rambling in the woods

When I lived in Bosnia, I went for eight months without ever setting my foot on the dirt. The countryside was so littered with mines, that one always stayed to the paved areas. One day, my friend and I were hanging some posters along the highway retaining wall near Celinac. A lady was walking her cow down the shoulder of the road. She tapped me on the shoulder and pointed about two feet behind me; there in the weeds was a small mine. If I had stepped back to admire my handiwork, I probably would have lost at least a foot. For months after I got home, I stayed off the grass without even thinking about it.

Have you ever noticed it is possible to go for days and never set foot on the earth? We can walk from our homes to our cars on the sidewalks, drive to work, cross the parking lot to the building and return the same way, maybe stopping at the post office or the store on the way home. It is so easy to lose the connection with the ground. We breathe filtered air; we drink filtered water. I grew up outside. The feel, the smell, the taste of outside is home to me. Sometimes, when I sit at my desk, I feel homesick.

The earth was soft, just damp enough and just mossy enough to give, but not so much as to leave an imprint. The air was warm, wet, suffused with woodsy odors. Turtles sunned themselves on rocks, just above the waterline. A flicker out of the corner of the eye, a splash, or was it an illusion? All the while the steady trickle, murmur of a tiny stream emphasized a noisy silence. Gusts of wind set the trees into a dance of courtly bowing.

Once, when we were dating, my loved one and I shared a pint of ice cream and fell asleep in the grass on the bank of a small stream in Arizona (where we plan to retire). I awoke with my head on his chest and his arm around me. I can feel his embrace, still smell the sun-dried grass, still see the blobs of sunlight and shadow dancing about as the trees swayed in the breeze.

Nature never did betray, the heart that loved her – Wordsworth