A Walk through the Fall(ing) Woods

I should not have been in the forest. 

When I first stepped in I tilted my head skyward, eyes fixed on branches 200 feet above the mossy ground below my feet. I grew dizzy as the tips of hemlocks and cedars swayed and shuddered in the river of wind dampening all other sounds in the forest. Old limbs creaked and crumbled under my boots scattering compost into the soil. New limbs creaked and split above me showering lichen into my hair. 

I breathed in the movement, smiled at the dance of the forest, and kept walking. 

I walked and breathed and swayed with the trees. My deafening thoughts competed with the rumbling of twisted limbs through turbulent air. Then quieted as I climbed the hill and gasped at the beauty of a thousand tiny mushrooms, their bright orange caps like braille spelling out Mystery on a rotting log.

I heard it from the clearing. 

I had backtracked from the path to find this little shelter in the woods. “Frolicking meadow,” I think the sign proclaimed when I last visited. But the sign was gone and evergreen branches lay strewn across the grassy field. Yellow leaves littered the wooden platform where an Adirondack asked for my company. The planks soft with this week's rain, the seat squeaked a greeting and attempted to soak memories of once being a forest into my skin. 

Summer frolicking officially ended.

Crack shudder whoosh bassdrum. 

I assumed a truck from the distant road hit a pothole. Or backfired. Or dropped a huge trailer of something very, very, heavy.

The wind picked up again, the trees around the clearing danced frantically, a moss-covered branch landed near my foot. 

I knew it wasn’t a truck. 

I knew I should probably get out of the woods.

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? 

Yes. I was that somebody there to hear it. 

I packed up my journal and took one last long look at the coniferously-tipped horizon, distinct grey clouds hurrying by on their way to the sea, perhaps late for a celestial Thanksgiving dinner. I was about to run a gauntlet and I wondered how long a tree takes to fall. How big of a branch it takes to kill a person. With how much of a concussion could I stumble out of the woods.

The tree trunk was broken in six places. Fresh jagged chunks confettied the surrounding ferns. The trail, the one I had backtracked from 20 minutes before, was now partially obstructed by this newly fallen tree. This newly fallen pretty damn big tree. Definitely out of “concussion” territory and in “full blown dead” realm if we’re talking diameter. Right on this path where I had stood. Not next to the path, or 50 feet from the path, but Right On The Path, following the trail with its broken body like a dis-jointed toy snake.

Now, I’m not usually one to hide at home in fear of being hit by a random bus or struck down by lightening. Hell, I go to sea for a living knowing that once you are Out There, there is very little  control (as in None) you have over nature. Anything can happen. But for some reason walking through the woods on a thoroughly windy day seemed like asking for a (large jagged) stick on (in?) the noggin.

I skirted the newly fallen pretty damn big tree and listened to the thousands of shaking leaves around me as I sidestepped blushing mushrooms and flooded dips in the path on my way home. I sang and skipped and smiled my way to the road where I live, the lingering anxiety dissolving as I stepped into a nearby clearing. I raised my hands to the branches and gave gratitude for the reminders about flexibility and impermanence and the unknown consequences of simply going for a walk. Simply being alive.

How quickly does a tree in the woods fall and if so, can you hear the sound if standing directly below that tree? Today I didn’t need to be the one to find out. 



(but if it had been my day to be smashed by a tree, I would've gone out with deep gratitude in my heart and an overjoyed sense of a life well lived.)

It is a Day of Deep Thanks:

I am grateful for being alive, not just Not Being Smashed by a Tree Alive, but Living a Very Amazing Life Alive.

I am grateful for the woods and wind and water that surround me.

I am grateful for my community of friends and family; those who I already know and those that I have yet to officially meet.

I am grateful for my strong, healthy body (especially when I need to get the hell out of the woods).

I am grateful for all the wild blessings in my life and for my gut leading me to more and more every day.