GARDEN WITH THE BUTT CHEEKS IN THE WOODS

Completing this week's Childhood Revisited Extravaganza, my sister and I re-visit our early days in Framingham.  We've seen our house (muchly changed), her school, and places we used to go in nearby Sudbury (Wayside Inn, Grist Mill, and the Wayside Country Store). 

These places are merely decoys, perks in our quest for the real reason we travel back in time.  We used to live across the street from the Garden in the Woods, and we have always claimed to want to come back.  Today is the day.

It's a little overcast with occasional light sprinkles when we arrive at the Garden in the Woods.  Other than the back edge of it being across the street from my bedroom window when I was a toddler, I remember only one thing from this place.  The day before my birthday when I turned either four or five, my grandmother brought me into the Garden in the Woods so my mother could bake my cake without me being in the kitchen bothering her.  In the Garden in the Woods, I climbed a tree off the path, which was a terrible no-no, and my grandmother and I were both scolded and kicked out of the place.

Today when we arrive, my sister and I read through the rules, check the notices for plants in bloom, and head off down a large path.  We have not gone a tenth of a mile when my sister steps off the path to smell some flowers.

Damnation!  If I get thrown out of here again, I'm pretty sure my name goes on a Frequent Offenders List that gets sent out to all of the state horticultural societies.  I'll be black-balled from the Black-Eyed Susans all across the state of Massachusetts.

My sister doesn't get caught, and we continue around the gravel paths, occasionally taking the smaller dirt paths through the woods (which is how we discover the wonderful stream running along the property).  Occasionally we come dangerously close to civilization (like our former house that peeks through the trees along the southeast edge of the fence), but mostly it's like we are in a magical world of plants and sights and sounds and, most of all, smells.

This place is mesmerizing, and I think, "Who luckier than we to have lived so close that we could just walk in here with our families and make ourselves at home... in trees..."  I remember when the giant trucks would come by our neighborhood to spray mosquitoes.  Did it harm the plants?  We used to run outside and play in the mist, which probably explains our health and mental quirks.

The plants are amazing, and the Garden is landscaped beautifully.  So many fabulous things to see and smell and photograph.  Of course, though, my favorite thing is the bottom of a giant tree-trunk, the only remainder of a massive tree with a circumference the size of a dining table.  Yes, the tree trunk has butt cheeks.

"Come and look at this!" I urge my sister.  "What does this look like to you?"

She sees the formation, looks at me, smirks, and shakes her head a little bit.  Yes, we are kids again.  Here in this gorgeous place, a place of high-brow plant aficionados, we giggle and snap pictures.  Butt cheeks.  Of all the things we see -- birds and flowers and plants and landscaping and water features -- I am obsessed with this au naturale Mother Nature ass-crack fanny sculpture.

I'm not quite sure which is worse: being tossed out for illegally climbing a tree or being tossed out for tittering about the bark butt cheeks.  Either way, I'd hope my late grandmother (whom I got into major trouble with her garden club friends for my tree-climbing stunt) might appreciate the gesture.