When I was a kid up in the northwoods, there were two places on our land, I considered my own private hideouts. I was free to go to them anytime, and sometimes in the summer I would take a book and prop myself up against a tree and read for awhile. There was the “island” in the swamp, crossing a small strip of pasture, slogging through a mucky bit of wetland, all mossy and maybe a touch spooky, to reach a high land of popple (aspen) trees and sunny spots. Read Bambi there one summer. My other favorite spot was named by me, the “pretty place,” showing a lack of originality but a sincere appreciation of trees, and was further into the pasture in the other direction. It was a smallish patch of large young, mature, and dying/fallen spruce trees. Again, a darkish, private-feeling space. I once found a fawn there, tucked away while its mom grazed nearby.

Which leads me to my new favorite spot on earth: a mangrove swamp just around a beach curve from Magalong Beach Resort. Scott and I kayaked there down a small river leading in from the coastal mangrove thicket. It was absolutely magical. There was the mystery of those long-ago hideaways, plus more exotic shapes and more water upon which shimmers and shadows played together nicely. I was mesmerized; not sure why it felt so appealing and so unique, probably a combination of literature always casting mangrove swamps as perhaps a little dangerous, as well as the fascinating play of all the twisty trailing turning trunks and branches through the light on the green glisten of water.