Autumn walk
The leaves are crunching underfoot as I make my way down the path. It’s December, but in this forest you could be mistaken for believing it’s early autumn. I can feel the sun’s warmth on my face, but it’s broken by the small blasts of cold air that announce themselves from the beech and oak leaves above me. I shiver and pull my hat down a bit further, erasing all trace of my hair. It may be warm for this time of year, but we had substantial drop in temperatures from yesterday, so everyone else has decided they’d rather not go out. I on the other hand, promptly indulged by putting on my flannel and hat before venturing here. I hope I don’t meet anyone else, not because I don’t want to, but I need this time to think, this space, without implicit pressure from others.
I kick up some leaves as I walk. We have a mix of trees around me, the only green ones remaining being the tall pines. Yet everything adjacent here is simply oak. Further north it’s the beeches that hang on through the winter, but down here the oaks dominate, turning the canopies a mix of green and brown, with the earth below an exercise in creating dulled color palettes. Some of them start swirling up, as if to include the sky in their mix, but settle back down soon after. I always love this time, even if it is arriving later than it should. But I guess I have to get used to it now, right? This is what scientists keep saying to expect, where snow will become a rare occurrence in places it used to just be uncommon. I think for a majority of the world, the term “winter” will eventually come to simply refer to the time when we have less sunlight instead of indicating cooler weather. It’s depressing. But if there’s anything I’ve come to realize, it’s that money wins in our society, and without it there’s very little we can actually do when we’re trying to hold our own.
That’s why I’ve come out, here, without any judgment or harbingers of doom being flung at my mind every few minutes. I can walk as I want and have the space to myself to think, process, and muse. If it was summer, I’d be melting on this wide path, but now the sun never really crests the canopies above me. Light streams through the trunks down to me, filtering itself through the hanging oak leaves. As I walk, I scan the forest on either side on the off-chance I’ll see something. But, it’s much harder when the only animals around are the same color as their surroundings now. Squirrels and deer have changed from the visually conspicuous to the audial. I might see the possum I once witnessed ambling along, much larger than I had ever seen another one, but I’m not holding my breath. I know there are some foxes around, but they like to keep to themselves. I don’t blame them.
This morning before I left, I came across a video of a bear cub trying to catch snowflakes in a place far away from here. It stopped me, watching something so young playing with an – admittedly personified – awe of the world. It reminded me of a similar thing I’d seen before. It was fall as well but in a northern region, and the apples had become ripe on the trees. I was enthralled; it was the first time I had ever seen apple trees growing outside of orchards, and to me these apples were the best I had ever tasted. Yet even as I searched for my own trees I could reach, I discovered the black bears were doing the same to the extent that one day, we came across one in a tree that didn’t seem like it could support the bear’s weight. But there it was, about 5 feet up, munching on the branches full of apples. It was a time I felt as if I had some kind of connection to this world we belong in.
I haven’t felt that in a while now. Even as my work revolves around forests, my life does not. Here, leaves are raked, blown, and moved so the world can look perversely manicured. Success is measured by metrics on a computer instead of increased awareness and connections. Life now is a cacophony of problems we can’t avoid, and even walking in the forest, which I once thought was the most boring activity I could think of when I was younger, is scarcely able to occur without guilt washing over me for not continuing my work. I used to have a connection. I’ve had times when due to isolation, I’ve been forced to take things slowly. At first I resisted, hard. But over time I became used to it, and looked forward to it. Now, I wonder if I’m ever going to have that again.
My thoughts have overwhelmed me while meandering over the leaves, and I realize I’ve about reached my turnaround point at this transition from path to trail even though I could easily keep walking and not look back. I stop and look behind me, thankfully seeing no one. Ahead the forest grows denser, but with the lack of leaves it’s not quite as uninviting as the summer garden of mosquitoes. I hear the remnant leaves announcing another breeze, and look up at the trees to see them dancing above. As they finish their number, I resolve with myself to return, then stop. There was a rustling directly nearby. I quickly scan but see no obvious movement, so I wait. There it is again! This time I pinpoint it, emanating near my boots. I crouch down to see, and suddenly the shape pops out at me from the earthy palette: a terrapin. A small one, making its way toward the cover of the forest. I smile, glad to see an appearance, and it reminds me of another forest, with another terrapin. That one was blind, from some reason we could never determine. Yet still it went, and we saw it multiple times over the course of a few months. A not-insignificant part of me wants to follow this one for a while to see where it goes. Perhaps there’s a lake nearby I’ve not seen, or I’ll discover a new path through these trees worn not by us.
But I know I can’t. All I can do is thank the small one for making an appearance and hope it stays safe.
I stand back up and take a deep breath. It’s time to return.
