Inspired by the Illustration Friday Quote:
"In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of Nature. You must be able to walk firmly upon the ground before you start walking on a tightrope" - Henri Matisse.
As a child, you can't help but be influenced by Nature if your summer mornings begin with the door closing behind you, the decided click of a hook-and-eye closure snapping into place above your reach and your mom saying " Make sure you can hear me when I call you for lunch". With 500 acres to explore, there were times we didn't hear her...
As the end of summer felt closer and closer, we crammed days full of things we knew we shouldn't be doing - from ooching out of the window of a deserted farmhouse on to a woodshingle roof the day after a rain (I can tell you just how it feels to leave a track as you zoom for the edge of the roof, and the strange feeling of relief knowing a nice, thick tangle of raspberry canes and poison ivy will break your fall) to jumping off the bridge into about 12 feet of rock-strewn water after our mother's car had disappeared around the dusty gravel bend of the road heading to town - I'm amazed now that there were fewer trips to the hospital, and less scolding than we deserved.
