Violet Cove

From the age twelve to sixteen my mother, sister and I lived on 35th street, just a few blocks from Antelope Park. When I was mad I would pretend I was running away and I would run to the park and from there I’d run to Violet Cove. When I was happy I’d walk (or run) to the park, pretending I was in a magical world and I would go to Violet Cove. When I was at the park with my friends and we wanted to find fairies or have a picnic, we’d go to Violet Cove.

I think it was Jessie who introduced us to it. It wasn’t much, I suppose. Like a very shallow dugout in the side of the hill, a small creek of drainage running before it like a moat. There was part of an old bed frame thrown across the thin trail of water to act as a bridge. Trees grew around the center, which was a large storm pipe we could crawl inside. I remember there also being a piece of concrete that looked torn out of the ground by a giant and then thrown into the cove for sport. Jessie said that in the spring the whole cove was filled with violets, hence the name. And she was right.

I have so many good memories of Violet Cove. No one else seemed to know it existed. The runners ran on the path that was paved above it and people who walked by dismissed it as a dark, dirty area around the storm pipe. If you sat in just the right places, no one would even see you. I’d been looking forward to more good memories of Violet Cove…until they tore it down.
In the name of landscaping, our beautiful (though often misunderstood) hideaway, was bulldozed, chopped down and replanted, the pipe surrounded by an aesthetically pleasing stone.

I think the stones were to make the pipe look like it belonged there, like it wasn’t just jutting out of the hill along with tree roots and weeds. I, however, think the stones make the pipe look fake; like it has a bad wig on. The poor thing is blocked in and any root or weed friends it had are now imprisoned. It don’t like it one bit, and I don’t think the pipe does either.

Will anyone ever know how much a few kids treasured Violet Cove so much they gave it a name? Did anyone think of that when they decided to make it crumble away? No, I think everyone else thought it was an eyesore in an otherwise beautiful park.

In other news, James posted a blog, and part of my reply was something I’ve been meaning to blog about for awhile but have never gotten around to. I could turn it into a big, long blog (and maybe I will sometime) but I like my “in a nutshell” version:

My heart tells me that there are people in this word, both secular and spiritual, who will "make it to heaven". My heart tells me that I love God and God loves me even though I choose to listen to rock music and read fantasy books. With all this medical stuff going on I suppose I should be thinking "am I right with God?" but I'm not. I'm confident that the things I do don't matter as much as the spirit with which I do them. I still believe what the Bible says, and I'm not afraid to die. And should I wake up outside the gates of Jerusalem, so be it. I did my best, I lived my life in happiness and I knew that God loved me and I loved Him. If my being should end there, well, at least I made the most of what I had. Anyone who wants to preach to me about how I should shape up soon has my pity and God's disappointment. And that's what I believe.