November 13, 2023
Greetings from the nut,
If you had been walking near me during the weekend you might question my mental stability. I was taking a walk in the woods, which as lovely as it sounds, feels different if you add the details. I tried to explain this to my brother and it sounded like: “I got out of my car and walked for two days to end up back at my car.” Don’t ask him if he thinks I am a few apples short of a bushel.
So that probably would cause you to doubt my sanity, especially because it is November in Michigan and that comes with brisk temperatures. ‘Brisk’ is what we say when your face gets numb.
I hiked along the Manistee River, an admirable body of water, which was on its way to join other like-minded creations. Where I met the Manistee, it was traveling south, but not in a way that was obvious. It wandered among forests, paused in small ponds, explored inlets. Every so often, other, less mature versions of running water would join, chuckling and bubbling over rocks and logs, and then splashing into the Manistee to see where it was going.
The second reason you’d probably wonder about my cerebral acuity is that most of the time I was walking, I was talking to myself. Out loud. If you had been passing me in the aisle at Target, you would have called security. I didn’t realize I was doing it at first, just thought things and suddenly was saying them. This is the kind of thing that can eventually lead to difficult conversations at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
I also sang songs, none of which, I’ll confess here, I knew the words to. If you wanted a mash-up of ‘American Pie’ and ‘Fire and Rain’ and ‘Country Roads,’ sung to the tune of ‘If We Were Vampires’, well, I am your guy. As long as you want it performed off key, interspersed with strange fits of laughter. That was the third reason for you to wonder if I have a loose screw somewhere.
I camped alone under a giant dome of stars, held up by lodgepole pines. I sat by my fire, eased from ‘brisk’ to ‘chilly’, which is what we call it when your teeth hurt from breathing in. I listened to the geese landing on the river, one of the most dramatic noises I’ve heard. It had to be hundreds of birds calling up and down, and it went on for hours into the night.
Later, in my dark tent, surrounded by silence, I spoke out loud to friends, to myself, to the darkness. I woke to the sound of howling coyotes, which after a long while, felt like they were singing to me. Not in a threatening way, more like a performance, or a reminder of an old relationship. That may be the fourth reason to wonder if I’ve slipped a gear.
Later, I was curled up in my sleeping bag, laughing at a memory. I was hiking the afternoon before, shuffling through the mat of fallen leaves which served as the soundtrack of the weekend. It also obscured the trails, so quite often I was making shrewd, intuitive calculations (guesses) about which way to travel. I had just realized I had made a wrong turn and was doubling back to find the trail when I met two older couples gathered around a medium-sized dog, all of whom were looking in different directions. The one looking in my direction said hello, and then: “I’m trying to find my car.”
I’ll confess here that my first thought was that this gentleman might be struggling with some form of misfiring in his own mind since we were in the middle of the woods. I glanced at his companions for some sign of compassion, that look that says: “Sorry, he’s ok, just play along.”
But in fact they were trying to find a trail to the road that would lead them back to where they parked their car, and somehow got lost. We all looked at our devices thinking that a map would help, but since the service was sketchy, that was as helpful as showing each other pictures of our grandkids.
Finally, I took out a map and a compass. Here I will admit, with some pride, I had made the effort to teach myself how to orient in the wild using these old-fashioned methods. I will also admit, with some humility, that I felt the need to learn because I’ve been lost so many times.
The six of us huddled around, (including the dog) and we fiddled and pointed and figured out where north was and drew a line and took a bearing, and then, unrehearsed, we all pointed east at the same time. If you had stumbled upon us in the woods there, looking like a bad geriatric Michael Jackson choreography, you would have thought we’d all gone round the bend.
I sent them off in that direction, all talking at the same time, goofy as loons, and laughing and pointing, confident and relieved to have met me. About ten minutes later I had an epiphany, one that made me laugh out loud, which later that night, would make me laugh again.
One of the key ingredients in successful orienteering with a map is understanding where you are. Unfortunately, none of us six, (including the dog) actually knew that. So when we made our calculations on how to find the lost car (they were not lost, of course, the car was) we were basically guessing. Which, honestly, has served me pretty well up until now, and I hope it served them at least as well. If not, and you happen to see them, tell them I know where their car is. Probably.
The next morning I sat in the dark, making breakfast and sipping maybe the best coffee ever. It had slipped a few more degrees toward cold, what we call it when ice forms in your eggs. I still had a day of hiking ahead of me, where I already anticipated meeting people and seeing more of what nature had laid out for me to see. I was tired and sore and I couldn’t wait to get started.
The time in the woods gave me an undistracted look into my thinking, as chaotic and jumbled and mildly deranged as that is. It was peaceful, beautiful, and even with the challenges of getting from one place to another, and the little bit of frost on my pumpkin, was incredibly satisfying, an experience that I plan to recreate as often as I am able.
Reading this you may be thinking I only have one oar in the water, or maybe a card short of a full deck. I’ll admit it’s not the sanest way to spend a couple of days, but I wouldn’t trade it for arguing with the TV or rinsing out recyclables, or worrying about the weather, or whatever lunacy we sometimes fill our days with. Don’t trust me with a compass, but trust me on this: go out in the woods and see what beauty, and maybe a little craziness, is waiting for you.
Hope this finds you going crazy,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
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