A place’s memories
300 apple trees. 90 years old.
Quirky looking. Loads of character.
I’m walking underneath trees that my great-grandfather had planted for the future of his children. And their children.
None of my distant cousins from this branch of the family tree still holds the place.
Lost in gambling. Lost in unresolved trauma.
Somehow, I needed to come here, what is now a beautiful campground only 5 km from my mum’s place away. Just for a night or two.
The moment we arrived I felt something speaking to me. In the whisper of the wind, in the shape of each tree looking straight into me.
Is it coincidence that all trees are in full bloom right now?
I walk up the steep road and memory after memory hits me. Being here in summer with my mum. Drinking tea with milk in my great-aunt’s old house. Finding the secret path to my grandfather’s cabin somewhere in the woods. Coming back years later to pick apples to make apple wine.
Memories I had long forgotten. Memories that had been stories of someone else. Memories that waited for the blooming of these trees to embrace me in a lake of time.
‘What if this place was still part of our family?’ crosses my mind. In a way it is. The trees have not forgotten the hands who planted them. Nor the three generations of excited kids running underneath, climbing on top, and stealing some of those delicious fruits.
I’m glad this place found people who wanted to invest in it with their vision, hard work, love, and care. You can feel it.
Caring capacity.
“Oh, you’re from Eppstein? Well, you had a long drive here”, the owner at the check-in tells me with a wink.
Yes, I had. But in a different way.