If you take a ride down Harmon Road in you’ll see a few things. First, as you round the corner, you’ll see a dilapidating trailer with an overgrown yard. The tall grass hides a pile of old, rusty junk that includes a unicorn from an old merry-go-round. The people who live there are frequenters of the New Middle Town Dairy Queen, and their son likes to ride his four-wheeler through berry bushes.

Further down, on the left, there’s a pond. It’s hard to see through the thin layer of trees between it and the road. The water holds a sickly green color, and it’s way too dark to tell how deep it is. The owners built a dock at one point, but it has since fallen apart. Their hot-pink and baby-blue paddleboat is still on the shore, though. The lake is right next to their driveway, and that’s the next thing you’ll see. It’s covered in blacktop and goes up a steep hill.

Past the blacktop driveway and the small lake, the air is more open. There are no trees on the side of the road. On the right, you’ll see two white houses, a barn built in the 1920s, an unused smokehouse, and a light pole with candy cane stripes next to a sign that says, “Reindeer X-ing.” If you look closely and on the right day, you can see a fire truck parked in front of the larger of the two houses. The man who lives there thinks he’s Santa Clause, and he’s completely insane.

Across the street from Santa Clause’s gravel driveway is an empty lot of weeds and tall grass. It’s overrun by overgrown hedges. The road takes a small incline upward at this point, and while you’re going up that small bump, you might miss a clearing among the weeds. It’s a driveway, or the remains of what used to be one. It doesn’t lead to a house. The yard surrounding it has gone back to nature.

If you follow that path, you’ll come across a place where many memories are buried. You’ll be led to a patch of gravel where there used to be a trailer home. Across from it is a slab of concrete where there used to be a garage. Behind the garage was a yellow shed; the door would never open because the hinges were rusted. Go through the weeds and there’s another slab of concrete left to the elements. The outline of its foundation can still be seen. It was once a barn that you could barely fit into on account of the piles of old things crammed into it.

Eyes that saw the lot before it was abandoned can pick out the memories hidden in the mess. When I stand there, Grandma’s house is right in front of me, the entrance next to the little pine tree that’s not so little anymore. I see where she used to plant her flowers by the garage—sometimes you can still find one that’s survived the last ten years. I see where there used to be a fire pit for her to burn newspapers right between the barn and the birdfeeders. And I see all the memories of picking blackberries from the wild bushes over by the shed. The berry bushes are gone, like Grandma’s house. But all the memories are still buried there.