The Big Woods

Sitting in a pile of leaves, I glance up to a leaden, October sky forty years in the past.
Seems like yesterday. It was the first time I was ever alone in the outdoors. I learned some important lessons that day, there in the big woods; lessons about life, death, and the ephemeral beauty of existence. Though I didn’t know at the time what effect this would have on my life, even then I knew something numinous had occurred….

After repeated pleading, my father had consented to take me squirrel hunting with him on the condition that I remain quiet and pay attention. Though the details of that magical day remain, I can’t say with certainty where I was. I only know that I found myself in an enormous, hardwood forest. Like many of my childhood haunts, it’s probably long gone; buried beneath strip malls and fast-food joints, sacrificed in the interest of urbanization.

When we arrived, I could hardly contain myself. Like a bird dog that realizes he’s going hunting, I was shaking with excitement. When squirrel hunting, it helps to have a breeze in order to cover the sound of the hunter’s steps. But on this day not a breath of air stirred. It felt unnaturally calm, as if we were in the eye of a storm—one of our own making. I tried to quietly follow my father, but it seemed to me I was making an infernal racket. Supporting this premise, my father would occasionally glance back at me, an annoyed look on his face. As an adult, I pride myself on my ability to move silently through the woods. Back then I must have sounded like Sherman marching through Georgia. Undeterred, we continued in this fashion until we came to a break in the woods. There we paused while my father considered his next move.

Because I had revealed an unexpected talent for making noise, my father decided to leave me at the edge of the woods. “Wait here; don’t move from this spot till I come back for you.” he said. Then, with gun in hand, he sauntered over the hill and out of sight. Sitting still, I strained to hear the last of his footsteps, but he was already gone. Anxiously I watched, thinking he would soon return. After awhile, my anxiety eased as I grasped the novelty of my situation. This was my first time in the big woods and I was totally, incontrovertibly…alone.

Perhaps my memory plays tricks on me, but it seems that my experience that day was imbued with a clarity and sublimity of perception never equaled in all the years that followed. Everything seemed new, as indeed it was. The trees stood out against the gray, opalescent sky; each leaf etched in exquisite detail. I reached out to touch the rough bark of a nearby tree. Before, I had thought of trees as inanimate objects, but now I realized, with a start, that this was a living thing, like myself.

I sat beneath it, nestled in a pile of leaves redolent of fall color the rain had failed to wash away. I studied a leaf in detail, tracing with my finger its palmate geometry. Lying back in the leaves, the powerful, organic odor of decay engulfed me. The wheel of life spun unabated, seemingly indifferent to my presence. I felt at home in a way I couldn’t explain. When you’re seven years old, it doesn’t occur to you that one day, you too, will become part of the Earth. After all, Nature isn’t really indifferent—it’s just patient.

Staring up at the sky, I sank further into the leaves until I lay partially buried. The silence was profound. My short life amidst the cacophony of humanity had not prepared me for this. Mesmerized, I laid transfixed, oblivious to anything but the arch of the sky. Somewhere far off, the faint sound of a gunshot sounded once then faded away. Silence reasserted itself.

How long I remained like that, I can’t say. But at some point my reverie was broken. I sat up as somewhere, far on the periphery of my senses, something moved. I scanned the sky, waiting. Suddenly, an enormous silhouette soared past me. Its appearance lasted but a moment. So quickly and soundlessly did it disappear, I couldn’t be sure what I saw. A moment later, a raucous group of crows announced themselves. They too, flew over my head and disappeared in pursuit of the mysterious shadow.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had just received my first lesson from nature. Decades later, and thousands of miles away, I would watch in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest as a group of song birds mobbed a Bald Eagle in similar fashion. Then I would recall my earlier encounter with Strix nebulosa, the Great Gray Owl in those Kentucky woods.

With the departure of my mysterious visitors, the spell was broken. Chilled from the damp ground I stood up, impatient for my father’s return. After what seemed like an eternity, he made his way back to me. As I excitedly told him about what I had seen, I noticed a bushy tail dangling limply from the pouch on the back of his hunting vest. “Did you get one?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, handing me the squirrel.

Holding the soft body, I ran my hand down the beautiful red fur. A twinge of remorse assailed me. One pellet had struck the hapless squirrel just above the eye, killing it instantly. What had been a vibrant, living creature was now reduced to a lifeless, inert carcass. With its glassy eye upon me I petted the squirrel, one last time, and returned him to my father. That was the second lesson.

Sometimes, it seems that long-ago day in the big woods might be a fiction. In some sense, perhaps it is. Nothing that sublime could last. My father, like the squirrel, is long dead. Even the land has been changed beyond recognition. The remnants of that day are to be found only within the confines of my mind—and only there, for a short time. No matter, that day marked me for the rest of my life. Now, whenever I’m in the wild I think back to that time; to my first glimpse of the beauty and pathos that is life, and then I know I’m home.