Maybe I meant, "I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees," which is Henry David, who used to be my idol.
Idology was really my thing when I was young and falling in love with writers by the day. I had early influences with Thorton Burgess and some wonderful walks at Laughing Brook. And camp in a semi-primitive way at the faux-Indian camp in Holland, MA. Great learnings about wild food and what the Indians did to subsist, how to make safe fires, etc. I got all that from the earnest college counselors and their back-to-earth leanings of the early 1970's. I ran away from that camp one late afternoon and deep into the night. I had been "punished" one too many times to my liking by the new, fat, and mean director, so I decided to take "a walk in the woods." I had a bevy of bewildered adult women with flashlights hot on my trail before I was finally caught. There was something wildly exhilarating in that escapade, some strange connection I was forming to nature and our sacred earth. Believe it or not, there were even some pieces of urban wilderness that I learned to explore and love and knew like the back of my hand in my shitty neighborhood in Springfield. MA. They were marred memories though because I got jumped in them there woods once and that was the end of that. I was haunted and spooked for a long, long time. I had fought like a wild animal against two older boys and escaped and ran like the wind on the paths I knew so so well. And I never went in those woods again, EVER.
But I found other woods, other sacred places, other well-worn paths in woods. I loved the Robert Frost trail and Amethyst Brook in Amherst, MA.
I loved being in the valley, being alone in the woods, and discovering myself as I also was discovering the Romantics and the Transcendentalists. I look upon it now as a foolish folly of a college girl. But then I realize I am not that much different from that young adult woman who longed to read and be outside, to wander and wonder. I still do all that, I just can't wander far.
Of course I walked Walden. I walked Walden in silence, sadly not alone on my solo jaunt, because as I learned when I got there, it was a huge tourist destination. I had to share my love with others. I must confess- I did not want to, but I had to none-the-less. I strolled through Concord looking for the spirits of Ralph Waldo, Henry David, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Chester, and Louisa May- I journeyed to Sleepy Hollow cemetery more than once or twice over the years. I wanted to somehow be imbued with what they had. I wanted to channel them so I could walk forth in this century and carry on with the things they thought were important because I thought they were important too.
I read of far off places and admired many a poet, author, photographer. Anything that brought me in when I could not get out.
I hiked locally and camped as much as I could. I camped in N.H., Vt., ME, N.H., DE, LA, and of course MA. All over MA. I often put my dog in my car, drove and drove, then just got out and hiked where there seemed to be woods with a path. No iphones, no GPS, just a deep, deep wanderlust and desire to be outside.
And I continued to read and admire and then support some of those Idols. I gave my money to organizations like other people gave to their churches. I for a long, long time told people that Nature was my religion. "Oh, your a Pagan," valley people would tell me. Yup, even in Happy Valley there are boxes to be put in. "Your a freak," mostly came from family, friends, and those not of "the valley." I didn't shave or wear makeup and yet I wasn't gay. Then "what the hell are you?" was the usual response. Like I always had to decide to make other people feel comfortable. Be something and fit in, that's the predominant message of the mainstream US/North American culture.
I was fortunate to live in one of the freer and liberal places on the east coast. But I had always read about, yearned for and wanted to go to the west coast. Not to stay, but to just get out there and take a walk in their woods. I had been twice before, but both of those journeys involved others and their desires to be near the ocean. It was okay, oceans are cool. But I still had the yearnings to take a walk in the woods on the west coast. You know, the red wood forests that Woodie wrote about and our hippy counselors taught us to sing.
And then my day came! One Hallowed day in 2014, I took a walk in the magnificent Muir Woods. I had given money on and off to the Sierra Club for years. I had umbrella's, calendars, water bottles and such from all my donated funds, but never a hike in the place named after the man who founded the club and acted to preserve much of the wilderness out on the west coast.
Then on the rainy morning of Halloween my husband and I drove our rental car out of San Francisco and all the noise, clutter, and hoopla (The Giants won the World Series 2 nights before and the victory parade was to march thru SF), over the Golden Gate Bridge, and into what the Big Bus Tour told us was the wealthiest county in CA- Marin County. I'm sure they meant $$$, but I could've cared less I was there to take a walk in Muir Woods.
A large mountainous spit of land covering 554 acres, of which 240 are some of the few remaining old growth stands of Sequoia Sempervirens or the great CA Redwoods, is part of the legacy of John Muir. Muir Woods National Monument was created in 1908 at the infancy of the National Park system.
Normally shrouded in a coastal marine fog, on this day it was straight out raining. The winding road into and around the Red Canyon was...was...awesome and fearsome at the same time. The walk was worth the lifetime wait, I was awed and I silently thanked Mr. Muir and all the conservationist who came before me and saved this little space for me to take my walk. So come with me for the journey:
It's just down the road a bit.
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Except that the road waended this way and that way and this way and that....I kept telling Peter (grandpa driver Peter!) he was driving to fast around the curves- I was a bit freaked at several points. |
But then and finallly, I was able to catch this, which is all that I was trying to hear.
http://youtu.be/Lacue-0hSW4
I am very fond of the other Roosevelts, and was happy to read about the United Nations folks coming here (although sad that Franklin didn't make it, he died in April).
They do not sound like my kind of GUYS. And how sexist. Only men can enjoy nature. Boo hiss on them.
Thankfully, this silly club is not in Muir Woods, it's up North of here by about 2 hours.
I couldn't stand it, so I waited patiently, then went over to ask if the banana slug was real. It was not. I was sad I didn't get to see one at this visit.
But I did see the bushiest tailed squirrel I have ever seen. It was a pretty steel blue color too.
Twas a lovely morning spent walking amongst the spirit of Mr. Muir and majesty of the Amazing Redwoods. I shall not pass this way again, but am ever so grateful for having made the trip.
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