Last week I shared some words from Erna Nixon along with images from her park. In that housecleaning, I also found a draft of my college application essay, which I wrote about her hammock. So here’s some writing from seventeen-year-old me. First, an image I found in my dad’s slides of the day the hammock was dedicated in her name. The sign was still veiled. Mrs. Nixon is the second person on the left edge in conversation with a group. I think you can guess who I am. The second image is of the sign that still welcomes you to the trails.
March 12, 1966
“As I was reviewing topics for this essay, I got an urge to go over to one of my favorite places to clear my mind for a little while. This place is a small, unspoiled morsel of Florida that goes under the title of the ‘Erna Nixon Hammock.’ Wandering down the narrow, camouflaged trails and thinking about an essay led to two things. First, spiderwebs adhering themselves to my face and clothes. And second, an idea for the composition, my friend for the past ten or twelve years, the hammock.
“To discuss the hammock one must first consider Mrs. Nixon. My family met her through a mutual friend in Chicago. Since then she has become a good friend and teacher of mine. She is an eighty-year-old, very intelligent, very small, very wonderful lady who has spent a good portion of the last seventeen years under the trees of the hammock. If ever I have an unidentifiable plant or creature, I go over to her house with a description of it. We generally come up with a name for it, and then spend the next hour or two talking about anything that comes to our minds.”
“A hammock is an island of vegetation that is a bit different from the vegetation which surrounds it. The Nixon Hammock consists mainly of oaks and other trees and shade-loving flora. . . .”
“ . . . The hammock openly extends itself to anyone who wishes to share in its peaceful life. Often when I am home and being occupied with some work that becomes more and more burdening, I get on my bike and ride over to the hammock. Then I pick a trail that will take me to the portion of the dark interior I want to go to. I spend about a half-hour studying some ferns or mosses or sitting on an old oak. When I come out I am a little more relaxed and ready to go back to the work I had left.”
“Some days I may have a good feeling within and a free hour. This often takes me to the hammock. I just wander around in the outdoor cathedral, meditating and sometimes talking to birds and squirrels and waiting for a reply. . .”
Huh, I thought talking to plants and animals was a newer thing. I’d forgotten I’ve been doing that for quite a while.
