The Past

The Past

It was a small town, actually I don’t even think it was considered a town, all I know is that my most memorable moments as a child took place 20 miles after Springerville, Arizona, a few miles before St. John’s.

It’s hard to believe that my grandfather built that cabin himself, it was very impressive. It took him twenty years but I guess there was no rush.. I can just remember getting closer and closer to what my sister and I referred to as the “cabin”. Nothing could compare to the excitement that filled my body as I sat anxiously in the truck. “Can you see [the cabin] Spider Lady?” my grandpa would ask as we looked at the land to the right while driving on the main road. For some reason my grandfather always called me Spider Lady. Till this day we still don’t know how he came up with that but I just go along with it, I like the name, somehow it just fits me.

My favorite part of the trip was the five minute ride on the bumpy, dirt road up the hill to our destination. The land surrounding us wasn’t what you would normally consider beautiful. It was flat, brown land with shrubs and random cacti, and there were also cows that wandered some parts. But to me, there was no place in the world I’d rather be.

There was a routine that played out each and every time we took a trip to the cabin. We would pull up to our barbed wire fence and my grandpa would have to step out of the truck and unhook the gate, and because I was so excited to be out of that white truck, it always felt like he wasn’t moving fast enough.

There was a kitchen table to your right as you walked through the door and to your left an old, dark green recliner that faced a huge window looking over this huge mountain. There on the back wall sat that dark black Ben Franklin fireplace that my grandpa insisted on lighting even if it wasn’t cold out. Straight ahead was a refrigerator covered with pictures my sister and I had drawn over the years. I sit here now thinking of...

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