Shallow steps v. deep steps: a walk through the woods.

This morning I sat up on the deck alone for a few hours drinking coffee, while Rob slumbered away downstairs where I’d left him. Warm enough for shorts and a sweatshirt, Vermont made an irrevocable promise this morning that she’s agreed to shift into Spring. And in my forgiveness of her grievous wrongs of the winter, I allowed myself to remember things I felt the last time it was spring, the way a perfume you wore once reminds you of a certain time.

Below the sounds of prop planes overhead and a droning highway in the distance, I couldn’t stop zeroing in on the sound of trickling water. Loud, as if a little river had materialized overnight just through the trees. I could hear it but I couldn’t see it. Something made me get up, tiptoe past the bedroom door, put on my snow boots with my shorts, and traverse the snow of questionable stability to make my way up the hill and find the source of the sound.

[There was a lot of action under this huge rock, where I imagined chipmunks swimming around like a mini Grotto.]

The house sits nestled between two sharp, downward angles of mountain. I gunned for a break in the trees and started my path upwards, noisily crushing the slush, my hands in my pockets. The going was tricky in places; more than a few times, one foot would sink down to hip height in the snow, my arms windmilling about for a branch to pull myself up and out.

[That scary stick came awfully close to an area I did not want it coming close to. Narrowly escaped searing pain with this ill-placed step.]

Where three steps made light impressions, giving me false confidence, the fourth yanked me downwards, the snow buckling, my boots filling with ice, and my nervous laughter keeping me company. [If a bear s**ts in the woods, a person is capable of feeling embarrassed when there’s no one around to see them stumble.]

After a few of these episodes, flustered, I found a tree emerging from a mound of snow. I grabbed onto the sturdiest branch and hoisted myself up, finding a foothold in a crook. I stood there for awhile, high up—the distinct feeling of being a kid again thumping in my chest. Then I heard it—a hollow rushing sound under the snow, directly beneath me. Ears can see, you know. Like the scratching of woodwasps behind wallpaper, you can blindly put the sound in your crosshairs. With a huge smile on my face, I stooped down and poked through the snow with a stick.

[My first clue I was headed the right direction.]

Assessing the terrain, I saw a dish of melted snow down a soft slope to my left. There was no way I could get beyond it without falling through—wet, mossy rocks that perhaps would not deter the 11-year-old in me made me opt to backtrack through the woods in search of another point of entry.

The snow through the trees was littered with fallen needles and peeled birch bark. I made slow going of it, letting my ears lead me to the source.

Then I saw it—a perfect, clear stream dancing over some rocks! It was in some kind of hurry, cutting a tunnel through the snow. I squatted by it and touched the rocks, patted my hand on its icy surface, and pushed sticks into the peaty bottom. I’ve never seen spring this way before, it occurred to me*; it’s literally shouldering its way through the crowd to be seen and heard. I felt bold, standing there in the woods alone. Immeasurably happy. Resilient.

I wouldn’t say the last half a decade has been particularly easy. Brilliant fun, yes—a better version of me than I’ve met so far, I’d say—but more than ever, the footholds have been shifty and even sinister sometimes. It’s easy—deceptively easy—one, two, three steps, then—frrrpppp—the next step lands me half-buried in snow with my heart racing. I still occasionally wonder how I ended up in the Northeast, away from the South, like I’m in a waking dream. Not that I would have it any other way; when I went to retrace my steps back out of the woods this morning, I was rather impressed with the trail, if that makes sense. I’d come a good distance without turning back, something guiding me along I was aware of only on the return. I suppose that’s how guiding forces are supposed to work.

I learned from the deep dives and gingerly poked my way around them. I reused the shallow steps and lingered there.

[Shallow step… deep step.]

You can’t have safe steps without occasionally plummeting; just like you can’t have happy without sad, or spring without winter. How could you ever gauge how happy happy feels if you don’t know how sad feels? I froze myself for months to get to squat beside a creek in the woods and get happy tears in my eyes. Give and take. I’m ok with this.

Spring is heady, indeed.

-Carey

p.s. Here’s a video I made at the creek. This could be straight off a white noise machine, right?

Snowmelt: the creek in the woods.

*Because I grew up in a land of virtually no seasons! I touched on this in a contribution I wrote for a book called Saratoga Insider, if you’re innerested.