Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.
I awoke early this morning and took a walk in the woods up the mountain behind my house. It had been raining heavily for quite awhile. The sun briefly broke through the clouds and the rain stopped, but the newly sprouted leaves of the forest canopy drizzled a gentle shower of glistening diamond drops, slowly cleansing me of the stress of the week I was still carrying like an overloaded backpack.
My memory drew me toward a familiar sound before the rest of my brain understood its source.. But I quickly saw and knew.. Water was rushing down the mountain creating beautiful waterfalls and rapids as it cascaded over and around the limestone boulders and outcroppings, especially on the steeper slope about half-way up the hill. Childhood memories surfaced, memories of finding a stick that seemed to look like a boat and watching it negotiate the hazards of the raging river, challenging it to make it safely all the way down the mountain to the culvert along Highway 75. I think the wonder of this play was inspired by one of my favorite Golden Books, "Scuffy, the Tugboat.". I tossed a twig in this morning and watched it disappear over the first small falls, not taking the time today to see how it fared farther downstream. An old vine dangled above the torrent from somewhere near the top of a towering shag bark hickory leaning over the torrent below, challenging me once again to grab hold and swing across.
And I did. No one was hurt. It seemed nothing had changed in all these years.
I followed the stream up the mountain as I did years ago, drawn by curiosity of what I might find farther upstream. Closer to the top there was something different.
Suddenly I was walking along a deep ditch with sides of red-orange clay punctuated by small stones, looking like one of the strange ice cream flavors at Ben and Jerry's. Orange sherbet and chocolate chunk.
The ditch is about four feet deep and three feet wide and this morning contains a raging current. This ditch was not here years ago. Who in the world dug this ditch?
So I stood up and looked around, trying to get my bearings. Another memory surfaced.
A few decades ago a neighboring property owner cut some timber. The logging road, really more of a trail, had been cut along our property line, sometimes running through our property as it wound around big rocks and avoided the steepest slopes.. One afternoon my dad and mom, my little sister Em, who was only four or five, and I, were taking a ride in our old Army jeep. It was a pretty day and dad, as he was sometimes prone to do, decided to do something a little different. He turned off our driveway and steered the jeep, with us in it, onto the logging road. We headed up the mountain, being whipped by switches, briars and vines that reached out into the trail, giving high fives as we passed. The logging trail was no more than two ruts, a series of switchbacks requiring sharp turns. It was a great adventure with just enough hint of danger to keep it interesting. Occasionally we would reach a point in the road when dad would have to do some serious jeep driving to keep us moving. At one point Em, who had a flare for the dramatic even at her tender age screamed,
"We're never going to get back home." I think she also referred to the fact the we were all going to die, but maybe that's just an older brother's embellishment.
But we did. Not die. We made it home. Just a few minutes later. In the couple of years that followed, I made that jeep trip quite a few times by myself. . The old logging trail lead to one of my favorite places on the mountain, a wide flat area just before the steepest slope to the mountain top littered with small boulders perfectly set to sit on and be alone.
But, after I got my driver's license I could take the jeep on the real roads, and I abandoned jeep rides up the mountain side, up to the place where I was standing this morning.
The deep ditch with the raging water was one of the ruts of the old logging trail. Like the wrinkles I see in the mirror every morning, it had grown deeper and deeper and wider and wider as it contained the raging torrents from years of storms that had come along.
It could no longer be used as a means of moving higher up the mountain. Now, it seems, it's only purpose was to contain the chaos of the storms and the waters racing down the hillside.
Our footprints, the shallow ruts we leave on the trail do make a difference. As we leave them behind we may not give them a second thought, but, they don't disappear just because we do.
The ditch and the raging waters present a puzzling question. One might say that the water is controlled by the ditch, trapped into the one course, unable to escape the steep orange walls, it's freedom of choice being taken away. Another might say that the ditch is the victim of the raging water, being constantly cut and formed by the relentless power of the rolling cascade, with no say in the matter at all.
I imagine the water and the ditch could argue about that forever. It's hard to declare the winner.
But the truth is, the fate of both is dictated by gravity. And it's hard to argue with gravity.
This post has meandered about much like Scuffy the Tugboat, who longed to sail to exotic places, rather than be stuck in the small confines of the bathtub, the dismal domain of the childhood toy. Scuffy ended up in deeper and deeper and more chaotic water as he floated downstream after escaping his child master in the waters of a roadside gutter. But eventually, after being lost and alone in the open sea, he was returned to his home.
And so this post has meandered too long, the sun is shining, and the yard work is calling. My wish for you this morning comes on behalf of Scuffy the Tugboat, my little dramatic sister Em, and all who have set sail through chaotic waters and deep ditches .. .. .
May all your voyages help you find your way back home.
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