Wednesday, March 29, 2006,3:57 PM 3R
I'm at my favorite "campground" (or "picnic area") at Beaver Skull Meadow at Three Rivers for my walk. It is sunny and in the 59s and I'm in my T-shirt.
I read my one prewalk poem about St. Dympha. I listen to the crows and the geese and study the aspen catkins. I hear the clicking of wood frogs, like little wooden motors. The moss on the trees is green. Very green. On the way here, I passed big piles of snow and considered a picture, but didn't stop.
The sun is warm and lazy and I'd like to loll about but I need to stay on task and get back to sorting or I'll never get out of the house.
I didn't even BRING a jacket; hope I don't regret that, the wind is cold.
There are piles of feathers where some bird was eaten. Pigeon feathers by the look of it and my guess is someone shot the pigeon and then something ate later.
Peeper, a din of them. Crow, little bluestem grass. I wanted to ask Sara about that picture near the osprey nest, about the little bluestem there, but I forgot
Someone has put out bird food and the chickadees are gorging on it. I get into a swampy spot and can't skirt it because of the multifloral rose. Rip, tear. I'd sprayed my shoes a little with silicone but not enough because I hate the smell.
I wish I could record that peeper din!
I won't hear it in Detroit!
I stop at the first beaver dam and take a few pictures, scenic ones but also beaver dung and beaver work. Yesterday I took what I think might be coyote dung bust haven't looked it up yet.
I wander around in the woods behind Beaver Skull Meadow, checking the trap lines as I do every spring for beaver and muskrat skulls. Raccoon skulls. I wonder if now that there's a market for them if they don't leave them behind. But then again, other years, I wouldn't find them, and then would discover a whole cache of them. Peepers and geese. Not so many wood frogs here, they tend to be in the woodland ponds.
It seems entirely unconscionable that I would be expected to live in a place without peepers and wood frogs.
In a place without woods, I think, looking around at the pines and hemlocks and maples. The oaks and blueberries. SIGH!
In he winter time, living in Detroit doesn't seem so bad, but in the spring, argh!
There is no one out here in these woods who expects me to dress up, wear makeup, carry a fancy handbag, attend events, or do anything else. And that's the way I like it. That's because there is no one out here at all except me and the geese and the frogs. The sun through the pines and the breeze.
That's the way I like it.
Of course, I love Keith and graham and want to be with them. I wish I could be here (or somewhere like this) during the day and with them at night.
Of course, it would always have to be spring or fall, warm but not hot. Why don't we live in heaven? Well, I'm not eager to DIE if that's what it takes.
4:51 PM, I am over in the Spiral Grove now. I took one picture of shadows and attempted two of a pitch pine, or what I think is a pitch pine, but they probably won't come out. I am only halfway through my walk and feeling heavy and awkward. I think of how badly I used to want to walk silently, like an Indian, and how loud I am now that my hips hurt and I'm heavy and tired and "old."
I wish I could lose weight, but though I rarely eat sweets or desserts, I can't seem to eat little enough to lose weight. I'm always hungry.
I'd like to go back and sit in the car and read and nap. I'm tired of walking. And I don't want to go back and work. But I need to push on and go home and work.
I still have to walk 22 more minutes. I wish I weren't so tired. I'm not on a trail and bushwhacking is hard work.
I guess I could just go walk down the ROAD. Wahn. "What a drag it is getting old."
I discover an area of the spiral grove where most of the tops are gone from the trees and lying on the ground, and I wonder why. I tend to think symbolically, since I see this as a sacred place, and the grove's demise an act of profound evil.
Like the little girl emissary who was killed in a place accident. The echthroi got her.
This was a true story, not fiction, that is, she really died I a plane crash.
Because she wrote a letter to Putin or whoever it was, I forget the details now.
I just remembered that our shooting gallery post for April is blurred in camera motion. Intentional, so I try a few shots. The forest as taken on a misty magical feel, though it is hard to capture in the camera.
I like the magical mystical misty look and feel of the forest and the way I feel in it. Peaceful, relaxed and happy like I don't feel sorting junk at home or trying to do taxes and other such. Of course, living in the woods year round is not very practical unless you're rich, because you still have to eat and buy land to live on and build the cabin and heat it and have medical insurance etc. If you were young, you could do it, but at 60 with issues, it'd be a little harder. Unless a skinny miracle occurred, I'd need electricity for my CPAP and how would Graham get to school?
I'm on the road now, headed back to the car. I noticed my shadow and grabbed a hip shot of it with the point and shoot. There's still a lot of snow along here.
In a way, when there's a bright sunny spring day, it seems really dumb to go in the woods and I ought to walk out to the ponds. The Sophie pond.
Not today but some other spring day before I move to Detroit. Oh, Sophie pond. No Sophie Pond in Detroit.
Don't get me wrong, I WANT to move to Detroit, I WANT to be with Keith, and Graham, but I just can't help feeling sad about leaving here.
It's also true that when I'm in Detroit, I rarely think about the Sophie Pond or Beaver Skull Meadow or the Spiral Grove. What I do long for though, is nature, wildness, open space. And in a way that Keith, much as he loves me, doesn't seem to fully understand. It's like nature is my "demon" (a la Lyra) or spirit guide without which I'm only half a person, like an empty shell. And Balduck Park and the cemeteries etc are nice, but not even Belle Isle is like being HERE, where there is no manmade structures, no houses or pavilions, no traffic (well, there is nearby traffic of sorts). This area is so vast. Belle Isle is nice and I like it, but it is somehow citified. You can see either Detroit or Windsor from almost everywhere.
I don't feel like I'm being very articulate. I just hope I don't shrivel up and die when I move to Detroit.
Even the Pinery, which is wonderful, is overcrowded with people.
I read my end-of-the-walk Patrick Lawler poem ("Georgia O'Keefe and the light touching the child") and prepare to go home and bite the bullet.
6:10 Home again, home again, jigity jig. There are mourning doves in the tree and I was going to try again to get them but the sun's setting so fast I don't think I can get out the camera and change the lens.
I take a shot and adjust, take a shot and adjust, and just when I get it the way I think I want it they fly. The beeping of the camera seemed to bother them.
The oil light is on on the car all the time and I'm afraid the car will blow up or die in the middle of crazy traffic and I'll get killed.
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