“I immediately wished to go barefoot. Too early, too cold perhaps but you know the kind of winding forest path: so soft despite its roots, its thumps; part pine needle, part moss, part rock dust. Long ago, a turnpike, next, a logging road, next, something known only to land owners abutting it, snow travelers cruising it, local map readers spelunking for ways to bridge obscure mountain byways. Or to those lucky, bright souls whose childhoods accepted the invitation to get lost in friendly woods, and become a part of its hidden vitality. May we never forget the free children of the earth, who were once allowed to play in mud, scrape their knees and fall asleep embraced by warm humps of grass. She’d raised her son in the wide crevices of such a mountain slope, and assured me that he’d told her that if we followed this trail, it would connect to the road, on the other side, to where I’d lived 30 years ago. Okay, then. Why waste another minute not walking? You can only study the maps for so long. When you feel the printed topography etching questions uncomfortably on your mind, that’s when you must put your boots to the ground. From her house, to the rental house, to the VAST snow machine junction, and up onto land that felt cared for, and old. In this part of Vermont, climbing, or falling, rarely flat, and enigmatic, as each turn brings surprises, and tempting deer trod networks, off to the right, and the left. Then sugar line, then strange outbuildings, doors wedged shut by warped boards, and old foundations. Streams not large, here at the height of headwaters, the besotted hillsides oozing, feeding many streams into lower level torrents. What is miraculous about early spring is the sight of distant hills, in sharp relief and with discernible definition, clearly identifiable thru the dense thicket about to leaf out. Stunning glimpses of Deer Leap, never seen in summer from here, blazingly austere at this angle further up the valley, a gift for early ramblers. Giving rise to feelings, of appreciation for things we forget to see, because they have become too familiar, or dulled by repetitious sightings from the same perspective. If we pray, and some of us do, let it be for fresh eyes, with which to see what is right there in front of us. Or what was right in front of us all along, but we were not able to see. Not a complicated goal, or one that takes too much thinking or cleverness. Just two old friends, who did find the way, marveling at all that had changed, and what was still monolithically unmoving, like the granite underbelly of a mountain. She reminded me of where we’d left off. “I was living with Nick in NYC,” she said. “But I had to get away, I knew something was not working”. We met in our twenties, she escaping to build her cabin on the notch, while I aimed my sights toward some kind of redemption through asceticism. We’ve all espoused youthful ideologies, in our youth, and in regard to that, I am no exception. And I gave her advice at the time evidently, that I can only term “folly” and “delusional” in hindsight. But we both followed it, and here we are today to tell the story. She, at 70, jumping ahead of me to cross the river, and I lagging behind with my camera, to make sure I record this epic crossing, with as much accuracy as I can muster.”
