Wherein I wander off and have some adventures.

I disappeared into the woods today. Some state land that is surprisingly close by the city. I really needed some tree time, some time away from people, and people’s things. I was also hoping to collect some pine resin, for use in incense making, and possibly crafting. I knew where to look, and I found trees that had been damaged weeping pine sap down their sides. I used my knife to pry it up and almost immediately I sliced into my hand.

I’m bleeding there in the woods and it’s a squirter. Pine sap forgotten, I’m dripping blood, and I’m so happy I have bandages in my bag. Some compression, elevation, and a little water to clean myself up and things are back from the little brink of panic. I decide to keep wandering, since the bleeding has stopped and I’m glad I did. I find lots of resin after that, and I’m more prepared for how it pops off the tree more easily than I thought it would. In the spring, sap is still soft. Lesson learned.

I go past the river, taking photos as I go, thinking about composition and light. Andrew Wyeth’s words ring in my mind. “It’s got to be abstracted through your vision, your mind. It’s a process of going through detail in order eventually to obtain simplification.” Everything looks like an abstract painting in high contrast. The sun is fairly high in the sky at this point. There’s a little side path where I know some pretty mosses and ferns live, so I go up it. It seems like the woods are not as far along the spring path as the people plants.

At home the daffodils are fading and the lilacs will bloom soon, but as far as I can tell, not much has bloomed yet. I see bulbs, wood lillies, geraniums, and may apples, but none are close to blooming yet.

I am slowly exploring all the paths. Each time I come I go a little farther on my chosen path, carefully noting landmarks so I don’t get lost. An especially greened up swampy area, a tree with a dandelion growing just so in the moss at it’s base. Stay always to the right, or to the left. I discover a new swamp, and a pair a nesting ducks on a narrow path that seems mostly abandoned. I think I would have kept walking until it was dark, but my husband texted me, woke me up. I realized I was hungry, and that I needed to pee. I turn around and carefully retrace my steps back to the car.

Past the river, almost to the car, I hear them before I see them. Overly loud male voices, happily hollering to each other about hooks and fish. Up ahead they are fishing in the the beaver’s pond. I walk steadily toward them and when I am about 2 feet away, one sees me. He shrieks and jumps. Tells me he didn’t see me. The second one laughs at the first and I smile and keep walking. As I approach the third he sees me as well. He shrieks too. At this point I wonder if I’ve turned into some sort of spirit or something, I look down, and admittedly, I am wearing brown pants, and a green jacket and shirt. Maybe I was camouflaged.

What I don’t realize until later, when I’m driving home again, is how present in the moment I was. How easy it is to silence the inner voices when I’m there. The dialog and stories I tell myself throughout my days are unneeded when there’s the world to converse with. It’s only when my internal words turn back on that I notice they were gone at all. I think about how I walk through the woods, the quiet and the birdsong. How you can learn to move slowly and carefully so the animals don’t mind you so much. Maybe for a moment, I was simply a part of the woods, connected and at home. Maybe I was a spirit of the forest come to haunt those young men. To share a little of the deeper woods with them.