nature

A Stroll Amidst the Gloaming

/ japfth / Leave a comment

“Be careful.”

“I will,” I said.

I grabbed one of my hiking poles and set out. Down the driveway and then up the hill to the macadam. I walked southwest on the macadam. The sun had already set, so I had my headlamp on my forehead in case drivers drove past.

But there were few vehicles out and I was thankful. I walked against any traffic that might come, just in case, and kept my headlamp on my forehead just in case I needed to turn it on for any drivers who might pass me. When I descended the first hill, four deer were munching grasses that grew just off the asphalt. Surprisingly, the does spotted me before the small buck. The doe closest to me looked at me and eventually flagged me, her white tail swaying left and right–left and right–as she trotted into the woodline. Then the two other does followed her to the safety of the hardwoods. The small six-point buck stood unbelievably still and watched me as I kept walking. Finally, the click of my hiking pole as I tapped the macadam with every other footfall, sufficed for him, and he took to the trees.

I walked on. Still, no traffic. Just the cool gloaming for company. I reached the bottom of that hill and the next one came into view. I passed a few homes on my left and right. Inside were a few lights. In one, a television screen mounted high on the wall cast an obnoxious bright that contrasted with the evening outside where I was under the trees and silver stars.

The hill was steep. I could feel my heartrate increase as I climbed, the click click click of my hiking pole alerting me to my slowing pace as I ascended the hill. I paused and reached into my left back pocket and retrieved my hydration bottle and took a few sips. After placing it back, I continued until the top of the hill and finally turned left onto another road.

A home on the right had an open garage, and a man was working in his garage. He appeared to be measuring trim for his interior, and I could smell sawdust from his table saw I could see in the middle of his garage. It was nearly dark now and the man did not appear to see me or hear the click of my hiking pole upon the pavement.

The descent towards the creek was steep. When I reached the bottom curve, the creek was running. The sounds of the water over the rocks sounded something soulful within me, and I understood yet again why Melville wrote what he did in Moby Dick about man’s soul being inextricably wed to water.

As I walked up from the creek, I turned right back onto the road home. I’d been out less than an hour. There had been nothing spectacular about my stroll–just a few deer, the cool of the evening, the trees, the sights of a few homes with their lamps and TVs, and a man working in his garage. Otherwise, just my steps, the sounds of my hiking pole upon the macadam, and my own quiet observation of the gloaming.

Back home now, I’m reading John Williams’ novel Butcher’s Crossing and making notes for what I have to accomplish tomorrow. But I bet tomorrow I will again long for quiet strolls like this one, where one can walk slowly, listen to the sounds of the evenings, look up and out and around and just be amidst the gloaming.

One More Hike Before the Storms Come

/ japfth / 4 Comments

After a breakfast with friends at Cracker Barrel, CJ and I ran some errands for a while. Upon arriving home, she asked, “You going hiking?”

“I am.”

“Okay, love. Have fun.”

“I will.”

I already had a pair of hiking boots on, so all I had to get was something to drink, my iPhone for pictures, gloves, my neck gator, and a wool hat.

Securing my gear, I stepped off and headed into the woods.

I began on my favorite trail, one that leads to one of the creeks. I walked under the oaks for a mile or two. Acorns and sticks popped under the soles of my boots. I stopped regularly, looking for deer. I knew they’d spot me long before I spotted them.

At last one of the creeks came into view.

I sat down on some of the flat stones in the creek and just was. All was quiet. Occasionally the winds would pick up and the leaves would dance and shuffle on the forest floor.

I snapped a couple of pictures with my iPhone.

Deer prints were pressed in the sand. Green mountain laurel grew on the banks. The winds picked up a bit and I could smell scents carried by the creek. The tall thin pines rocked back and forth, back and forth, with the winds. I sat for a few more moments on the stones. Just being.

After some time passed, I thought it wise to head back towards home. It would take me at least an hour to get back via the trail I chose. Up, up, and up. The trial was clear, though, and I could see a long way into the woods and the hills. I stopped regularly to enjoy the views with which I am so familiar.

The mountain ridge was to my back now. I was headed north towards home.

When I exited the woods the road came into view. A fellow hiker, a woman, was dressed in a blue puffer jacket, tan gloves, and burgundy hat. She watched me and I watched her. As we passed each other going opposite directions, it became clear she was in her happy place, too.

“Doesn’t it feel great out here?”

“It does,” I said.

“I just love it,” she said.

“As do I.”

When I finally arrived home, CJ warmed me a bowl of potato soup. I sat down and ate, took Lady out to pee, watched the cardinals on my birdfeeder, and hugged our son. He was gaming online with some of his friends.

I went to my library and began preparing to upload a lesson for the saints for tomorrow. Since our area is likely to get hit with pretty heavy rain and eventually ice, I was thankful I had taken the time to feed my soul in the woods, on the hills, and down by the creek.

Home now, full of warm potato soup, and Lady is in her chair beside me as I study in order to teach and upload a video. My cup is full. Let the storms come. That’s just part of it all. But there are moments like these, too, and I remain grateful.

Notice

/ japfth / 2 Comments

Only an hour of light remains. Today, of course, is the first day of a new year. And just as almost every other day if I’m home, I walk our family dog. He’s a male German shepherd, brown, gray, and black, several years old (not exactly certain how many years, though, since my family rescued him several years back from a shelter in south GA). I could go on and on. He’s special to us, as fellow dog lovers will understand. Anyway, he’s brown, gray and black, muscular but with a belly (I feed him too much), ears that make visitors think we have a wolf, and a keen nose. We typically walk down and back on the blacktop lane that runs in front of our house. Nothing special about today. It was just three thirty to four thirty on another Monday afternoon, and I opened the door to step outside with my dog.

Brewster’s black nostrils alerted him to the four does immediately behind the back porch of the house. They stood with their eyes on us, and their long gray ears pointed skyward like hairy pyramids. Their lean muscular legs were the identical colors of the forest floor, which was covered with crisp oak leaves down from the gray boughs above. The deer stood in silent intense motionless energy, eyes black as oil pools, watching.

“No, Brewster. Let’s go this way,” I whispered to him, and he headed to our usual route, disappointed I did not let him chase them. But on the way down the driveway, he turned his head back three times to the deer behind as if he and they exchanged a mystery or truce.

When we got to the top of the first hill, new timber had fallen on the left side of the lane. A rotten pine with holes from woodpeckers was wedged between the limbs of an oak twenty-five feet above our heads. And the wind was sending haunting sounds through the gulch below the road to our right.

Brewster marked his typical spots as I followed behind him with the leash in my hand. When he scared gray squirrels scurrying for the oaks, he’d chase them enough for them to look down on him and me from the trees, waving their tails in alarm, and barking at us till we passed on.

The January wind was as cold as I had ever felt in GA. My Columbia fleece top left my neck exposed and I reached to turn up the collar. I wanted to keep moving, but Brewster continued to stop and sniff what seemed like every few steps. He buried his nose in the frigid downed limbs, and pressed his snout in the brittle brown leaves, then scraped them back with his paws as if he were a buck marking territory.

How many times had we walked this way? Countless. But today, I noticed how green the moss growing in the shaded spots near the blacktop was, and felt the wind sting my ears and neck, and watched my shepherd chase the squirrels up the oaks again, and listened to the fallen pine wedged in the oak send haunting sounds tunneling down the laurel canyons. I did not think of news, schedules, of politics, but only of these sights and sounds, of today’s winds, of the particular ways the moss here reminded me of the felt on the billiard table my father had in our basement when I was a boy in high school. I thought of how watching the eyes of deer makes one feel small. I witnessed mystery, order, and providence in a walk with one’s dog.