Back To Basic

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived"
— Henry David Thoreau

And so it was that I returned to the trail for some peace and tranquility today… it never fails to do the trick. Immediately, four dappled Dalmatians tugging at their pair of chatty lady friends greet me. And just ahead of them, three cheerfully colored children dragging mommy along.

It takes a bit for the chatter in my head to shut up, for the noise to subside and give space to that inner voice that always surfaces out here… eventually.

Gone is the green canopy of warmer months. The trail is more harshly lit than before – during the intense heat of a bygone season the canopy always secured a moist, secluded shade – and left behind is its black skeleton twisting starkly against the bright-blue sky.

The following are my impressions from my last visit…

Ode to Summer

I’m out there again. At first, there is silence. The start is slow as I carry so much baggage; refuse from the day is piled high on my shoulders. All I can hear are crickets, those ever-present noisemakers singing incessantly of some romantic escapade or other.

Everywhere, I notice little lines criss-crossing the bottom of the trail, which is softer than usual from the recent rain. It looks like someone pressed crumpled paper onto the soft clay, then pulled it up leaving a wrinkled face behind. I wonder at this for some time and cannot figure out what might have caused it. Then I see the earthworm wriggling across the trail, and it becomes clear. But how many millions of worms did it take to cause such a mesh, busier than a city street map? Little earthworm street maps telling of where they’ve been, though not where they’re headed.

Tiny airplanes whistle by my ears, mosquito fly-by attempts on my face to be contended with constantly. Moisture rises from the damp dirt, drying itself off after the rainstorms of late. The air is full of that after-shower smell, brown and heavy. Startling orange mushrooms shine up from the banks of the pond.

Little by little, the load melts away. The wearier my body gets, the clearer my head, freeing up thoughts to frolic in the wide meadows of my mind.

That’s when I hear it. The multi-tonality of the cricket song starts dividing, as if vibrating on separate frequencies. It’s a little like Tuvan throat singing. The forest starts speaking to me. I hear songs of longing and lust, of love and loneliness. In the song of the crickets, I hear my own voice from inside, speaking to me clearly and calmly.

I listen and breathe.