sides of the trailer, meaning during the night I was as far away as I could be from my mom and dad. What made that arrangement worse was the fact that my bed was situated right up against a window I could look out of if I rolled over. I had a curtain, but it didn't stop me from clearly seeing outside. Because of this, I only slept facing the wall, deciding that I would rather not see whatever I was convinced was looking in at me sleeping from the stygian treeline.
During these earliest years of my life, my days were comprised of a very consistent schedule. I woke up at 7am, ate my breakfast, and worked diligently on my subjects. I always did math first, then science, then history. I had other school 'classes' beyond those, but they changed every year or two. My mother would remain during this time and watch over me, but each day she would either call or be called by a friend of hers who I didn't know. This often left me alone for up to hours at a time, responsible for my own education. Once I was done with my schoolwork for the day, I was free to do whatever I wished. My only requirements being that I was in the house by 6pm, and in bed by 8:30pm. My father came home from work at 3:15pm every day, so I always avoided being inside by then, and if I was, I would have my door closed.
One thing few people talk about when the subject of homeschooling is brought up is the possibility of isolation if one is not careful. Up until I began attending Sunday school, I only knew five other humans. My parents, my grandparents, and neighbor Noah, who lived next-door, I would see him on his tractor sometimes, but we rarely spoke. I of course met my other grandparents and a handful of cousins, aunts, and uncles, but looking back on it, it didn't really 'click' with me that they were family. Of course, I knew we were related, but family bonds were simple math equations in my mind. I had no preconceived affection towards them simply because we shared the same blood. Even to this day, when I see happy families getting together, talking and laughing, I sometimes just... don't get it.
One thing I did have in abundance during my youth was imagination. Which may have in part contributed to my more irrational fears. Once I finished school, the first thing I would do is grab my current 'sword-shaped' stick (or look for a replacement if I had broken it the day prior) and live out adventurous fantasies for hours on end. I would take up defensive positions in the garden- defending it from invaders who would all inevitably fall to my clumsy fencing techniques. If not that I would patrol the garden path, searching for brigands and highwaymen, of course avoiding the 'plagued' forest beyond the holt. At times, if schoolwork had left me drained, I would enter the barn, and be serenated by the endless cacophony of our variety of farm animals. Most of them scared me (particularly our frequently-ill tempered rooster), so I would often spend time up in the rafters, trying to coax the antisocial barncat into allowing me to pet her.
On Wednesdays I was allowed to go into my grandparents' house, where I had access to all the linkin logs and cartoon network my tiny heart could desire. On those days my grandma would cook for me- and I'd often return home so full from lunch I would skip dinner. I'm certain it was simply due to the artificial scarcity of my visits, but I liked my grandparents far more than my actual parents.
My father was a quiet man, 'stoic' some would call him, though I much preferred the term 'cold'. Despite being a monument to the ideal christian man, I spent most of my childhood avoiding him. During the day he worked at a rubber plant, or so my mother told me. I never knew exactly what my dad did for work; primarily since he was always irritable when he returned from it. He wanted silence in what little time he spent inside. Mostly, he remained in a shack off the road he called the 'garage' and worked on tractors.
Overall, within my detached view of the world, I figured myself to have quite the ordinary childhood. After all, I was raised on my parent's preconceived notion that the world had turned sour and sinful. As such, whenever I rode into town in the backseat of the family hatchback and saw other children playing with eachother, I saw only the damnation that was fated to befall them. I pitied them, but my parents forbade me from mingling with anyone outside of our church.
But my sinful nature was one I could not prevent. I grew jealous when I watched trios of friends engaging with one another on the playground. I imagined myself in their group, learning and playing that weird but colorful card game I wasn't allowed to know about. But I knew in my heart what I wanted was wrong.
It's not as if my parents didn't try to help me make friends- but all the other sunday school kids they introduced me to looked empty inside. Their glazed eyes painted on a disinterested doll-like visage that I knew well from the mirror in our bathroom. Despite the commands from both our parents to 'play', I made no bonds from any of these arrangements.
Ultimately, the issue resolved itself when I invented a coping mechanism at the young age of seven. Whenever I caught my mind wandering into those virulent desires, I thought of my next visit to the garden path. I would lose myself thinking of the characters I would encounter. Using crayons to sketch, I would draw the allies I would fight beside, and the foes we would defeat. But the world in my head wasn't all blissful fun, sometimes my imaginary friends would die. In those times, I would mourn their end by half-burying a stone I would 'etch' their name onto with whatever sharper rock I could find. If someone ever excavated the ground where my family once lived- I can only imagine their reaction to finding at least 30 or so stones with random first names scraped onto them in a child's handwriting. But at the time, I thought it only appropriate to honor my fallen comrades. After all, the defense of my family's sacred garden was a never-ending struggle. But I soon realized my imaginary world needed a name. It was not long after then that I began exclusively referring to the garden as 'Eden'.
