We are young girls, my three sisters and me.

We cover Nanny’s neighborhood, from her front and back yards, Grandpa’s kitchen garden, the back lot, the triangular plot of Uncle Pippi’s garden, Great-Aunt Lizzie’s yard across the street, over to Aunt Matheline’s yard around the corner, to a small woods that hides a stone foundation of an ancient wine cellar on Gardiner Street.

We branch out, as we can’t depend on Mom for rides, and walk to the center of town to go to the library, or to window-shop at Goodwives Shopping Center.  We walk to Weed Beach, head to the back beach, curse at the sharp rocks that hoard the sand, until our toes touch the cool, salty, water of Long Island Sound.  Sailboats drift out of Noroton Bay harbor, dot the horizon.

We ice skate on Tilley’s Pond and climb the waterfall of Stony Brook Park.  We cross through Frate’s Park, the field at Baker’s School, and spend a lot of time at McGuane Field, which we call the Baseball Field, across the street from our house.  Here, on the swingset, we swing long swings to lose long afternoons.

We trek down the longwinded stretch of West Avenue to Woodland Park, get lost in the forest, run in a field of wild grass, inspect fallen logs and tree limbs shorn from trunks by the wind.  We marvel at the skunk cabbage that grows in a swampy spot near the road, with its scrolled leaves and funny name.  We collect leaves, twigs, the yellow, tiny flowers of the Woodland Agrimony and the purple Dog Violet that peep out at us between tree roots that swell in the dirt of the moist woods.

We may not be able to enter the rich girls’ world, my sisters and me, in the 14.9 square miles of the town of Darien, however, we enter nature’s wonder, where we are not shunned.  The land in this town is part of me, and it’s a beautiful place, my Darien.