When I stopped by recently — it was the first time in many, many years — the first thing I noticed was the concrete barriers: squat and silent, they blocked both entrance and exit. I parked on the side of the road and got out. The second thing I noticed was that nature had pretty much reclaimed the space: grass, weeds, and unidentifiable flora left the once trodden paths nearly unrecognizable. I stepped over a barrier and stood at the base of the knoll. It was a minor trespass, a brief passage through time.

I had arrived where I was by passing through Warda, Texas, just a couple miles to the south. If you’re not familiar with Warda, don’t feel bad — I’m sure you’re not the only one. Warda is one of those “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” spots on the road, a middle of nowhere place. Officially, it’s an unincorporated community in northern Fayette County, and it’s located on Highway 77, about midway between Highway 290 to the north and Highway 71 to the south. It has a post office and a zip code (78960) and, by my rough estimation, it has a population holding steady at four.

Unofficially, Warda serves a reference for the spot where I now stood again after so many years, a picnic area a couple of miles south of a green sign that announces the beginning (or the end) of the community. (If it weren’t for those signs, you’d never know you were entering or leaving the place.) A picnic spot on the side of the road — at least that’s what it used to be before state officials closed it, put the concrete barriers in place, and let nature run its course. I don’t know when that was, exactly. As I said, this was my first visit in a long, long time.

It was a remarkable autumn day: clear blue skies with wisps of white and a slight but bracing breeze. It was one of those days when the world and the things around you just seem to stand out in relief, when colors dazzle and contrasts bring to mind differences and things and people gone their separate ways. What lay before me now — a tangled convergence of brushwood and thicket — wasn’t nearly as clear as my memories of the paths that had led up the small hill, so I let my memories take the lead. I had to step high in places, back up and walk around in others, as if the fallen branches and thick undergrowth were suggesting You had your turn, this place is ours now. Shouldn’t you perhaps turn back?

I reached the top of the knoll. There was still the faint suggestion of human geometry amidst the grass and scrub. The picnic table stood to one side and, like me, was more than a little worse for the wear: It leaned slightly, downhill, as if it still carried the weight of bygone travelers or was yielding to the long, slow hand of gravity, or both. I didn’t dare trust it with my own weight now, but I could pass my hand along its rough surface. I was careful to go with the grain. I’d had my share of splinters.

There at the top, I turned a full circle and took stock. There isn’t much to look at now, I realized. But then there never really had been. It had once been a green and a shady spot, a site to stretch your legs and have a snack and do what people do in the middle of going from here to there. It was sometimes comfortable and cool, and sometimes rich with mosquitoes, and the trees now and then could offer shelter when it rained. Still and all, it wasn’t a place known for its view, I think. You didn’t come here to look at things. You could imagine them, of course. Nobody could stop you from doing that. I did it often, back then, probably every time we stopped. I imagined how things might look differently. Even now, with the entrance and the exit blocked and the sign stating PICNIC AREA CLOSED, you can still imagine, I suppose.

I took a moment to wonder about the others who might have stopped here, in the days and the years before the area was closed and the barriers went up. I wondered who, and how often. My guess is that some of them stopped once and some of them stopped twice or more, and then some of them, like me now, just never stopped stopping. They just keep coming back, drawn by something deep and tangled like the brushwood that now thrives, its limbs and branches entwined with time, holding on to something close and secret and never, ever letting go.