A Rose Among Thorns

Writer's Workshop with Mama Kat

Prompt of Choice:  Did you have a childhood hideout? Where was it? Describe it. 

Running alongside my yard is a large overgrown rose bush. It's not your typical rose bush, however.  I can't remember what it is called, but it resembles the wild rose bushes that dotted our property growing up.  A couple weeks ago as my husband and I attempted to tame the overgrown thorny beast with hedging shears, ladders and thick gloves, I couldn't help but remember those equally thorny bushes from my youth.

I was the sixth child of eight--with five brothers.  Sort of a rose among thorns, you might say.  Not that my siblings thought so.  As  you can imagine in a family of that size, attention was a sought after commodity, and sometimes extreme measure were taken to grasp some.  

I admit, as a young girl I was a drama queen--at home at least.  Every where else I was timid as a mouse, but at home a mouse would have been squashed, or ignored.  I did not like to be ignored.   Ask my mother.  She was fond of telling me I would some day win an Emmy--usually accompanied by an eye roll or a hand thrown up for emphasis.

Occasionally the usual theatrics did not get the attention I felt I deserves, or I believed I had been unfairly punished for crimes I did not commit.  On those occasions I was determined to make my mother regret her shoddy treatment of me.  And what would make a mother more regretful than to discover her child was missing?

Yes.  I ran away.  

But where does one "run away" to at seven or eight years of age, living on a farm in the country?   

Why, some nether region of the farm, of course.  Except that there weren't any forests or particularly obvious places to run to on our twenty acres, or our neighbors acres, which were largely inhabited by cows. . . or hay--which only hides one if actually lying amidst the rows.  And while that might have given me a better view, and more comfortable perch than the place I chose, there was always the danger of encountering an actual mouse--or a whole family, as they often made their nests among the alfalfa.  

So, my second option--the wild roses.  This might not seem the most obvious hideout--but isn't that sort of the point?  I wanted them to miss me and wonder where I had gone, and come searching for me.

There was a particularly large ring of bushes in the back field that surrounded an outcropping of lava rock that made a relatively comfortable perch--for a while--once one managed to navigate the thorny branches and actually emerge within the confines of the "Briar Castle".  And the flowers were pink and sweet smelling.  And the buzzing of the bees was soothing--if one held still and didn't think of being stung.  

But the worst was not the hardness of the rock, or the potential sting, but the waiting.  Waiting for someone to miss me.  Waiting for the sound of someone searching for me--or at least calling from the house, even if only for dinner.  

But no one ever came looking.  And no one ever called my name.

Eventually I would give up.  I would return home a little dejected, but considerably less angry.  It is hard to hold onto anger while feeling the sun on one's face, smelling the roses and listening to the bees buzz.  

My mother never asked where I had gone.  She probably knew.  She also probably thought that the time alone would do me good.  She was probably right.

The funny thing is, I don't remember ever getting thorns stuck in my skin--which is more than I can say for the battle I fought a few weeks ago.  THAT encounter left it's stingy red mark on me for days. . . not nearly as long as those long ago wild roses in the pasture, and not nearly so pleasantly.  

I really could have used that hideout this week--if only for the peace and quiet it had to offer.

Do/did you have a secret hideout?