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You've made me want to visit that cave, and someday perhaps I will. I've always loved caves, and the outdoors in general.
Twenty-five years ago I graduated from a small college in Mississippi. The campus consisted of a cluster of buildings on the corner of 160 acres of woodland. Other than the section cleared for the college buildings and a lake near the middle, it was covered in trees (both hardwoods and evergreens). During the years I lived there I spent many happy hours wandering those woods, in all seasons and all kinds of weather. There were three favorite places of mine. One was a little stand of pines where the sunlight always seemed somehow brighter than anywhere else in the wood. Another was a stream with a big root growing out in a curve from the bank that made a perfect place for sitting and watching the water rushing over the pebbles. But best of all was a large, majestic oak that was larger than any of the other trees in that wood. When the college campus was built years earlier they had used bulldozers to clear a path to the lake, but when they came to that tree they had to route the road around it because it was too massive and deep-rooted to be pushed over. There always seemed to be a special stillness beneath the branches of that tree, and I always experienced a feeling of being welcome there. It's been two decades since I last visited, but I still remember that tree as clearly as if I had been there yesterday.
Here in Alabama, where I live today, there is a sports park near my home that has woods and hiking trails scattered among the sports fields. It is bordered on one side by a long wooded hillside with a creek at the bottom. In one spot there is a jumble of large boulders beside the water and beyond them is a nearly-submerged log that creates a tiny waterfall. By walking carefully on the log one may cross the water to a level bank of small stones on the other side. Beyond that to the west are a few more trees and then open fields. I came there once at sunset, crossed the water and then stood facing it with the setting sun behind me. The sunlight turned the water and all the pebbles in the creekbed and on the bank to shimmering gold. There was no sound except the murmur of the water over the stones and the log. A large German shepherd dog came from somewhere and padded down to the creek, then glided silently back and forth through the water like a spirit before disappearing as quickly and quietly as it came. It was a magical moment.
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