Come with me ... there is a place I wish to take you. I have not been there in a long, long time. The last time I visited, I was a teenager with braids in my hair, running through the fields watching Mr. Beebe’s cows chewing quietly on long blades of grass.

Mr. Beebe and his cows are gone, but the meadow is still there, looking as if time never passed. At this moment, I imagine Mother Robin looking for a mate and preparing to make her nest. Rising triumphantly out of the brown earth in preparation for the season of hope are the shoots of green plants. Ponds and brooks overflow from the melting snow in order to welcome the arrival of spring. The fragrant, purplish cone-shaped skunk cabbage that Henry David Thoreau often wrote about in awe, is pushing themselves out of the earth.

After a long winter, the weary land opens its arms and hope is in the air. Come with me to that sacred space where childhood memories bring us to the bucolic town of Bozrah.

It was a time when children made friends with trees and rocks and even watched clouds transform into magical shapes using their imagination. The first place we will visit is on Fitchville Road, a place the children used to call “Clyde’s Woods.” Clyde Lathrop is gone, but the woods remain a place of peace.

As children, we played on the boulders and rocks and walked miles on imaginary trails to magical places. When we grew to be teenagers, we would pick blueberries on a secret hill where large blueberry bushes covered the landscape. Once, I walked all the way through the woods to Fields Memorial School. On my way home, I was gazing into the setting sun when a golden eagle flew so low, I crouched, and watched it fly over my head. I will never forget that eagle. She was glittering gold and brown in the yellow sunlight and her wingspan was magnificent. I always considered that encounter one of the luckiest days of my life.

Across the street from Clyde’s Woods is Beebe’s Fields, where the jack-in-the-pulpit and lady’s slipper grow alongside small streams and shaded woods. The fields speak a message that human and beast understand: every living creature is connected to each other — no matter how small.

The fields are a place of order and peace, but not without danger. Before I attended grammar school, the fields were level and sloped in lovely grooves and valleys. It was during the 1950s, when men excavated the land in order to prepare for Connecticut Route 2. It was through eminent domain the land was acquired by the state, and a hole, roughly a quarter-mile deep and a half-mile wide, was hollowed into the belly of Farmer Beebe’s fields.

Mr. Beebe knew for his cows to survive they must drink from the Yantic River on the other side of the highway, and asked the state to make a stipulation. The state agreed and dug a tunnel underneath the highway so his cows could reach the water.

The tunnel is dark and foreboding and one I have often walked. It can become dangerous during a rainstorm because the water rises quickly.

I found this out once when the rain came suddenly and the water rose above my knees. I struggled to reach the end as the current pulled me down. I fell into the water and was pulled through the tunnel. I managed to free myself from the fast-moving currents flowing into the Yantic River by pulling myself ashore.

It was quite an experience for a young teenager, yet I learned a lesson that day. Bad events usually follow good events: the fog lifts, the sun melts the snow. Hurricanes go out to sea.

Nature knows that bad events happen, but if we are patient, they are inevitably followed by something good.

I grew up in Bozrah during an era when children ended their school day with a plan. This plan usually entailed playing outside as long as the daylight lasted. Unlike many children in the world today, who prefer to stay indoors and play electronics, we went outside and explored the environment.

Fields Memorial School was a short distance from my home. After school, on the days I would walk home, I would stop by Johnson’s General Store. I must reflect back in time to properly visualize the grace and goodness of the owners.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson welcomed every child by name. When you first entered this small country store, you could hear the wood crackle underneath your feet from the wide wooden floorboards coated with a thin layer of dust streaming in from the windows.

My most vivid memory is of a dark brown cabinet that was bursting with delicious candy. When you stepped behind the counter to pick out your treat, button candy on long paper strips, string licorice, Chuckles, Atomic Fireballs, Good & Plenty, Pixie Stix, wax lips and so much more, was there to greet you.

They also sold Hosmer Mountain soda in many flavors and I loved white Birch Beer. However, my greatest memory is the love that every child felt from the Johnsons. How someone makes us feel is a forever memory. And, Johnson’s General Store had an atmosphere of pure love.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief exodus from the hustle and bustle of daily life. One way to find joy in today’s world is to remember what made us happy as children. I wish you spring days filled with warm sunlight and yellow daffodils surrounded by loving people like the Johnsons.

Concetta Falcone-Codding, a 1971 graduate of NFA, is author of “The Lonely Nest.” To contact: sarah_falcone@yahoo.com