it had been two years. two years plus since we last hiked there. after the woods added a high ropes/adventure course we were less inclined to go there, less eager to go hike its trails. the tranquil quiet was interrupted with the sounds of groups on the contrived course, the echoes of planned adventure bouncing off ancient trees and the forest floor.
but the other day – on a blue-sky-slightly-warmer-less-windy day – we decided to go back. because it is still merely early-spring, the course wasn’t yet open, though the staff was there training. one of the guys – suspended in a harness on lines high above us – called down to us, telling us how happy he was to spend the day in the woods.
we set out on our trail, a bit eager to see how things might have changed, how the familiar might be a bit less familiar after so many seasons had passed.
seeing this much-trod-in-the-past place was sheer joy. there is something about knowing the bend in the path, something about knowing where the tiny ponds are tucked in the woods, something about knowing certain trees and where the green glow might be starting.
we took our news-weary eyes and placed them – instead – on the roots crossing the trail, on the rise and fall of our breathing. we focused on spring arriving in the woods in this place where we have spent so much time.
we were – gloriously – nowhere else for a couple hours.
“and into the forest i go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” (john muir)
we made our way up the mountain pass, snow-covered pines lining the sides of the two-lane, our road winding its way to the summit of mount rose. after the peak we started down the other side. and then, there it was – peeking through the trees in the distance – lake tahoe. “…so terrestrial yet so openly spiritual.” (john muir)
mountains make me cry. and the vision of lake tahoe nestled further off was sheer beauty. a place i’d never been before, i had anticipated its allure. but – even after traveling at 35000 feet over a large swath of our nation – gazing down on unspeakably gorgeous land – i was still stunned by the incredible breath of fresh air offered by the lake, this largest lake in our country.
“as it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface i thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords,” mark twain.
to say that we needed a breath of fresh air would be to totally understate what it has felt like to be in this country at this time.
it has been madness. like sitting on a rail while the freight train is barreling toward you with no real ability to control it.
how there is any one in these united states not feeling a sense of horror is beyond me. every single day there is new malfeasance. every single day more shocking news. every single day we see it all driving toward the authoritarian state that they wish it to be. yet, the people discounting it continue to discount it. and we continue to barrel toward the falls – in this case, the fall – poised to go over, plummeting to the death of all we know.
it was as we were flying i turned to d and said, “can you imagine the ego trip it must be for the two men in the powerful position of president to know that they are in charge of everyone? every single person we are flying over. every single person in every single corner of every single place in this entire country?” i shudder to think of how this feeds their agenda and how insatiable their hunger for all control, unstoppable.
i ran down to the boulders on the side of the lake and stared at the view, tears coming to my eyes. the pure air, the cold breeze off the water, the rustling of wind through the pine, the looming mountains…all so refreshing, rejuvenating, restorative. we walked on the beach at water’s edge and i didn’t want to leave it behind.
but lake tahoe – this lake that has been this glimmering jewel about two million years – through thick and thin, abundance and penury – whispered to me…“when you need a moment to ground your feet, to still your breath, to slow your wildly-beating heart, go inside and stand by my shore. and i will meet you there.”
the glow of the setting sun teased through the grasses out front. autumn is rising.
my old hiking boots are waiting by the back door. soon – and very soon – it will be time to change out of our hiking sandals and back to these boots, worn from many, many miles of trails. we need to replace them. the podiatrist informed us we should purchase new ones every six months or so if we are wearing our boots regularly. since we are artists, this is not quite possible. and so, these circa 2016 boots have graced our feet for the last eight years of hikes. every bit of worn leather, every creak, has a story to tell. someday it will be a tad bit hard to retire them. they have served us well.
today is the first day of school here. i am completely out of sync with these touchstones of time. the trip to target – with school supplies galore – helped place me in time. but with grown children and no direct connection to the school system, we had to look up the district calendar.
a certain wistfulness comes on the breeze with the return of the fall sun. it happens every year. it’s hard to identify, but it is palpable.
i wonder if it is a kind of homesickness – for growing-up times back on long island and for my own days with a backpack – stuffed with textbooks, spirals and new pencils – slung over my shoulder.
i wonder if it is a kind of nostalgia – a yearning – for the times when my children were little, when they picked out new backpacks and pencil cases, gathered their wide-ruled notebooks and glue sticks, colored highlighters and crayons, those days when packing lunches and snacks and waiting for the bus were the defining times of the day.
i wonder if it is the bank of memories i carry – taking my children to college, unpacking into dorm rooms, apartments, toting stuff back and forth, my heart holding dearly to the threads of their childhood while, at the same time, supporting their gossamer winging wings, watching their contrails.
i wonder if it is a kind of longing – a pining for things undone to be done, for things not accomplished to be accomplished, for summer dreams to extend beyond the setting summer sun.
autumn rises and i feel invigorated. these are new times. there is new possibility. i have no idea what is coming but this rising autumnal sun is full of golden light.
golden. light. and my old boots are waiting by the back door.
“the sun shines not on us, but in us.” (john muir)
“follow me where i go, what i do and who i know. make it part of you to be a part of me. follow me up and down, all the way and all around. take my hand and say you’ll follow me.”
“you see I’d like to share my life with you and show you things i’ve seen. places that i’m going to, places where i’ve been. to have you there beside me, to never be alone. and all the time that you’re with me, we will be at home…” (john denver)
the first time i saw the rockies i was 18. i was in the backseat of my mom and dad’s dodge and they took my breath away. i was changed – those mountains stayed a part of me.
so when it was that he was from there, it just seemed right. our path now includes going there fairly regularly and always a desire to be there more and more, to return and return, to linger. those mountains…it’s that john muir quote: “the mountains are calling and i must go.”
there will be a day soon he will follow me to long island. we’ll go to the regular haunts. we’ll bring sage with us and, having lost them forty-five years ago, i’ll take those places back. and he will be there. with me. our path will take us to the beach and to the harbor, maybe out on the sound, definitely past my old house. we’ve been there together before – because we have followed each other – taking turns leading the way – for over a decade now.
“…take my hand and I will follow you.“ (j.d.)
the path through the john denver sanctuary in aspen leads past boulders of lyrics. we amble our way through, choosing to be slow. we have returned here. we will return again and again.
“come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops, sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars…”(j.d.)
we have danced in places noisy and places quiet. we have danced in places with music and without. we have waltzed on our deck, in our kitchen and on dusty dirt trails. we have carried the wind with us and discovered stars on the horizon we had not noticed before. the path winds and makes unexpected turns. laughing and crying turns. and we trust it together.
“you fill up my senses like a night in the forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. you fill up my senses, come fill me again.”(j.d.)
and we tell tales of the times we did not share together, the stories of before. sometimes we tell them over and over. they don’t get old. they are the pieces that made up who we met eleven years ago. two weeks after the day we first set eyes on each other, he came back – to see if it had really happened. sometimes you have to see home more than once to believe it.
“this is my autograph…here in the songs that i sing, here in my cry and my laugh, here in the love that i bring. to be always with you…and you always with me.”(j.d.)
and each path now – in the simple times and in the fancy times – we’ll hold hands or link arms, we’ll dance, we’ll lead, we’ll follow.
lake michigan – and its looming presence – it’s always there, though sometimes we don’t notice.
i’ve been around water my whole life: long island and florida and here. i’m not sure if i have thought about what that means to me. i’ve lived most of life at or around sea level. i have always been able to – via a short walk, short bike hike, short drive – get to a large body of water. and, regardless of whether or not i am on the shore of that immensity, i can feel it.
the last few days have pulled me out of center – whatever center i have mustered in recent times. in the middle of the middle i can’t feel the grounding gravity that usually helps – perspective that keeps the rest at bay. i know the flailing time is limited and that we are not trapped there. adrift in the onslaught of emotion, i tune in to the things that balance me. i listen for the windchimes outside, i stand in the living room and look at the lit trees, i sit at the kitchen table opposite d, we take hikes in cold air, we light a candle.
i fend off the pining for the high mountains, knowing i can’t get there right now. in guided imagery i sit at the side of the brook – on a log – in the lodgepole pine forest – high on the mountain. i – curiously – am never on the shore – of rock or of sand.
have i always taken the water for granted? do i take this presence – merely a block away – for granted? is it human to pine for the things we don’t have, things that are harder to access?
yet, if i imagine being away from the water – any water – i have a visceral reaction. for it’s always been there and i hardly know what it would feel like without it.
the days i have sat on the coast – sandy beach beneath me – i can feel the deep breath that powerful surf affords.
the days we have hiked streamside up the mountain, the days we have sat on its bank or on rocks in the middle of rushing water – i can feel the the deep breath that the flow affords.
the days we hike along our favorite local trail – river at our side – i can feel the deep breath that its familiarity in all seasons affords.
the days we choose to walk by the lake – on its bouldered shoreline or on its beaches – i can feel the deep breath that an unbroken horizon affords.
and the water – the innate healer – is always there. grounding.
“take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of nature you may renew your own. go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.” (john muir)
“the sun shines not on us but in us. the rivers flow not past, but through us. thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. the trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.” (john muir)
there have been moments – holy and glorious moments – when i remember that i am, yes, one with nature. i am no more or less a part of the whole than the heart-leaf on the side of the trail, no more or less a part of the whole than the rocks on the beach, no more or less a part of the whole than the cloud as it floats by. and i remember that in my tiny-ness – within the vastness – i could just as easily have been the energy of the leaf or the rock or the cloud.
“how will you spend your time?” asked the thru-hiker at the end of the trail. mary oliver asks the same, “what will you do with your one precious life?”
i realize – in these sacred and suspended moments when i can feel the threads of soul connect me to the trees, to the living plants, to the creatures – that i am, perhaps, spending too much time in worry.
it was torrential. for hours. we didn’t know it, but we weren’t the only ones having issues. all over our town, there was flooding. streets, houses, basements, the water was incessant and drainage wasn’t keeping up.
it’s not like we don’t need rain. we do. but the intense downpours aren’t helpful. residents ended up without power, with too much water and without water (ironically).
this is a time of intensity. it seems that every weather system, every environmental concern, brings an amped-up version of itself. it’s not just a little windy. it’s a derecho. it’s not just a bit dry. it’s on fire. it’s not just a soft rain. it’s a deluge. it’s not just a storm. it’s historic. it’s not just endangered. it’s extinction.
and we’re not the only ones.
right after we chose this image for our blogposts, i started humming lowen and navarro’s “if i was the rain“, an utterly debilitatingly beautiful song.
and so i think about how it would be – to be the rain.
“if i was the rain… i’d fall between the fireflies; i’d never dampen any light.”
yes. how i’d be careful not to dim the brilliance of others.
“i’d strike a chord within each heart, wherever they were torn apart. and if that helped them heal themselves, maybe we’d find out where forgiveness starts.”
yes. how i’d be aware of washing away old hurts, bringing a flowing river to all.
“if i was the rain, i’d choose forever to remain. i’d add a sparkle to the night and marvel at the morning bright.”
yes. how ever-present, a single drop of rain. ever-mindful of vast goodness, of perspective, of eternal gratitude.
“if i was the rain i’d bless each blossom to unfold and i’d turn each one of them to gold.”
yes. how to feed every last thing with the best nourishment, water to grow, dreams to flourish. nurturing. giving to. not taking from.
“if i was the rain. if i was the rain.”
but i’m not. and there are changes happening. and the weather is intensifying. and we – as humans on this good earth – have choices to make.
the things we will decide will affect the rain. and the rain will affect us.
and we’re not the only ones.
“when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” (john muir)
and then, eric lowen performed it one last time, “if i was the rain, if i was the rain.”
one mention of jack-in-the-pulpit and i was back at blydenburgh park in smithtown. it didn’t take much to find myself in the woods, hiking along the nissequogue river, by the pond. camera in hand, early spring, looking for the earlybirds of the season. jack-in-the-pulpit didn’t disappoint, flowering shortly after my birthday, spotted on muddy hikes on brisk days.
i remember bike-hiking there, with susan. i just googled it and the county park was only 6.6 miles from my growing-up house. we would ride bikes everywhere. our destination of choice – most of the time – was crab meadow beach, but you know that. even in the winter, when handlebar-turned-down-10-speeds were impossible, my trusty little bug would get me there, to that beach. i would walk and walk and walk. the shoreline is a good place to think, to grow, sandy step by sandy step.
last friday – as it approached the end of the workday – we looked at each other. “fridaynightdatenight,” we tossed into the kitchen. as the hour wore on, we pondered what to do – on this datenight. an iffy-weather day, we didn’t bundle up late afternoon for a hike or even a walk. we were looking forward to making a big stockpot of soup, glass of wine in hand. we have three books we are mutually reading. we are binge-watching new amsterdam. dogga was at our feet in the kitchen. it was a cozy fridaynight.
the next day we hiked. because we really do love to be outside on a trail.
and the more i hike, the more i remember hiking.
but somewhere along the way, i stopped.
i didn’t hike. i didn’t take long walks.
and i am somewhat astounded to think about that now.
but not everyone likes to be on a trail or even a sidewalk, for that matter. not everyone likes to merely take-a-walk in the company of someone they love.
i didn’t realize how much i missed blydenburgh park and crab meadow beach and millneck manor and planting fields arboretum and smith’s point park and hoyt farm nature preserve – places so very familiar to me because i walked them – again and again – until i started memorizing the des plaines river trail and the van patten woods and bristol woods and allendale sidewalks along the lakefront.
that’s when i realized how much i had missed, how much each step on trails feeds me – nearby, or in the high mountains of colorado or the smoky mountains of north carolina, along the easternmost long island beaches or in the woods of upstate ny state parks or in the red rock of utah.
the trees were submerged in the river; there had been some mild flooding. i know these trees. we’ve watched them through seasons on saturdaydatehikes or latemondaytuesdaywednesdaythursdayafternoondatenights. we’ve attached to this trail and it feels as if it remembers us as we pass along it. soon, i think i’ll look for jack-in-the-pulpit, just in case. it would likely bloom later here than in blydenburgh park. spring is later here.
as i bent way down, camera in hand, to shoot through the mulch at the river, i was transported back to that suffolk county park, camera always in hand. and it made me think about all the years i had not stepped foot on a trail, had not walked-until-blisters, had not watched the water rise and fall on rivertrees or glimpsed jack-in-the-pulpit in the underbrush.
i wonder about what those decades of trails would have looked like, what mountains i may or may not have climbed, what roiling rivers i might have entered or not entered, what out-of-breath conversations would have taken place, what problems sorted, what challenges summited, what decisions made, what disasters averted, what center might have been out there, what wisdom trails may have gifted me, what might be different.
“in every walk of nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” (john muir)
i’m glad to have found my way back.
walks of nature.
blydenburgh park is 898 miles from here. crab meadow beach is 908. smith’s point park is 924. upstate new york around 1000. the smoky mountains are 739. the high mountains of colorado are 1237. moab et al is 1511. all on the list of places to return to. places to hike, to walk.
but bristol woods is 13 miles and the des plaines river trail is 12. and either of those is a worthy handinhand fridaynightdatenight.
“when i am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness.i would almost say that they save me, and daily.” (mary oliver *when i am among the trees)
which is why we walk in the woods.
“i am so distant from the hope of myself, in which i have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.”(mary oliver *)
which is why we walk in the woods.
“around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out,“stay awhile.” the light flows from their branches. and they call again,“it’s simple,”they say,“and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”(mary oliver *)
which is why we walk in the woods.
and this day – the day of this trail – we hiked the familiar, listening to the greetings of trees who knew us, remembered us. it was comforting and, though they were silent but for the rustling high above us, they rained down the last of their leaves on us, like a ticket-tape parade.
which is why we walk in the woods.
“trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!”(john muir)
we leave a bit of worry behind in each step. we will retrieve them later, all the bits. we dream and wonder and walk under the canopy of these giants that stay with us, tuck us in, give us pause. we shuffle our feet through fallen fall and draw in long breaths of musky leaves piling around the underbrush.
which is why we walk in the woods.
“between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” (john muir)
and between every two oaks and every two maples and every two hickories and every two ash and every two cottonwoods and every two elms and every two willows…doorways. “it’s simple,” they say.
the birthday of my big brother passed quietly. he would have been 72. as always, it was a day fraught with a mix of sadness and memory, a recipe for some light-stepping, a sobering reminder that the things i was angsting about that day – and there were many – were truly of little consequence.
the river trail greeted us at the end of day. we needed a walk in the woods.
“i only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, i found, was really going in.” (john muir)
our breathing slowed down, despite our best efforts to bring the layers of anxiety with us. it would be better to just be silent, i thought to myself.
nature hung up prayer flags on our route and i’m now sure that i should have hung prayers on each one. i think that is why they are there…to mark each and every soul on this good planet, alive or floating…to give us a place to put our worries, like a clothesline of hopeful…to take our breath away with color and life.
the officer was in the parking lot as we approached littlebabyscion. somehow the sun had fallen all the way past the horizon while we were on the outskirts of the trail and darkness filled in the gaps. we know the trail well and kept hiking, followed the baby fox for a bit and, then, the sounds of wildlife in the forest accompanied us the rest of the way. he told us that others might have cited us for being there past sundown. but he didn’t. we thanked him and apologized, saying it was a surprise how quickly light became dark, how we had become lost in time.
i’m sure that the prayer flag leaves clapped, fuchsia burst into laughter, green grinned. the woods – the sundown – had done their jobs well.
reverse threading 