The hiking was great. The trail was wide and just rough enough, the terrain was rolling, the woods bare of leaves, pulling the eye deep, revealing its secrets. It wasn’t long before the trail I was on joined up with the Ice Age Trail, a long distance trail that crosses Wisconsin in a wandering manner, tracing the edges of where the glaciers pushed to in the last ice age.
My notebook describes what happened next.
These woods seem monotonous: rolling land of aspen, birch, balsam and the occasional stand of towering pine that were for some reason spared the saw. But, they somehow promise mystery over every ridge, around every hill. They seemed to have a covenant with my feet, a pact to pull me ever further in, and I marched without pause past every point where I meant to turn around. “That pine. That hill. That bend.” I just watch myself walk past them. In fact, it is only the desire to describe this on paper that finally brought me to a stop.
It is strange. If I weren’t out here alone I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. But I can’t deny that every step forward does something to my heart.
Yet, it is only forward I look.
And indeed, even as I sat on the ground, drinking some water and taking a breather, having finally brought myself to a halt, ready to head back, I kept turning my head to look down the trail ahead. I really did want to see what was around that next bend. I got up, left my jacket and backpack on the ground like collateral, and walked down to that next bend. Of course, what was around the next bend was more bends, more hills, more woods that wanted me in. I walked back to my stuff and picked it up off the ground.
It was time to head back. I knew it was. I had walked a good couple miles and was starkly aware that every step forward that I took was another I would have to drag myself out if I broke both my legs.
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I love the photo of the interior of the cabin, how the sunbeams are suspended in mid air. I have the evil twin set to that stainless steel table and the aquamarine vinyl chairs. I’ve held on to that set for years with the purpose of someday having a cabin of my own to put it in. I’ll bet that your family has played a lot of card games around that table and told many tales while sitting there after the plates have been cleared.
As always thanks for sharing your experience with us.
PS - I’m probably crazy, based on the standards you listed. I answer my own questions and laugh at the jokes that I tell myself. The key to happiness is to never go to bed angry with yourself.
Hey dharma bum,
I appreciate your ability to clearly contrast the emotional experience of being in the city vs. the woods. Thanks for sharing the journey with us.
I really enjoyed the way you weaved pictures in with your story. I was curious about how that time away went. I’m also relieved to know that I’m not the only one who worries about pulling myself back with two broken legs and sometimes leaves information back home about where they can find my remains.
Your account of hiking, wanting to go further but knowing inevitably you’d have to turn back, reminded me of a similar experience I had once. I was on my way home from a meeting and I had some time to kill, so I stopped at Wild River State Park for a hike. It was about the same time of year. I thought the trail I was on made a loop and came back, but I went on and on and the trail didn’t seem to be changing direction. The moment I made a decision and committed myself to turning back was somehow a huge emotional release; it surprised me and I couldn’t really explain it.
Your descriptions of solitude, and its unexpected effects, are so vivid. I wonder how long it would take before one got over the tension, the restlessness, or if one could get over it.
The photos show a landscape that is very similar to what I see every day around here! Thanks for sharing your experience so honestly. Oh by the way, I tell myself jokes, and laugh loudly at them, all the time when I’m driving alone.
You know what I think. You got mail, son.
Feel free to cut and paste some of it here, if you want to fatten up the comments section! Not like I said anything that hasn’t been touched on in one way or another by previous commenters…
Anyways, well said. And cheers.
Yr comments about reading too long. Remind me of the times in the santa cruz mountains. Nothing to do. Having to learn to be with only yourself. looking at the same pond for hours. Not needing to find it interesting.
Just as it is.
Dave
It’s pretty cool to get such long and thoughtful responses, thanks everyone. Glad you guys liked it.
I like that I can post things that I don’t think are 100% complete… That are not my usual “style,” (and in fact, that I don’t have to have a usual style), that I can be embarrassingly honest sometimes, and still get such nice things said about what I post.
Cheers.
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[...] Well, I didn’t get a lot of time to write this week, and then I forgot the little bit I did get written at home… So, no “Fiction Friday” today. But, I thought I might just throw out a couple paragraphs I wrote this fall about our cabin and land where I spent that surreal long weekend back in November. It sits on 40 acres. It is one room, maybe 24′ x 12′. There are bunks and a hide-a-bed couch at one end, a woodstove for heat in the middle, and a quasi-kitchen and table at the other end. The ceilings are not seven feet high to conserve heat from the stove. There are cobwebs and dustballs everywhere. When I arrive, a woodrack by the stove is full of big chunks of birch. The main standing tree on the land is birch and for years a couple trees have been occasionally harvested to burn in the stove. It is heavy wood that will burn long once you get it going. [...]