The Hill
by R.E. Slater
I began counting my steps as I climbed
our side hill slowly rising steadily ahead
remembering the summers when I had
rolled down its long green grasses or had
jumped across its failing backsides along
the tears in the ground pulling upon its
earthy weight. Remembering flattened
cardboard boxes I used to slide down on
greasy green ice or raced my runner sled
down its steep face into the wetlands lying
far below. Happy days not unlike today
as I carefully measured and remeasured
my steps not wanting to be off in my
count as accuracy was needed this day.
I knew this hill as well as it knew me.
From skeet shooting its top with my dad
and brother to snowmobiling up into its
heavily drifted tops. My last memory was
watching the very first Skylab fly overhead
as a shiny thing reflecting the five o'clock
morning rays. I was headed to bed when
driving home but thought to go out and
wait. A few minutes later it flew overhead
and then I went to bed having stayed up all
night at my senior prom party having left
alone to go home. Not unlike all other past
days and years when I also went home to
fields and stars. Country kids learned to
improvise by looking up into the heavens.
The evening prior I had just graduated.
Only months away September would
find me leaving home to live at a distant
university far from my beloved hill and
its many memories. Youth was gone as
was my grandpa next door having lived
out his days on the old family homestead.
The farm lay fallow and I, as its sixth and
last generation, would not inherit its lowly
fields or wandering fence lines. The aged
barns were used up. So too the rusted
tractors and plows. The dairy herd sold
and fence lines, like their fields, lying in
disrepair. Around lay city encroachment
and like the hill, I and it would become
forgotten things flattened by progress.
I already had known this from a very
young age, which is why I was tracing
my steps again, counting them lest my
earlier memories had failed me as I
stepped upwards along the worn rise.
Trying to find its final height. The last bit.
Before it fell away more steeply then its
earlier length when crossing its topmost
beam. But what I had once thought was its
final height was but a false perception.
For in the ground its real top lay farther
ahead. Probably a third of the way more
than when first looking. I found this a
great relief and would hold on to these
thoughts for the remainder of my life.
Thus I stepped off my slowing pace anew
to measure for accuracy - not perception.
And in the measuring was gaining a new
confidence to my initial perceptual dismay.
A sadness I had been holding within too
long as a young boy yet in middle school.
That its distance lay much further ahead of
me then I had once anticipated. And when
finally gaining its top, looking all around in
every direction, I tried to remember every-
thing that my eyes took in. All the changes
the many long years had brought. I saw them
again and remembered. Not even the backside
of the hill could remove those wandering glens
from my heart as it began spinning downwards.
Not for the last time I reminded myself
remember, remember... as I have from
time to time when fearing my journey too
quickly passing. That my youth was but an
interlude to many happy climbs to come on
a bare hill called life rising gracefully ahead.
At times speeding too quickly. At other times
too slowly. Yet life itself rises as it will to both
dreamer and old. It will take many a solitary
trek to step it off completely. To wear away.
And so I have remembered to this day the
vistas, the views, the hopes of all the promises
I had allowed might be, which could be. Even
as I have allowed them now finding myself still
climbing. Still taking each day in stride with all
other previous days prior until I can no longer
roll down life's slopes as I had once climbed
so easily, so carelessly, so eagerly, in distant
summer days past I can only now remember
but faintly with a smile and light step.
R.E. Slater
March 21, 2021
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
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