Liz Stowers 1

Happy Place Piece

The lake backyard of 323 Mill Street, Williamston, Michigan 48864, United States of America.

The years of middle school, ripe with confusion betrayal, and raging hormones, a time when a

safe place is needed most. Growing up I had tons of places I could be happy, but there were very

few places that I could run to when things were just too much, this was because as a child I

moved around quite a bit, and these moves, they weren’t down the street, or across the block,

they were across the country. Because of this, my friends houses became a safe haven, a place I

could really know, one of these houses remains my safe haven, even five years after my

departure. Now I can close my eyes and take a journey back to this place.

School’s just let out for the weekend I have the free feeling of anticipation, I have

survived another one of the crazy Mrs. Kranz’ lectures. I sprint to my locker and put in the

combination, I grab my things and rush to meet my band of misfit friends, they are all waiting at

the end of the hall. We saunter laughing and joking past the middle school and beyond the

elementary school, where the kids eye us like gods descended from heaven, but we take no

notice, we walk past them in a world of our own talking of past antics and jokes. We pass over

the footbridge and by the run down bar that is always open and always has cars in the lot. We

dodge cars across the main drag of Williamston, and six blocks later, we reach Corinne’s house,

a safe place of little to no parental supervision, a place where junk food and movies were

commonplace. We quickly abandon our school things at the first floor landing, eager to forget

them entirely. We change into bathing suits and race down the earthen steps to a pond in the

backyard. We avoid the overflow pond covered in algae as green as battery acid and take a quick

right, to avoid the shallow end of the lake housing an old aluminum rowboat and leeches by the

barrel full. We step onto the wooden dock warm from the sun’s rays beating down on the earth;

we gaze out onto the pond and wait. We wait to see who is brave enough to take the plunge. I
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Happy Place Piece

close my eyes and I smell the intoxicating perfume of the surrounding conifers and murky lake

water. I feel the sun warming my skin I drink it in, a smile making its way onto my features. My

friend Steven however has takes this opportunity to shove me into the arctic pond. I shriek in

shock at the sharpness of the cold water, shivers run down my spine. The inky, cold water closes

around me, but eventually it feels good, it’s in stark contrast to the heat of the May day. I circle

back to the jetty and grab hold of his ankle, pulling him in after me.

“I’m going to get you for that!” he calls after resurfacing.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” I counter before swimming away in a butterfly stroke. He gives

chase, but I know he can’t keep up. I am the best swimmer of the group, and I make use of it,

soon I’ve swum clear across to the other side of the pond. I wade onto the bank and explore a bit,

feeling like an explorer finding something for the first time. I faintly hear voices calling me to

the shore I see Steven and Corrine calling me back to the jetty. I wave to them and shout back

that I’m on my way. I swim leisurely, returning to the dock and my friends. Finally, I meet them

in the shallows that are devoid of leeches. We swim until Alex complains that she’s cold and

Cody has swallowed too much of the lake water that tastes of grass and dirt. Shivering with blue

lips, we climb out of the water and lie on the jetty basking in what’s left of the setting sun.

Eventually as the night begins to cool off, we go back inside and eat pizza by the boxful and

down vats of soda. Soon these reveries bore us and we resort to lighting various things on fire

with someone’s Zippo. Finally, we settle down enough to watch a movie of someone’s choosing,

among that games of Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, and other classics are played. We fall

asleep, nuzzled together in blankets and sleeping bags in front of the massive television.

Throughout the night we escape to the pond in pairs, draping ourselves on the jetty and
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Happy Place Piece

conversing. I find that out of my comrades, I have spent the most time at the dock on this

particular night.

I find myself sitting with Steven at the dock, our feet dangling in the jet-black water. Under the

cover of moonlight the subjects of our conversation are shrouded in the shawl of the stars. We

softly debate my favorite thing, Fate vs. Choice. He decides that fate dictates everything and that

there is a divine providence, even if he cannot see it. I on the other hand argue that choice is the

only intervention in our lives, and therefore we dictate our own outcome. We debate for hours,

he and I until the pale fingers of dawn reach up into the horizon and remind us that we’re only

kids, that are too young for all of this, that it just seems so right to sleep all day and stay up all

night. Silently we crawl back into the sleeping house and pretend that we have been there since

the small hours of the night.

We wake up in the late hours of the afternoon and know that the possibilities of our lives are

endless, and that even when times are rough we’ll still have that day, and we’ll still have that

place. But now Corinne has moved away from 323 Mill Street, the ownership passes to someone

else, for other memories to be had. I also remember these memories from a different place,

separated only by physical distance. However, a different distance separates us now, we all have

drifted, time has made it so.

I feel that I should have moved on by now, yet my mind keeps calling me back, back to that

starry-lit dock where fate and choice were debated, and to the same dock when it was bathed in

sunlight and drowned in laughter. I can’t let it go. I refuse let it go. It forever will remain my

happy place, my safe haven, my home away from home. If I could ever go back there, with the

same company I would be ecstatic. I would finally have that feeling I’ve been longing for, for so
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Happy Place Piece

long. But now, just thinking about that place, that time, those people, that is enough to get me by,

even if it leaves me feeling a bit nostalgic, for the most part, it leaves me feeling content, because

though I don’t have it now, the memory is real, and will never falter.
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Happy Place Piece

Images

“The earthen steps”

“The perfume of conifers”