Woods Wanderer

After weeks of alternating rain and sunshine, the grass is a fuller, deeper green than it’s been in six months.  But that’s not what’s captured my attention lately.  Not really.  I am awestruck by the leaf-out all around me – in the bushes, in the trees, and across the forest floor.  It is so sudden and overwhelming that I find it difficult to think of anything else when my eyes fall upon it.  And yes, it feels sudden, even though I had all of April to anticipate it.  Nothing could have prepared me for this kind of green, even though I’ve seen it fifty times before.

Vernal green, Kelly green, the green of a living landscape long since dormant and springing to action.  Wizard of Oz green – a brown and gray world bursting into Technicolor vitality overnight, too green to be real.  I first noticed the green unfurling while running my dog a week or so ago.  A maple leaf no bigger than my thumb rolled out of its bud and yawned.  All I could do was stand there amazed by it.  But now I’ve gone beyond that even.  Now I’m completely overwhelmed.

What kind of world is this, anyway?  How can there be so much green where there was only bleached forest detritus, dark mud and naked branches only a few weeks ago?  I go about my daily affairs the best I can, but all this green distracts me.  I fight back the urge to cast off my clothes and dance through the lilies like some feral naturist drunk on life.  I make a list for the day, look at my watch and pretend that I have it all under control.  But this green unfurling is making mincemeat of my reasoning powers.

Every other day is built around a stint of woods wandering, however brief.  The rest of my life is just some kind of muddling through, a sleepwalk of sorts, full of numbers, ideas and other abstractions.  Head down I start my walks.  Five or ten minutes into them, I look up and see the luminescent green.  Then and only then am I fully aware of being alive.  And my first impression is always the same:  This remarkable world is too beautiful for me to run roughshod over it the way I do.  What was I thinking?

But enough blather already.  A cardinal calls me out even as I write this.  I’ve gotta go.  And maybe, just maybe, after I’ve seen enough songbirds and wildflowers amid the green, I’ll be able to get something constructive done today.  Not that it matters.  Life needs no excuse to exist.  In that regard, I am no exception to the rule.

Tags: awareness, existence, springtime, vernal green, wild nature

After a short but intense round of writing this morning, I pulled on my hiking boots and shot out the door.  I couldn’t get to the woods fast enough.  I parked my car at the trailhead then hiked hard towards one of my favorite haunts.  There I found the objects of my desire: wildflowers of all sorts in bloom.  I found wild ginger, marsh marigolds, blue violets and various others on full display.  But the wild lilies are what really got my attention.

I dropped down on one knee next to a mixed patch of them – white and purple trilliums, trout lilies and bellwort – touching the flowers to make sure they were real.  I was astounded by their abundance. The unseasonable warmth that has graced Vermont during the past few days has brought them out a bit earlier than usual.  I enjoyed their elegance – how something so simple could be so beautiful.  I marveled at their unbroken symmetries – triads of petals and sepals convincing me that there’s a force in nature greater than myself.  Then I stepped away to continue my hike.

The daystar burned brightly overhead even as clouds gathered on the western horizon.  I smelled rain, so I turned around and hiked back to the car.  I saw two marsh hawks circling low over wetlands.  Suddenly robins appeared everywhere.  Splotches of green mottled the forested hills in the distance.  Matika panted heavily at my side, and I soaked my t-shirt with sweat as if it was summer.  I spotted more wildflowers here and there along the trail, but my head remained full of wild lilies.  Once they spring up there, it’s hard to get them out.

It makes perfect sense to me that lilies are associated with everlasting life.  That such life forms should suddenly emerge from the cold, dark earth is proof positive that chaos does not reign supreme in this world.  I find it difficult to behold wild lilies without lapsing into mysticism or waxing sentimental.

Give me a bouquet of lilies on my deathbed and I will pass away assured of something more than oblivion.  Until that day I will wander among them whenever I can, worshiping their Creator and rejoicing in the eternal renewal that is spring.  I’m a madman, I admit – mad with the simple pleasures of an infinitely varied world.  Whenever wild lilies are in bloom, nature does not disappoint.

Tags: hiking, spirituality, springtime, wildflowers

I went into the mountains earlier this week to spend the night – just me and my dog, Matika.  I hiked a logging road uphill for a half hour, then followed a small stream a quarter mile to a favorite camp spot.  At 1500 feet, a few patches of snow still lingered in the woods.  Although some furled leaves pushed through the forest floor, no flowers bloomed at that elevation.  That’s okay.  I hadn’t come to botanize.

In early spring, I don’t expect much.  But I do expect to enjoy a long, meditative evening feeding sticks into a campfire.  With that in mind, I gathered wood shortly after setting up camp.  But it was still too early in the day to start a fire, so I went fishing for a while.

I broke out my fly rod and retraced my steps back to where I’d seen a brand new beaver pond.  Figured that would be a good place to start.  I flipped my line into the pond and every quiet run or deep pool I could find while working my way upstream, but no trout rose to my offerings.  That’s okay.  I hadn’t come to fish.  Not really.

By the time I returned to camp, I was ready to start a fire.  I crumpled a little birch bark and built a small tipi of sticks around it.  But a dry wind blew down the mountain, kicking up leaves all around me.  Hmm…  My wood pile, the leaves, the surrounding forest – everything was very dry.  As I put a match to the tipi, I told myself to be very careful.  I had a couple liters of water close at hand just in case.

The parched tinder burst into flames and every stick I added to it burned hot and fast.  I kept the fire small, but had to put out an ignited stray leaf more than once.  Stressful.  I burned just enough wood to boil up a pot of water for dinner, then immediately snuffed out the flames.  So much for campfire meditation.  I donned a sweater as I sat in the chilly woods at twilight, while brooding over this unexpected turn of events.

A gust of wind blew down the mountain with enough force to rattle my tarp.  I fretted about the impending storm as I tied down the tarp edges with more guylines.  Then Matika and I crawled under it.  The wind roared in the distance.  The temperature dropped as the forest grew dark.  I nodded off but awoke around midnight to the sound of sleet hitting the tarp.  Matika groaned.  Several times through course of the night, the wind tugged at the tarp, threatening to pull it from its moorings.  But we awoke at dawn still dry and under cover.  The forest calm at that time seemed rather peculiar.

With very little wind blowing and leaves subdued by dampness, I enjoyed a breakfast campfire well into the morning.  It wasn’t what I had planned, but when you’re in the wild, it’s best just to go with the flow.  During the past 24 hours, Mother Nature had shown me a face I’d never seen before.  I pondered that while sipping coffee and poking at quiet embers.  Twenty-seven years in Vermont woods, you’d think I would have seen it all by now.  But the wild, by definition, can always surprise.

Tags: adversity, camping, springtime, the elements, the wild

Even though I had the house all closed up yesterday morning, I could hear a cardinal singing loud and clear from its treetop perch.  I didn’t dare look out the window because I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the blue sky.  I was hellbent upon getting various literary tasks done before noon, but it seemed rather foolish to write about the natural world while it was springing back to life just beyond my walls.  What would Thoreau do?  Eventually, I stuffed a compass in my pocket, slipped on my hike boots, and headed for the hills.  No doubt my dog, Matika, wondered why it had taken me so long to do so.

After watching a big old turkey crossing the road, I stepped into the woods.  I needed to hear the high-pitched symphony of spring peepers and had in mind a beaver pond where I was sure to find them.  Just before leaving the last semblance of a trail, I spotted coltsfoot in full bloom – not all that unusual in mid-April.  But the spring beauty that I found a few minutes later took me completely by surprise.  A week early, at least.  I dropped down to my knees and snorted the flower as a drug fiend snorts cocaine.  The result was just as narcotic.

I flushed two deer from a streambed while bushwhacking through some brambles.  Matika immediately chased after them but turned around when I called her back.  Good dog (sort of).  We hopped over the stream and continued deeper into the woods, skirting the beaver pond.  Its shimmering waters were clearly visible through the naked trees, but I wanted to reach a favorite spot on the pond’s opposite shore.  That would take some doing.

My passage through the forest wasn’t very direct.  I traveled from one patch of green to another, looking for more signs of the season.  I found a few mottled trout lily leaves springing forth, then stumbled into some fresh leeks.  I chewed a leek just for the sharp sting of it to my palette.  Matika sniffed the tracks of animals that had passed this way recently.  We reached the far side of the pond sooner than expected.

A Canada goose honked as we approached the pond’s marshy shoreline.  There I sat on a fallen tree, with Matika resting by my side, long enough for the peepers to resume their trilling.  They had fallen silent during our approach but started up again once we were quiet and still.  The goose floated closer, honking continuously as if to evict us.  She eventually got her way.  Matika and I moved away after the peeper chorus had sufficiently scrambled my brains.

A few wood frogs croaked from an ephemeral pool that we passed on the way out.  They stopped as soon as I went over to inspect their haunt.  I searched for more wildflowers in bloom but found none.  No matter.  An unblinking sun burned high in the sky and all I could think was this: How lucky I am to be alive on such a beautiful day.  I drove home slowly, very slowly, irritating the other drivers on the road who had places to go and things to do.  Too bad I couldn’t have walked home.  I really shouldn’t have been behind the steering wheel of a car in my condition.

Tags: bushwhacking, Canada geese, hiking with dogs, spring peepers, springtime, wildflowers

Through binoculars I watched a robin singing the other day.  It was the first robin I’d seen or heard this year so it was quite a treat.  My neighbors must have thought I was crazy.  I stood in my back yard at sundown, in flip-flops and a t-shirt despite a chill in the air and the spongy, cold mud beneath my feet.  And in that moment I accepted the obvious:  Spring has come early to Vermont this year.

The birds are back, the remnant snow pile in my front yard has melted away, and the first green shoots of day lilies have broken ground.  More to the point, the sun has been burning brightly through a clear sky for days now, warming up the earth – a long, warm sun, rising an hour after I do in the morning and setting well after dinner.  Such a welcome surprise.  Until that robin appeared, I had been waiting for the next winter storm to bury me in snow.  Am glad to be wrong about that.

For several days running now, Matika and I have been going for long walks.  Judy joined us for one at the beginning of the week, just as the last of the snow was melting from the Rail Trail.  Second day out, I tramped through the woods until my shirt was drenched in sweat.  Atop Aldis Hill, I bent down and grabbed a handful of cold mud just to remind myself what the earth feels like.  It was a handful of joy, pure and simple.

Some folks don’t think it’s spring until the wildflowers bloom in May.  Others grumble until the air temperatures are in the 60s or 70s.  Still others wait impatiently for summer.  I relish each and every day of this, the earth’s great awakening, often leaving my house with binoculars in hand.  I pull on hiking boots whenever I can.  I love sinking into cold mud as I hike and don’t mind the rain when it comes.  Early spring is more gray and brown than green, but that’s all right by me.  My dog, Matika, agrees.  Rain or shine, it’s all good.  And every day another harbinger of spring comes, mocking the bleakness.

After winter’s long sigh, the spring breeze is a godsend.  I feel a sudden surge of happiness as a grackle pulls a worm from the ground.  I didn’t know they ate worms – either that or I forgot.  What other small surprises await me this season?  What other forgotten pleasures will I soon enjoy?

The pursuit of happiness is a fool’s game, I realize.  Happiness usually comes when we least expect it, in commonplace settings, mostly from inconsequential things.  But I’ll be on the lookout for it this spring all the same – the season of renewal rarely disappointing in that regard.  Yeah, it’s all good, if you are as partial to cold mud as I am.  This season is chock full of it.

Tags: moods, seasonal change, songbirds, springtime, walking