There were ghosts in the rocks. This was the first thought I had as I looked down from my father’s shoulders after the long climb up the slippery stone stairway of Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. The rocks were grey, rounded and strange shapes, and they had holes in them. Large, round eyes that looked straight at me. Just as if ghosts had been trapped in the stones. That was so cool. I remember clambering down and going to explore. I always did that when I went somewhere with my parents. I always went ahead of them. Stopped, looked around, and then yelled back: “It’s ok! It’s safe! You can come too!” I fashioned myself the intrepid explorer, protecting my parents from unseen dangers in the path ahead.

Of all the places I have been to, Stone Mountain stands out to me in my memories. It’s not really something you expect to see in the outskirts of Atlanta. It’s a giant grey rock that sticks out from the greenery around it like a sore thumb. It’s so large you can see it clearly from an airplane. On one of its sides are carved the faces of men whose names I can’t remember. It’s the same side that we faced when we sat on a large field to see the fireworks show one 4^th of July. It was my family’s first “place”. It was the adventure of every weekend and the unknown land that I had to explore anew each time I went back. It was my favorite playground. One of my biggest goals at the time was to grow old enough to climb up the stone stairway by myself. To not need my father’s shoulders anymore.

Thinking about it today, it was probably just another park, nothing that special to anyone else, but, to me, it will always remain magical. From the stone ghosts, to the imposing men on the side of the rock, to the mysterious lady who entered a secret room in a secret tower and played an organ that you heard from yards away, it remains in my mind as a place where I learned how to dream. It was the first park we visited in the first place we lived when we moved to the United States in 1996. We only stayed in Georgia three years before we moved and I have never been back.

Since then, I have travelled all over the place, very often stopping for layovers in the airport of Atlanta, but I have never ventured outside. I can still see the Mountain every time I look out the window while my plane is taking off, carrying me towards my next destination. But it never seems like a good time to venture out of the airport and see if all is as it once was. I wonder if those ghosts are still there, frozen in stone forever. Or if there is even a lady still playing the organ for no one but herself. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.

We move forwards in time and in place when some of the best memories that we have are behind us. I am not sure why it is so difficult to relive them and find the same peace that we had before. Maybe it’s that we are afraid that the memories we hold dear from when we were children will be tainted or changed if we see them through the eyes of an adult. Or maybe we like to clutch desperately onto the memory of that time, hoping that one day we will be able to look back and be happy with the journey we have undertaken. I guess I’ll never know that either.