I don’t spend much time in the
past. I don’t wallow in sadness, spend prolonged periods mourning or wishing
things were different. On occasion, though, I find myself thinking of those who
have left this life. It’s only natural. Memories float to me like the
fragrances of wild flowers or the smell of late afternoon shade on a hot summer
day.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about
my Aunt Marijane, who I wrote about in “Will’s Red Coat.”
She comes to mind when I’m
ruminating on something, not so much trying to figure things out, but merely
digesting a turn of events, a new horizon, or a moving experience.
We both had the gift of gab and
could talk for hours several times a week, but we also knew the importance of
listening to each other. It's is one of the reasons our love and friendship
flourished as it did during the time we had together.
What I miss about her is the way
she listened.
Just listened.
She didn’t feel the need to
offer an answer. She didn’t make suggestions. She was present, offering herself
completely to me.
That measure of selflessness is
equal parts wisdom and heart. People who want to know what you are feeling and
thinking, instead of telling you what you are feeling or thinking, or should
be.
Too many listen merely to respond.
Like conversation is a tennis match and you’ve served, and they must return
volley. But what a gift it is to just acknowledge someone, to offer yourself
without judgment, without ego, without the need to be clever.
As we walk in the woods each
morning, and then again each evening, my feet move thoughtfully, like the
prayers I’m uttering. That’s where my answers lay in wait. In silence, through
walking meditation.
One of the attributes about
having a quiet partner to share nature with is an animal's ability to be quiet.
There is communion between us as we share a trail but still space for our
independent thoughts. In the forest, reflections come and go, and before long
we’re merely out there together striding in the natural world while filling our
souls.
Lately, I’ve noticed how Samwise
has matured over the past year. This morning it was evident as we were striding
along an earthen path and came around a bend only to stand face-to-face with a
doe and her fawn. They tensed and readied to leap and bound off. Before they
did, however, I crouched down slowly next to Samwise, who was fully alert, and
I whispered, “Let them be, please. Let’s just watch, okay?”
No leash. No collar. No need for
a hand or a firm voice to restrain him.
He sat next to me; his body was
as ready to spring as theirs were. Yet he stayed still, as did they. When he
relaxed, so did they. Instead of bolting, they lingered before peacefully
meandering on. The fawn, trailing behind her mother, looked back at us curiously
as they moved through the undergrowth. The mother seemed to know we were not a
threat.
These moments of growth serve as
graduation days for Samwise, notches on the wall where I can see how far he’s
come.
Were Marijane still alive and I
told her about this she would offer no explanations or reasons or answers as to
why things occurred as they did in the woods by the stream early in this
morning. She would have taken it in, and we’d talk about it. What’s there to
say, after all? An experience was offered and she received it.
When people ask me what changes
I’ve noted about myself since returning from our trip, I tell them I’m quieter,
more peaceful than I already was. Delving deeper, “I don’t feel the need for
answers as much. I was already feeling that way before the trip but that sense
of experiencing life without having to define it is more prevalent now.”
After Thoreau had died, Emerson
memorialized him. In an essay he wrote: “He resumed his endless walks and
miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature,
though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though very studious
of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science.”
I can relate to Henry in that
way. The science of being isn’t that important to me. I’d rather just be.
In the forest, along paths that
wind through communities of trees in all stages of life, death, and rebirth I
feel the same way. Science is necessary, but I leave the need to know such
things to others for that’s not why I come to the woods.
Marijane hiked right up until
the last decade of her life. She was fond of sharing trails with those she
loved, but mostly she went into the desert with only a four-legged companion.
Sometimes I see her walking that way. Sometimes I talk to her, and I know what
she’d say in response to my observations. Her voice rings clear. When we sign
off, she joyously offers the same closing she did in life, “Walk in beauty,
Tommy.”
I do my best.
A loving friend often asks me
the best part of my day. I fear I bore her because my answers rarely change.
It’s typically about our time in the forest, away from the busy world where we
are embraced by the natural world.
Last week I climbed my first
mountain in quite a while. It was clear that I am still rehabbing, still
gaining strength because it wiped me out. It’s the up and down that messes with
my blood pressure and my heart. The dizziness stirs, and I pay attention to it.
After a break, it relaxes its spell and Samwise and I continue.
Still, even knowing that
climbing up is still difficult for me, I am enthralled with the forests and the
streams that nourish them. Slowly I gather strength. A few months ago I
couldn’t walk three miles. Now we log between six and seven a day. At the beginning
of spring, I could not have crouched down as I did this morning near the doe
and her fawn without getting dizzy.
Just as Samwise matures, my
balance and my cardiovascular system improve. Parts of me died last year, and
as in the trees that keep us company, there is regeneration within as there is
without.
I don’t enjoy every step, as a
well-wisher suggested the other day. Hiking is hard. But I do appreciate the
earned ache in my hips, the way my heart beats at a healthy cadence, and how
good it feels when I lay down each night with a book on my chest and a cool
late summer breeze caressing me from the window above our bed.
The other day, for this first
time in years, I bought some new hiking equipment – a backpack. That is a
victory itself.
As I told Marijane the other
day, “I’m in the game again.”
In this contented monk-like
existence, I feel abundantly alive. In spite of all I survived, I often think
of Tennyson’s words at the end of Ulysses: “To strive, to seek, to find, and
not to yield.”
