THE Place

I’m sitting on Mad Dogs’ river side patio, a pub on the San Antonio riverwalk. I come every year for a seminar and spend a lot of time here at Mad Digs. I’ll order,* eat and then just hang out watching the tourists and locals as well as the tourist river barges. I’ve written many poems here over the thirty years I’ve been coming.

Where is your Place with a capital P?

* Steak & Ale Pie, Cottage Pie, Ale samples on a cricket bat.

I love walking through the woods called the plantations close to me and a place called haigh Hall although currently it's gone down hill unfortunately

There's a bar in my hometown (Oakland, California) called Cato's and it is THE place. It's just a five minute, pretty walk from the house I grew up in. It's family friendly and my parents started taking my sister and I every couple of weeks from when we were ages 5 and 7. I started going regularly with friends as well when I hit age 21. I've probably been there over 1,000 times. The nachos are loaded, huge, and excellent. Great people watching if you sit by the window. Live music every week. You can and are encouraged to carve in the tables, which is their gimmick. Also, paper and crayons are provided and you can pin your art to the bathroom walls. It's a great place for regulars. I try to go at least once every time I'm back in town visiting friends and family.

For me, it's behind the elementary school across the street from our house. There's a huge open field that is frequently mowed and almost no one else walks their dogs there. I take Bas there and can listen to music, sing, and be completely undisturbed. Adjacent to that field is a dirt path where our tractor pulls are held annually. So it's vacant all the other days of the year and the gates aren't locked. Bas can do his thing and I don't have to really worry about where we're walking or cars or anything. It's ridiculously peaceful and frees my mind. The other place would be down the road, another field across from a church. It's usually empty save for baseball games on certain nights, and there's kind of a path on the other side of the railroad. I will miss this tremendously when I move out which is why I would love to live off a country road and have a few acres of land so my doggos can run free... in my dreams ;)

I love that you incorporate the tractor-pull area so blithely in your soliloquy. It “places” you!

About three blocks from my house is a park built for soccer. My kids all played on teams there growing up (I even coached a couple of years). Some fifteen years ago our golden retriever began going blind. To avoid his discomfort from aggressive dogs we began walking him in the park only at night. It opened a new world of inspiration to me.
Where the day was filled with screams of players and cheers of family, the night was drenched in silence. Only skunks and a few feral cats accompanied our walks. We were serenaded by owls and in days following rainfall by a chorus of frogs. Dragon died some years back but I continued the nocturnal walks with my daughter’s dog. It has inspired many poems and figured in a plot devise in a story.

Well these days...
Auer & Co. Coffee shop and zurichsee lake

My Place is in Damascus. A very small, cozy place where the most delicious breakfast is served. My father used to take me and my sister there weekly, I especially love it because he used to take me there when my teacher would call him to pick me up because I was sick, (I used to get sick often). It was very hard to go there for the first time after my father passed away. But now, every time I visit Damascus, I have to go and order the same breakfast. I don't know how to describe what I feel. It makes me feel at home. So warm and cozy.

I love getting used to a certain place, and linking that place to someone I love. My boyfriend and I have been together for three years (almost). We go to a place in the suburbs whenever we have the chance. It's like a big cottage. They make yummy barbecue, and fish with spiced rice and onions. It's very far from the city and very calm. We don't go there that often but I just love it.

Nouraya,

I remember how devastating it was when your father was killed. I'm glad you are able to make that re-connection.
Your poetry opens doors to your soul. How strange to know such intimate details about people I have never met in person, yet feel a closer tie than to most people I've been around for decades.

I’ve been to the riverwalk twice in my life, it’s a very relaxing place (I fall short of words). The waterway at the Woodlands reminds me a bit of it but it’s not even close. Though the place I used to go is in the Woodlands, Its call Gooses acres. I don’t like beer but the angry orchaic in this place is my fave. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there.

You're absolutely right! I've shared a lot of details and thoughts and secrets here than any other place. It's a very unique and strange bond that makes us very close to each other, even though we've never met in real life.

This is the thing I love the most about PnQ.

Luce,
So glad you like the Riverwalk. As one of the few PnQ people I have met in person, I can picture you with your Angry Orchard, a grin on your face and about to laugh at something.

There used to be a willow tree on the shore of the lake near where I grew up. I would climb up to the lowest bough that shot straight out over the water. There was a an odd bend near the trunk that made a "u" shape and the branch was in all respects a functional hammock. I would lay on this branch for hours gently swaying in the wind, and with the ripples of the gentle waves... there was this sensation of moving forward, like I was floating away from my problems out to the middle of the lake. I buried a shoebox full of composition notebooks between two gnarled roots before I moved away. I went back a few years ago when O was on leave, the apartments had been torn down, the tree had been uprooted, and in their place was a boat rental building and several docks with various boats tied off.

Tony,
Did you ask about the notebooks? Probably a long shot, but something that unusual may have caught the eye of someone. The tree itself sounds like a gift.