PORTLAND, Maine - This August, Maine Public Radio is partnering with the Telling Room in Portland to highlight the work of young writers. Over the next couple of Fridays, we'll hear stories based around the theme "bodies of water." Patricia Wani presents her essay, "Knowing Where to Look."
Knowing Where to Look
In Deering Oaks, my siblings and I are kings and queens. We are the leaders, the inventors, the scientists, the environmentalists, and even the daredevils. When we weren't meeting new people we were finding new things. There are lots of things to explore in Deering Oaks; you just have to know where to look. Deering Oaks offered us the opportunity to do what we wanted free from the watchful eyes of a criticizing adult.
One time, while feeding the ducks in the pond, my brother spotted something unusual in the water. He called me over to see his discovery. Some might turn and walk the other way, but we decided we should figure out what this thing was. We started by examining it. Describing to each other what we saw. Slowly coming to a conclusion that this thing in the water was definitely not a duck, but also not a piece of driftwood. We crept up to the pond, getting as close as possible to understand what it was without getting wet. Then it moved. We jumped back. Next thing I knew, my brother was on the ground laughing nervously. I asked out loud, "What the heck is that thing?" even though I knew I wouldn't get an answer. When we realized that the thing wasn't going to be coming back to the surface, we walked away laughing to ourselves. Sometimes when we felt we had explored all that we could, we would create a whole new world of our own. We took what we had in front of us and made a game out of it. It didn't matter if that duck had really been there in the water or not.
A day in Deering Oaks Park was always an adventure. Like the stories of heroes. How they would enter an unfamiliar place in order to get to where they needed to be, whether they knew where they needed to be or not; we would enter the park as if it were an unfamiliar place. How they would meet new people who would then play a part in their adventure; we met new people who became a part of our adventure. Deering Oaks was the wardrobe of my childhood that brought me to understand the essence of the City of Portland, but it was also Narnia on its own. Deering Oaks held a lot of beginnings for me, and holds still more for my younger siblings.
Patricia Wani is a recent graduate of Casco Bay High School in Portland. She wrote this piece in dedication to her family. Originally from Sudan, Patty was a member of the Telling Room's Young Writers & Leaders program for international teens. She will be attending Curry College in the fall.