Forest Walk in May 
Have Paulian scales fallen from my eyes? How is that the
forest I've walked through more than a hundred times is this night so vivid
around me. I see things as though wearing 3D glasses in a movie theatre…like
walking amidst props on a set projected on a giant screen.
The wild turkey, noisy and flustered, abandons her ground
nest and takes to wobbly flight as we pass. On the hill, four deer watch us
-simultaneously nervous and confident - knowing they could swiftly bolt, should
we try to narrow the distance between them and us. Hinds’ feet on high places.
The twilight feels perfect. We walk in that perfect window
of time between winter and summer when the sun is vaguely warm, the brown
forest floor is shot through in places with tentative green…when skinny branches
flaunt skinny buds …when the dog-strangling vine has not yet begun to obscure
the path under our feet….and when the mosquitoes have not yet arisen from their
watery beds to hunt for blood.
A long column of clouds is lined up like a giant dinosaur
spine in the sky. Streaks of yellow and orange weave themselves through the rib
cage. We pass a sinewy bark-less tree that looks like the work of an Athenian
sculptor and we name it “the muscle tree”. Has it always been there?
It’s not so far away from the “mommy and baby trees” -two
tall slender trees that grow side by side, occasionally wrapping around each
other protectively.
Two beavers swim in the pond....one is calm, almost brazen
as it swims a straight line through the centre of the pond while my dog barks
from the water’s edge. The other, a smaller one, is skittish and dives below
the surface at the sound of our feet, slapping its tail on the water like a
thunder clap. The ripples are mesmerizing as their circles spawn larger
and larger offspring stretching out across the pond’s circumference.
Earlier in the day I watched a rabbit from my bedroom window
as it lingered outside our gate for a minute before disappearing in the
neighbour’s yard…. and a line of blackbirds marching through the grass in
search party-formation looking for worms or seeds blown from our feeder -scattered
by the wind across the open field. I don't know which, but they move in
unison and with precision.
How have I not noticed these many lives intersecting with my
own? Or did I see them once and then lose sight of them? Surely the latter. As
a child I gave the eulogy at funerals held for fallen birds and dead field
mice. Certainly, I once saw these proximal lives as valuable. When was
that lost or buried or stifled -or whatever happens to that earlier
version of our selves whose eyes were open? Is it resurrected only in old age
when the luxury of leisure is bestowed on us? I think of my mother telling me
that her African violet has bloomed every April for 26 years. Would I have even
noticed, I wonder, if I had shared a home with that African violet, that it persistently,
relentlessly proclaimed its existence for so brief a period, over almost three
decades. I think of all the brown potted plants I have murdered over all the
years...unable to believe they were capable again of colour.
I'd like that child-me back and I'd like not to have to wait
another decade until my body forces me to be still and pay attention. This
evening was a gift from a generous benefactor. Tomorrow, I vow to send a thank
you card.
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