Growing up in small New England town, I had an idyllic childhood. Small town festivities, quiet roads, and best of all, knowing my neighbors.  One became a good friend, Charley.

He was two years older than me and game for any whacky idea I had.  Or maybe the ideas were all his. I don’t remember that detail—just the fun we had. He played Matchbox cars with me, driving them through handmade tunnels in my sandbox or over the thick fur of my collie, Happy.

When we weren’t scooping kitty poop out of the sand or “borrowing” my mother’s jello mold to form mountains, we played other made up games.  One of them was Digging to China.

It’s difficult to think of Digging to China as a game because it was a hard work breaking through the dried out earth, packed tightly under the swing set from years of use.  My father lent us a shovel, and my mother provided a trowel. One summer, every day, we made time to dig. And dig. And dig.

We picked China because we assumed it was exactly on the other side of the globe from us. I couldn’t wait to break through China’s sky. I pictured my head popping through the clouds in China and looking down on the Chinese people as they went about their day—walking on sidewalks, buying from a crowded fish market, and farming their fields—images I must have learned in school. I figured they wouldn’t notice me up in the sky, and I’d have a chance to spy on their world for a moment. I could not wait for this adventure.

That summer came and went without completion of our hole. School started again and soon the digging was replaced with reading assignments, apple picking, and other distractions.  The next summer also passed without completing the hole even though we worked on it frequently. Because I no longer used the swing set, the hole stayed as it was, filling up with water during rain storms and growing its own weed or two. We soon never went back to digging.

The image and dream of poking my head through China’s clouds stayed with me, however.  A promise for another day. I had no reason to believe it couldn’t be so. Until 6th grade.

That year, my science teacher, Mr. Blanchard, ruined my dream.

Geology was part of the curriculum. We learned about the three main types of rocks—igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary—and we learned about the Earth’s mantle—the hot, molten, bubbling, boiling lava about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit—and the Earth’s core, over 9000 degrees Fahrenheit. My brain instantly went to my digging project with Charley—I could never have dug all the way through the Earth and popped out in China. Even if the distance wasn’t far, I would’ve been burned to a crisp.

Fast forward many, many, many decades. I had never stopped equating geology with ruining my childhood dream, as silly as that may sound.  But now I’m living in an area of New England where the rocks are just too enticing. The big boulders, the colors, the layering, and now they’re even in my own yard. I’m drawn to learn more.

So, back to class I go—and love it! Now I think of the large boulders as Glacial Erratics. The rocks peaking out on the side of the road are now Outcrops. I can’t stop talking about us living on amazing bedrock that’s 100 to 200 million years OLDER than granite–which is 300 million years old, by the way. I have a hard time walking with my head up because I’m always looking down for a unique rock dropped here as the glaciers came through.

And I’ve forgiven geology for ruining my childhood dream. The more I learn about geology, the more wonder I have for how the world came to be—the fascination of the separation of the continents and why spices and foods, like cilantro/coriander and rice, are prevalent in both South America and Southeast Asia—was it that way too when the land mass was one continent? Did the dinosaurs walk on the bedrock in my back yard? Is our climate changing in the same way it did for them over their 165 million years of existence?  And most importantly, geology has given me the excitement of living exactly where I am. That beats poking my head through the clouds any day.