Woods Wanderer

I drove to Mt. Philo the other day on impulse, after running errands in Burlington.  I figured the remnant snow on the access road leading to the summit would give my legs a good workout.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Although the punky snow wasn’t more than a few inches deep, climbing the foothill was like climbing a giant sand dune.  Yeah, a good workout.

A strong March wind tossed the trees back and forth while I hiked.  The chill of it glazed my eyes with tears.  I walked with my head down for the most part, lost in the abstractions I had been writing about earlier that day, along with the sobering financial news that had streamed over the radio during the drive.  Only my own heavy breathing kept me linked to the here and now – that and my goofy dog, Matika, running back and forth as fast as she could, all smiles.

Towards the top of Mt. Philo, a pileated woodpecker cried out loud and clear, wrenching me from my thoughts.  I stopped to listen more intently but it didn’t cry out again.  Strange silence.  Only the sound of roaring wind.  Then I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and, sure enough, there was the silhouette of that pointy-headed bird etched against the gray sky.  It clung to a dying birch for a second or two then disappeared, making me wonder if I’d actually seen it at all.  I finished my hike to the summit, temporarily loosing sight of surrounding trees to a thickening fog.

What is important – the human condition, a drop in the Dow, or the brief glimpse of a woodpecker on a misty day?  Perhaps none of it is.  Perhaps the smile on my dog’s face, a bone-chilling wind, and my own sweat-soaked shirt is all that matters.

I gazed across the Champlain Valley from a lookout atop Mt. Philo for a short while before finishing the hike, slip-sliding back down the car.  Halfway down the hill, I heard the woodpecker again.  One call to greet me, the other to say goodbye.  I stopped and turned in the general direction of the call but saw nothing.  So much the better.  That way it melded into my abstractions and stayed with me the rest of the day.

It’s hard to say whether the current downturn in the global economy will end soon or continue for years to come.  I don’t know where all my philosophical abstractions will take me, either.  But this I do know:  the wind will blow through trees, dogs will romp in snow, and woodpeckers will call out long after I’m dead and gone.  Maybe I should focus on that.

Tags: awareness, hiking with dogs, reflection

Midday.  Matika and I stretch our legs.  There’s a light flurry of snow falling, which is probably why we have the hill all to ourselves today.  The forest is mostly shades of brown and gray.  Matika cavorts about the open woods, looking for a chipmunk or squirrel to terrorize.  She occasionally finds one rummaging about the leaves.  I ignore her for the most part as I amble up the trail.

Halfway up the hill, I detour to the lookout for a quick view of St. Albans.  The town sprawls before me like a model railroad layout.  The collective hum of cars coming and going contradicts the stillness of the greater panorama.  Beyond the edge of town, farm fields and woodlots stretch to Lake Champlain and its islands.  Beyond the lake, mountains rise into low clouds.  A squall to the west blocks the northernmost edge of the Adirondacks from view.  The cold wind brings tears to my eyes.  I turn away from the lookout and slip deeper into the woods.

While climbing the last rise to the summit, I wonder how many more times I’ll hike this hill before I tire of it.  There’s no way to know, of course.  There’s only this eternal present.  Deep in it now, I realize that I come here more for a sense of perspective than anything else – a quick fix of the wild when I haven’t the time or inclination to drive an hour or so to the mountains.  A week, a day, or only an hour in the woods, I take what I can get.

I cross over the summit ridge, then catch the view eastward from the nearby ski slope.  More cars race along the interstate below.  I turn away, deliberately cutting my pace to make the downhill half of the hike last as long as possible.  I have work to do but am in no big hurry to get back to it.  Matika chases a squirrel up a tree.  I call her back to my side.

On the way back to the car, I pass the remnant of an old, dead tree still protruding twenty feet into the air.  I’ve been passing it for years and can’t help but wonder when it’ll come down.  Someday it’ll drop.  It’s just a matter of time.  Chances are good that I won’t be walking past it when it does, yet fallen trees litter the forest floor.

It seems like everything is a function of time and scale.   “Time is cheap and rather insignificant,” Thoreau once wrote in his journals, “It matters not whether it is a river which changes from side to side in a geological period or an eel that wriggles past in an instant.”  A walk in the woods, even a short one like this, drives this point home.

The roof of my house is visible from the lookout on the hill.  So is the cluster of buildings downtown where I run my errands.  The better part of my life is visible from up there, though I rarely think about it as I go about my daily affairs.  Someday I’m going to sit up there and ponder things for hours on end, or so I keep telling myself.  But I can never sit at that lookout more than twenty minutes before growing restless, thinking about all the things I should be doing.  That, I find, is the essential paradox of a good view.

Tags: reflection, time, Vermont, walking

A couple weeks ago, I stood beneath the old maple tree in my back yard amid a shower of leaves.  A steady breeze coming on the heels of a hard frost was doing the trick.  My old maple is one of the last trees to give up its leaves.  On that day it relented.  The sun was shining through a partly cloudy sky and each leaf shouted orange as it tumbled to the ground.  Hundreds, thousands of leaves rained down.  I was certain that the tree would be naked the next day.  But a tight cluster of leaves in the top left quarter of it refused to budge.

I looked up once while raking yesterday to see how many leaves were still clinging there.  Remarkably, the tree was clear of them.  Can’t say when exactly the last few leaves came down.  I missed that show.  But as I raked it occurred to me that “stick season” had arrived in Vermont as it usually does, without fanfare.  And winter is right around the corner.  I raked for a couple hours, then went inside to warm up as the faintest flurry of snow fell from the dark gray clouds overhead.

When my wife and I drove to Montpelier the other day, fresh snow blanketed the mountains and a dusting of it covered the grass on both sides of the highway.  The landscape all around us was a pitching sea of naked trees.  It was easy to imagine happy hunters creeping through them.  A little higher up, the earliest skiers will be at it soon, if they aren’t already.

There are no big snowstorms in the forecast, but every Vermonter knows they’re coming.  Winter in this part of the world is like that.  Although it gives plenty of advance warning to those of us paying close attention, it still shows up one day like an uninvited guest.  Sometimes that guest goes away for a few weeks then comes back.  Sometimes it stays until spring.  Either way, it pays to be ready.

I’ve insulated my house, brought in my outdoor planters, and dug out my snow shovels.  My winter boots are handy, as are my winter clothes.  Already my thoughts have turned inward as they usually do this time of year.  Winter is the best season for pondering philosophical matters.  It’s easy to read, write and think when the days are short and the windows have frosted over.  I used to hate winter but now I look forward to it.  I get a lot of literary work done when the snow flies.

I’ll gather up a few more bags of leaves later on today then put away my rake.  If there’s time afterward, I’ll go for a long walk with my dog through nearby sticks just to listen to the clatter of branches against each other in the late autumn wind.  That’s a sound easy to hear when the leaves are down.

A couple days ago, a diehard pansy was still flowering in the corner of my garden.  Now it’s gone.  I’m stocking up on root vegetables and planning meals that call for them.  Best not to fight it.  Best to smile at the 4:30 sundown, fully aware of the implication.  The geese have headed south and the leaves are all on the ground.  Dull brown, dry and crinkled, fallen leaves used to sadden me, but not any more.  Now they look magnificent.  They clearly illustrate nature’s endless cycle of growth and decay.  They show the circle completed.

Tags: nature, reflection, Vermont

Yesterday I went for a long walk shortly after the sun rose.  The air was crisp and cool, and a golden glow permeated everything.  My dog sniffed along the grassy edges as I followed a stone path cutting through the woods.  I reveled in the dryleaf smell of early fall, as delightful in its own way as the smell of lilies in spring.  The surrounding forest was more brown than green.  Blue and white asters flowered in the ditches along the path. Crimson sumac, purplish grapevines, bright orange maple leaves and yellowing birches — this time of year, every color seems to have its day.  Change is in the air.

Spring used to be my favorite season but now it’s autumn.  I still enjoy that great thaw early in the year, when the world comes alive again, but I identify more with autumn as I grow older.  It seems more in keeping with the sensibilities of late middle-age.  In my fifties now, I see in the world around me a quiet, mature beauty that is easy to miss – more bittersweet than sweet.  One has to pay careful attention to catch it amid the sudden burst brilliant fall foliage.

Autumn is the perfect time of year for reflection.  Gone are the stinky thoughts of late winter, the jubilant rebirth of springtime, and the long daydreams of summer.  These are the days when thoughts easily sharpen to fine points, when memory and idea converge into insight with the least amount of difficulty.  These are the days when one’s mind clears with minimal effort, even as a thin haze hangs over waterways and among wooded hills.

America is a culture obsessed with youth and newness.  If you have any doubts about this, just turn on your television or visit a nearby shopping mall.  There is little room in it for subtle beauty, nuance or reflection.  All eyes are drawn towards what is now, hip and wow.  That is why we like our loud guitars, techie toys and anything that flashes or shines.   Consequently, we begin the fall season with a flurry of back-to-school spending, then end it with holiday plans.  Between there is little time for much more than a few snapshots of peaking leaf color.  The rest of the season is a blur.  We are busy, busy.

Then comes the harvest.  Other day, one of my grandchildren told me that he’s going to be the Grim Reaper for Halloween.  I had to laugh.  The thought of a vibrant eight-year-old playing the part of Death struck me as absurd – the perfect symbol for the clash of image and reality in our time.  He has no idea what death is, of course.  But I do.  Perhaps that is why I find this time of year so precious, so bittersweet.  The days are getting shorter, darkness is closing in, and the hard edge of winter is not far away.  Traditionally, it’s time to bring in the harvest, hunker down for the lean months ahead, and keep the Reaper at bay.

With the hint of death lurking in the corner of my eye, I cut my pace.  I slowly ambled along the path, trying to take in as much of nature’s sights, sounds and smells as possible before going about my daily affairs.  I, too, am busy.  But I stopped running long enough to take in the broader view.

Today I’ll make it a point to look up when a V of geese honks high overhead.  Maybe I’ll cut some flowers from my garden and carry them inside before a hard frost strikes.  Maybe I’ll go for another shirtsleeve walk while I still can.  After all, these golden days are fleeting.  The snow will fly before any of us are completely ready for it.  There is no time to waste.

Tags: change, death, reflection, walking