Extraordinary!

Returning to my Happy Place

The hugging tree

Yesterday I was in an extraordinary mood. I know. It feels somehow wrong to even say it, considering everything, but I was.

It was a bright sunny day of blue skies, though chilly (in a way, perfect), and I was determined to go to Grindstone, the woods that my dogs Miles and Rufus and I, and then just Miles and I, used to wander almost daily. I haven’t been going regularly at all, and except for one or two times in the past year, not at all.

First, on the creek trail, are the Four Sisters—four sycamore trees that stand close enough together to make a little hideout with their trunks. I call them the Four Sisters in honor of me and my three sisters. Then the sycamore with its long reaching arm stretched out towards the creek or the birds or the next tree, I can’t know what exactly, reaching, reaching out, open and loving. Then, a little further along, the lovely hugging tree. This one’s a cottonwood, so very tall, with a concave place that perfectly fits a smallish human who might be inclined to press herself against it and wrap her arms around such a big strong being who does actually give something beautiful back.

A tiny little trillium

I felt exultant to see my favorite trees, one after another, in the bright sun, against the blue sky on my beloved trail in my most adored woods, whom I had not been visiting for so long. I had good reasons for not going. First, there were the snakes, dangerous for Miles. Then Miles’ hearing was starting to go, and he had kidney disease. He wouldn’t hear me calling if he was off leash and exploring, and he might get into something he shouldn’t eat, hungry as he was on his mean little diet. So we stayed in town. After I lost him, my broken heart didn’t really want to go out there.

But, as I say, I was in an extraordinary mood yesterday, and my heart said, quite strongly, “We need to go to the woods.” And I listened.

The extraordinary mood was such a surprise. I’d failed to turn the furnace down before bed (too hot), failed to fill my C-PAP (miserable), and failed to take the allergy medicine that helps me sleep, so I did not have a great sleep. And yet. I awoke smiling at my forgetfulness. I awoke full of energy and plans. I awoke so happy! I was determined to do many things. I convinced a friend to meet me in the woods, largely based on this wonderful mood, which ended up lasting all day. Highly unusual.

False Rue Anemone

Back to the woods. It being mid-March, we were called to hunt for wildflowers. There aren’t many just yet, but enough to quicken the pulse of an admirer. Trillium, toothwort, and false rue anemone. Every spring I have to refresh my brain with the names. False . . . false something. Why is it “false,” though? My friend and I both object to this. How would you like to be called “False Anne” or whatever your name is? Also, Hairy Bittercress. She said it sounded like a person’s name and we considered the fun of writing a story in which all the characters’ names are wildflowers. Blue-Eyed Mary, Sweet William, Black-Eyed Susan . . .

We had a jolly time out there in the woods and today I went again, without waking my friend and nagging her to meet me. Today is a very cloudy day, not one that you could call “bright” in any way, but I was happy as a pig in mud, regardless. I met an older lady who was just there for her first time, clearly already bewitched, trying to get the lay of the land, and I told her so many things and went away imagining her having the time of her life discovering everything there is to see and do in those woods. Just like I did, all those years ago.

For me, it is as if those woods cried out, “Welcome back!” And I really am back. Happy. Extraordinary!

“Tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future . . .” - Agnes M. Pharo

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.” - C.S. Lewis

“It would seem from this fact, that man is naturally a wild animal, and that when taken from the woods, he is never happy in his natural state, 'till he returns to them again.” - Benjamin Rush

How I go to the woods by Mary Oliver

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

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Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”