I once wrote a poem about this house when I was a young girl. It was called The Moss Between the Bricks. I used to play here at six years of age, and later, much later, I rode my bike over the six long miles from my house to the gate of Oakley. It's so enchanting a place that you can hardly believe it's real, that it exists in the modern world and perhaps, it doesn't, that once we take a step on the ground that surely belongs to it, we are transported to another place and time. The old bricks are soft and red, and in the cool months of spring, moss grows between the bricks. There is a garden, with neat boxwoods and camellias, and there, the bricks take form and make a path. You walk and walk, slowly. Beside you, the house is tall, old, worn, but alive with all the people who have lived there. You feel it in the wind, you hear it in the bird noise, the ground speaks to you. And a part of you never wants to leave. This, you soon understand is not nostalgia, but the power of place and the weight of history.
