Ive just finished a book I started years ago. It was one of those books that made me too sad. So, I put it aside. This week, I picked it up and became absorbed, finished it. It was Embrace Fearlessly The Burning World, by Barry Lopez. I love his writing. Barry Lopez died in 2020. This was his last book.
I'm also reading another book, quite good so far, called The Correspondent. It's about an older woman who writes actual letters to people over the course of her entire life. I was reminded of how in this blog, I wrote to a nature writer, to my dad. I decided to start doing that again. Letters are such a wonderful short form. And writing to someone specific works for me.
Dear Barry Lopez
I love the title; Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. It speaks to me of courage. We are all being asked to stand up these days. More so than when you finished the book. The title helps. You are a truly great writer. Your words make me feel and think about things I didn't even know I wanted to feel and think about. Your words make me fiercely want to be a better writer. To write even close to how well you wrote...that would be an accomplishment. Years ago, I went to an event and had you sign one of your books. I digress.
Mr. Lopez, in the Lessons from the River chapter…Near woods vs the Deep Woods. I was able to identify a feeling which has been sweeping into my consciousness and then ebbing away. Sometimes, I don't explore sad or loss feelings. They touch my losses too much; like taking the lid off a box. It's too much all at once.
I explored the feeling today, sitting on my deck at the edge of the forest with the huge Maple and Oak trees branches sweeping the sky. I am thirsty for the deep woods; the silence, the remoteness from human sounds. There is a sweetness inside which belongs to that silence outside. I long for it.
I live on the border of the near woods. I have alot of gratitude for my home and property. I walk my dog almost daily on a crooked tarred path at the bottom of a ravine which starts in my backyard. The forest extends at the path about a mile in one direction. The houses and development come close in the other direction, passing a long marsh, past an elementary school.
Over the summer, some fierce storms took down more trees than I have ever seen in my 27 years here. They were big trees; some Maples, some cottonwoods. Some fell into the arms of other trees. Some fell across the river winding through the area. Some lost arms in big splintering chunks. Seeing this uprootedness has tossed me around a bit. I'm questioning myself more. I don't know why I assumed the forest would change in a predictable way.
I’ve learned to look for the wild Rhubarb mingling with the thistles, watch the waving branches of a cottonwood separate but not alone on the edge of a Marsh, see the stand of birch trees waving in the wind tucked into a slope. Try to be alert for the animals and remind my dog they live here too. Once, an owl landed twenty feet in front of me. A hawk flew directly over my head and into the trees as if saying hello. I've seen deer standing still, merging in the woods, watched them leap in front of me. I saw a nest of baby foxes and their mother standing guard. A coyote looked at me sprinting across the path. Wild turkeys with their shiny feathered prehistoric ugliness cackling in the woods next to me.
I’ve taken so many photos. I only look at them when I go away because I miss the forest. She has become like a friend; a comfort, a peace giver. My experience of the near woods has human sounds mixed with no sound. Daytime, I hear the roar of trucks, the passing of traffic, and this summer, the beep of road construction.
Lately though, I thirst for the deep woods silence. That silence, on a mountain top, in a place so remote as to be inherently dangerous. I feel greedy. I want hours of unbroken silence. I listen better to my thoughts there. There is a part of me, this is hard to explain but I think you might understand, a part of me that I hear so much better there. I miss her.
As I write this, I'm thinking how I can go there. I know winter, if we have snow, will muffle some of the sounds but others thrive across the top of it. I didn't really find that type of silence in Iceland or Scotland; my last two trips. I found it in Nepal; not on the top of a mountain but hiking across the flanks. I've found it in the Boundary Waters especially in the morning or evening. No sounds and calm water; the silence of a green wilderness. On reflection, I'd like to find that silence here in the United States. It would give me hope. I'll think on it a bit.
Thank you,
Margot Storti-Marron
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