An Adventure, of Sorts 7/12/2020

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I once found a gate to nowhere. It was on a back road in the country, not too far from my home. I am not even exactly sure why I was on said road since I am certainly not one to wander from the beaten bath. I have the directional orientation of a turnip so if it is not a way with which I am familiar, I do not take it without very trusted and easily accessible guidance. I was near a place that I have stumbled across on occasion, usually upon unavoidable detours from my usual routes. This gate was in an area far past where anyone has taken a notion to actually live or for any form of civilization really to exist other than the ragged dirt road on which I drove.  That I survived, or at least found my way back to the likes of humankind, to tell this tale is somewhat remarkable if I’m honest.

The vicinity of which I speak has one landmark I like to call the rainbow swamp.  I call it this, or at least the latter part of this name, because dark murky water creeps right up to the edge of the road on both sides in the most disconcerting way. Trees jut out of these depths, (I say depths when the water is likely only a few inches deep but that is entirely beside the point), at all sorts of odd angles and occasionally there is the most inexplicable foam gathered in odd crevices of the exposed vegetation.  The rainbow part of the moniker comes from the perplexing and somewhat unsettling multicolored sheen that can be seen on top of the water. It is as if a badly leaking car drove all through this marsh and left its colorful calling card everywhere. I do not pretend to understand this place and quite frankly I don’t really care for being in it the few times I have accidentally found it.  Even more mysterious than the aforementioned details of its appearance is the fact that I have the hardest time trying to locate the place when I do (for whatever odd reason) want to find it.  Now yes, I am directionally challenged as I mentioned so that very well could have a good bit to do with its hidden properties but still, it fits with the ambience of the place that it appears and disappears at will so I am going to assume that is in fact what occurs.

It was just beyond the rainbow swamp, where the land actually becomes land again and no longer looks like it harbors mutant snakes and the likely nest of swamp monsters, where I found the gate to nowhere.  I almost missed it and my mind tried to tell me I had imagined it but I knew what I had seen. Tangled in underbrush I had seen columns of brick with what seemed to be wrought iron work betwixt them.  I turned around in what looked as though it used to be a driveway to something significant yet now only led to a wall of green with a few aged oaks protruding from amongst them. I went back and saw, yes, there it was. A gate.  It wasn’t particularly ornate. I wasn’t expecting a manor in what seemed to be nothing but forest behind it but, I had to know.  As a sucker for the abandoned and forgotten I had to know to where or what this entry opened. 

It took some searching. The gate was easy enough to walk around as whatever form of enclosure it once served as the portal for had long since fallen away, assuming it had an enclosure, maybe it was just a decorative random gate.  Once I got behind it I just saw a clearing of tall grass surrounded by more forest. I wasn’t that far from the road so please do not misunderstand and think that I am brave enough to go adventuring into the wilderness. I like walks in the woods but familiar woods preferably with clearly visible trails thank you ever so much.  But gates in the middle of nowhere, or near swamps full of dark magic (I imagine) don’t just appear for no reason so I looked just a bit longer.

Like the whole of this exploit, I stumbled upon it by accident. I just happened to see some old clapboard siding between two converging trees. The house was unremarkable, certainly not what my imagination had conjured.  It wasn’t even as old as I had hoped it would be. Some old books and miscellaneous paper products scattered around its porch dated it just some 50 years or so. I apologize if the discovery behind the gates seems anticlimactic. It was for me as well.  I left rather quickly upon seeing some dark creature mosey around a corner behind the house. I say dark creature not in the phantom sense but in the, that is some large animal that may not be too keen on me being in their neck of the woods and who am I to intrude on possibly dangerous and far too sizeable for my liking beasts so I shall make my exit rather hastily, sense of the terms.  I quickly made my way from beneath an enormous ancient magnolia back to the car.  My inexplicable (still to this day) moment of bold exploration had come to an end.

Now, I come to the time that I must deliberate why I have told you this tale, paltry as it may have been.  What exactly do I hope that you glean from this telling of a random and minimally intriguing venture? I am not exactly sure.  Perhaps there are many things that can be taken from this. My first thought is perhaps those seemingly insignificant, clandestine moments on the side of the main roads in our lives are something to which perchance, we should pay more attention.  Such overgrown gates along the way could lead to something more special than we could have ever anticipated and though it wasn’t the route we intended on taking, at times Providence leads us on a path much better than we could have imagined.  There will also likely be times, as turned out to be the case here, that the destination of an unexpected path is underwhelming but the journey and adventure of learning along the way may be the real goal of the undertaking.  Maybe the best I or anyone reading can gain from this is that occasionally we must gather our nerve and do something bolder than our comfortable selves would prefer.

But to simplify things as much as possible, let me leave you with one thing. If you are in the middle of nowhere and come across curious surroundings or mysterious portals to the unknown, be absolutely sure that you know how to get back to the road that leads home.