There’s something special about childhood. It’s a time before you come to a rational awareness of the world around you—when nonsense makes sense, and fresh sensations flood your senses with innumerable possibilities. It’s a season when imagination bears fruit into reality, when your mind can create something out of nothing. Emotions are new, exciting, curious—sometimes scary, but often wonderful.
What stands out to me most from those days, however, are the stories that circulated among the kids in our neighborhood. Every building had its own narrative—every street corner was the place where someone once did something or heard about someone doing something. As these accounts were told and retold on a regular basis, they became more than just stories. They gave our friend group a collective memory that belonged uniquely to us—it’s what made our experiences special and fun to remember.
But soon enough, memory turned into myth. Stories became lore, transporting us to shared realms of make-believe. Ordinary places took on a life of their own, endowed with a mythology passed down from ten-year-olds to seven-year-olds. Among those of us who went to the same church on the weekends, there was one story in particular that brought us all together: that of the forest.
Situated along the fringes of our church property was a wooded area that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance. To our parents, it was just a mess of shoddy-looking trees. But to us, the forest represented the boundaries of what we knew and our fascination with what lay beyond. No one knew what waited for us on the other side, and only the bravest kids would willingly venture inside to find out.
Meanwhile, there were dozens of rumors about what you’d find if you crossed the woods. The older kids claimed that if you walked far enough, you’d come to a baseball field on the other side. “It’s true,” they insisted. “We even played catch when we got there.” Personally, I never saw it. In fact, I remember doubting on multiple occasions whether this field actually existed. It seemed too idyllic to be true. Nevertheless, the legend persisted, and every adventure into the forest became a makeshift quest to find the elusive park—though no one ever seemed to recall how to get there.
Looking back, I don’t think it mattered whether the field was really there or not. What mattered to us was the journey we took to find out. In our minds, those woods were a large lurking presence, infused with a puzzling ethos of familiarity and fear. It was mystery, and it was wonder. It projected and embodied all of our curious anxieties. Once inside, grown-ups weren’t there to tell you where to go— even as kids, we understood that to cross the forest was to grow up and take care of oneself. There was something beautifully ironic, I think, in how we gained a certain sense of maturation through these journeys of make-believe.
In the Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tales, the forest is often a place where the protagonist gets lost, in more ways than one. It’s a space in which boundaries become blurry and cultural ties dissolve into nature. When innocent children in fairy tales enter the woods, they gradually lose control over their surroundings, and it’s up to them to rearrange their fragile identities on their own terms. Forms are altered, emotions are turned inside out—by the time you reemerge from the forest, one thing is certain: you aren’t the same person who entered.
In a similar way, our forest was an enchanted laboratory. We brought it to life with experiments of imagination. Adventures to the mythic baseball field on the other side unlocked our potential to create novel worlds from the mundane. Trees became towering fortresses, streams were dimensional portals and small animals served as our magical guides. We lost our sense of direction almost every time, but whenever we felt afraid, it was our eagerness to explore the unknown that led us to move on rather than turn back.
Until recently, I didn’t understand that curiosity and fear could be intimately connected. After I became aware of the injustices that plague our grown-up society, I thought I could never return to the innocence through which I once saw the world. I used to be curious about what lay around me, but now I am afraid of it.
Yet, as I think back to how I felt while wandering through the woods as a kid, I’m learning that innocence doesn’t have to be lost—perhaps only redefined. When we’re young, joy and curiosity are enough to bring us fulfillment. But when we wake up and find ourselves suddenly lost in the forest—in fragile periods of life when we seem to lose control of our surroundings—we are given the choice of whether to continue exploring what once fascinated us or to let our new awareness paralyze us in fear. To me, the decision to choose curiosity, despite knowing what scary things could be out there, allows us not only to retain the innocence we thought we had lost, but also to reinforce it with a deeper, knowledgeable maturity.
As it turns out, I moved to a different neighborhood before I could ever discover the truth about the forest. But a few years later, my friends revealed that they had crossed the woods and eventually found the baseball field on the other side. The mystery was solved. And they hadn’t been back since.
Personally, I’m glad I never reached the end myself. In my mind, those woods are exactly how I remember them: enchanting, intimidating, intriguing and limitless. As long as there’s more to explore—more to be curious about, in spite of fear—I won’t have a reason to leave the forest anytime soon. As long as I stay, maybe that childlike innocence and spirit of curiosity will stay with me too.
Chris Lee is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Thursdays.
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