Tom Ryan's Blog, page 5

There and Back Again

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Good morning, everyone.

This morning, Christina Morse said her goodbyes to our Following Atticus Facebook page after a decade of helping. 

Atticus, Paige, and I first met Christina and her husband Mike on a hike to Middle Moat more than ten years ago. It was during that wondrous fifteen-day first date Paige and I shared; seven years after she shipped a singular five-pound soul north to live with me.

Strangely, the next time we all encountered each other was on Paige’s and my twelve-day second date. Once again, we were above treeline. It was Paige’s first four-thousand-footer and it was snow-capped Mount Pierce. 

Through the years I’ve had a handful of extraordinary moderators who helped grow the Following Atticus page from less than 4,000 to the more than 230,000 it is now. Christina ended up being the one who stayed the longest. 

Goodbyes are not easy for either of us. Thankfully, we’re not saying goodbye to our friendship. What I am doing is moving forward to a new way of communicating with my readers. 

As Christina pointed out, long before I had a FB page, I wrote a blog called the “Adventures of Tom & Atticus.” Those posts were the seeds of my first book, “Following Atticus.” Facebook was the next best step for us to get started, even if I only created the page at the urge of an enthusiastic and helpful marketing person at William Morrow. 

I remember the first time she brought up using Facebook page to promote my upcoming book. 

         “But what would I say?” I asked.

         “Whatever you feel like.”

Two near-death experiences, two books (one, a NY Times bestseller), Atticus, Will, Samwise, and Emily later, and, if anything, I discovered I had to limit what I wanted to say on Facebook. 

As the American attention span has dwindled, written posts don’t always connect with the masses. Photographs with very few words do. Alas, I’ve never fit well with the masses. The less people wanted to read, the more awkward the fit came. I longed to have a page where I could connect with those who wanted to read my words, and took the time to digest them. 

An interesting note…

When “Following Atticus” came out, there were probably 6,000 followers on the Facebook page. When “Will’s Red Coat” was published, there were more than 230,000. An astounding number. And yet the sales of “Following Atticus” have dwarfed those of “Will’s Red Coat.” 

It was clear that while I had attracted many folks who liked photos of cute dogs, and a sprinkling of handful of words, I was not attracting many readers.  

This new home has been a longtime coming. It’s a direct connection between author and reader. Yes, there will be photographs, but the main purpose is to reach those who mean the most to my work.

In my longing for readers, I often think back to those pages in John Irving’s “The World According to Garp” where the dance between writers and readers appears. Garp, while still in high school, falls for Helen, his eventual wife. She is a reader, and that made Garp determined to be a writer.

“It was that afternoon in the empty stadium with frog gore on the point of his javelin, when Helen Holm provoked his imagination and T. S. Garp decided he was going to be a writer. A real writer, as Helen said.”  

Irving understood what all writers and poets do. Our words need to go somewhere…to someone.

We writers appreciate those who take note of what we have to say. Sometimes words come easy. Other times we cut open our veins, break open our hearts, wrestle with a sentence until it wakes us up in the middle of the night. We pour them out, in search of those who will drink them.         

On Saturday morning, I’ll be announcing how this new page is going to work. But briefly, it will give you and option of how many times a month you wish to receive my posts delivered to your email inbox. 

The first of three options will be free: a couple of posts a month. (Currently, you are all signed up for the free option.)

The second will average three posts a week; twelve a month.

The third choice, excites me the most. It includes the twelve posts per month; a handwritten card sent; a handwritten letter; and a typed letter/writing project each month. That turns out to be thirty-six pieces of mail delivered each year the old-fashioned way. 

If you’ve followed me on Facebook the last couple of years, you’ll know that nearly half of my written posts, and a good number of photographic posts, were deleted within an hour or two of going up. Call it my great frustration of what Facebook has done to us. It’s made us a world of responders, not readers who then thoughtfully respond. 

You also probably know I’m a fan of letters. Each day I pen at least two, and typically more. Writing letters and notes to those I care about has been the heart of my writing. It’s the way “Following Atticus” was written. Each chapter was a letter to an imaginary grandchild. Much of “Will’s Red Coat” came about the same way. Large sections of the book come from letters first written to friends. 

My posts here, will take more of that more personal form. A letter to each of you, whether it’s being delivered to your inbox or your mailbox. 

I’m excited about where this is taking me. 

I’m also grateful for the years of growth I experienced on Facebook. Unfortunately, FB has changed. Only about five percent of those who follow my page get to see the posts. That will no longer be the case. There is no more middle man. It’s just you and me. This is where I get to say, I’ve come full circle, back to where I once began.

Let’s see where this dance takes us.

See you on Saturday!

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Needing the Peace of Wild Things

When the world gets this crazed, and extremists pull and twist the media, when supposed leaders should soothe, and places like Facebook—once meant to bring us together, tear us apart and fuel our collective anxiety and anger, I escape to where I am safe. Nature. I back that up with a healthy dose of words, reaching for authors and poets I have read time and again.

We are facing an unprecedented American madness layered in jagged toxicity, and I knew I had to pull away from Facebook. Years ago, I killed my television and had not looked back. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I also pulled the plug on my Netflix account. I’ve even stopped listening to sports radio, a touchy proposition on the best of days. Now that there are no sports to discuss (mostly) men, with little more than chest-beating it takes pedal their view of the world.

You can have it all the craziness. I want simplicity. I wish for peace and unhurried thoughts. I long to rise above the constant concern that our country has turned into one of those we used to have pity on. Last night, and again this morning, seeking that gentleness we all long for, I listened to Wendell Berry read his poem “The Peace of Wild Things.”

When despair for the world
grows in me
and I wake in the night at the
least sound
in fear of what my life and my
children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the
wood drake
rests in his beauty on the
water, and the great heron
feeds.
I come into the peace of wild
things
who do not tax their lives with
forethought
of grief. I come into the
presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-
blind stars
waiting with their light. For a
time
I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.

In a few minutes, when I finish this mug of tea, Samwise, Emily, and I will drive to one of our local oases, disappear for five or six miles on this chilly morning, and have our communion with wild things.

We encountered deer each of the last two mornings. We seldom see them up here for some odd reason. Our interactions with bear outnumber those we have with deer. But on Sunday morning, while leaving the forest and wading through an abandoned pasture where horses used to live, a buck bolted out from beneath a grove of trees. My god, the brilliance of his power and grace, the bounding through the tall grass, the powerful kick of his hind legs, the way he maneuvered like a dancer, cutting his way from the grove, through a sea of knee-high waves of green grass, toward the dark forest.

Knowing they would not catch him, for he was too fast, and too far ahead, I let Samwise and Emily run after him. For Emily, it is more of a game. She loves to run. In contrast to the buck’s thrusting leaps, she was a quirky, bouncy, fox, tongue out, mouth agape to welcome in adventure, ears bent and flapping. The vegetation was so deep that she disappeared each time she returned to the earth and flew upward in racing forward. Up and down, up and down, a bouncy, fun-filled, daring spirit. Much like we all used to be when we were young and playing in the summer grass, without care, brimming with innocence to the point where it spilled out of us, landing in great splashes of satisfaction.

Samwise, in contrast, is not as fast, but he is more determined. He sprints, and the earth echoes as though he were a horse in full gallop. He is the hunter, to Emily’s ballerina. Together, their choreography brings me joy.

How sweet it is to fly! If only through witnessing their wings.

They did not chase for long. This is why I let them run. There was no danger for that blessed wild soul.

When they returned to me, they were as gleeful as I wished I could feel one day.

Especially these days.

Yesterday, we three miles upstream, by a bend in the river, we watched a doe and fawn, making their way across the riverstones in a delicate manner. Mother keen and aware of the slightest movement, looking for danger. Child, trusting her mother, soaking in the rays of a new day, the song of the river, the scent of trees, the song of a hundred-bird choir.

Samwise noticed the pair first. He tensed, in the hunter’s stance, body rigid, ready for battle. First, though, he looked at me, and I whispered, “Gentle, Sam. Gentle.”

Every muscle relaxed. The hunter became the witness. Emily watched both of us to understand the situation.

I put my finger to my lips, the silent signal of being quiet as well as gentle. We crept along the bank to look over the silvery river. Samwise sat. Emily stood next to him (she’s not much of a sitter while looking out on the world). I stayed behind them.

The doe knew we were there, appraised us, and went back to drinking. I took it as the highest compliment. When they had refreshed themselves, both looked up at us, across those thirty yards that both separated and connected us, turned, and calmly left us behind. They disappeared between the trees, up the hill. Each of us watched that spot for some minutes as if hoping for an encore.

The peace of wild things.

“For a time,
I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.”

*This Saturday, I’ll be announcing a change to this page. It will give you the option of receiving posts directly to your email twice a month (for free) or a dozen times a month (about three a week). There will be a third option that includes twelve posts a month, but three items (two handwritten, one typed) mailed to you the old fashioned way.

Please share these posts with your friends, any way you see fit, and help us to grow this safer place.

This May Day

It’s a dark, ominous morning, with a cap of charcoal clouds over the valley. Storms will roll over the mountains tonight, and these unseasonably high temperatures, our first heatwave of the year, will be replaced by air thirty degrees cooler. 

When we reached the western edge of the pond in the first half-mile of this morning’s walk, we were greeted by a blast of light from the rising sun on the eastern horizon. All at once, all three of us stopped and turned to let it wash over our faces. It only lasted for a few minutes, then we were plunged into gray soon after, but to step into the contrast of light against the dark was its own kind of treat. 

When we turned back toward the path, I noted we were not alone in admiring the golden glow. A fisher cat sat twenty feet away, upright like you’d see a prairie dog doing. She too was watching the brief bit of sunshine. 

I motioned Samwise and Emily close, squatted between them, and whispered, “Shhh, be gentle.” And they were. Samwise sat. Emily stood at attention. Even her tail was still and cocked and to the right. I let the fisher cat see us, and move on at her own pace.

On days like this, when the air and the bugs are thick, and the dew point, humidity, and temps are high, I’m reminded that summer is better as a concept here in the White Mountains than as a reality.

Black fly season is supposed to last from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day, but last year went months over. Mosquitoes are here early. The humidity, though daunting, offers glimpses of sweetness that make the first hours of the day, my favorite. It’s as if Mother Nature opens her pores, and the air is draped in sweet and sultry perfume. It’s beguiling and makes the short time we will be outside all the richer. 

This morning’s aroma, matched with taking communion with a forest soul who ventured out to the water’s edge, made for a reminder that while summer is better in pictures than in life, even the harshest days offer gifts.

This morning, I chose a different route than those we’ve been frequenting. Because of the heat, we decided on the one-mile loop that runs from the pond, through a thin necklace of forest, and over to the river. We did four laps, and each time Samwise and Emily took advantage of the various places to stop and wade along the river’s edge. 

Emily typically takes her lead from the two of us, even when she is out front, repeatedly looks back to us for reassurance. But on the most oppressive days, I see a different side of her. She does not look back. She splits from our pack, angles toward the pond, to where the beavers swim and are reconstructing their dams. Without fanfare, she slides in with the ease of an otter, paddles about, returns to shore, shakes, and soon catches us. We never break stride, and she gets her moment to be unbridled. 

Because there is less scurrying by the groundlings on these dense mornings, Samwise does not dart off the path as usual. He measures himself with an even pace. Since he is twice Emily’s weight, he’s more sensitive to temperature, and his tongue hangs twice as far out of his mouth. 

He eschews the pond water and chooses to refresh himself with frequent wading in the clear and colder Saco.

Even examples as simple as these offer me a different kind of sustenance. Samwise and Emily were raised to be themselves; to make their own choices. I’m heartened when they exert their individuality in even the most basic manner. Even with the bugs biting, I had to stop and watch stoic Samwise in the river. He’d take long drinks and look about at the other side to where the trees climb to the ledges. For that is where we’ve seen bear and deer in the past. 

He does not like the heat—not even the first stages of a day like this one—but he knows himself well, and standing in the mountain waters gives him a reason to linger.  

With June two days away, our morning walks will often be different. All the Forest Service roads will finally be open, and we’ll drive a little further from home. We’ll begin to go up. Yes, the black flies and the mosquitoes will still be ravenous, but climb a mountain, and the slightest breeze sends them back to the valleys and the rivers seeking refuge. I look forward to the views I once believed were lost to me, and some of the old favorites I returned to last summer and fall. But this year, I have a different outlook on the mountains. I’ll share it in future posts. In short, there will be fewer climbs dictated by ego, and more in search of peace.

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I’ve come to understand how little I need to fill myself with contentment, with an occasional burst of rapture. The medium-size, less crowded mountains will be where we will enjoy our mornings. If we head to a 4,000-footer, it will mean starting our hike at two or three in the morning, so we can have the trails and the summit to ourselves, and by the time we return to our car, most will still be on their way to the trailheads. There will also be some full moon hikes.

I look forward to sharing the future trail reports with you when we begin going up once again. That starts this coming week.

Until then…onward, by all means. Stay cool. Stay safe.  

The Infinitude of Summer

Dear friend,

On mornings as golden as this one, it’s easy to forget what has befallen our world. My god, the birds were a symphony in the forest as we walked through trees now green with young leaves! The Swift River sang a chorus of rushing life heaped upon life, leaping and racing down from the mountains to our valley before heading home to the sea. 

We saw a young fox, but only after she saw us. Samwise and Emily were wonderful in staying with me for any wild movement is an invitation for Emily to dance, and Samwise to give chase. 

Fading are my winter memories. Gone are the morning gloves, worn as recently as a few days ago. Gone are the hiking pants, knit hats, and even the lightest jacket stays behind. I walked lightly through the column of trees with the lightest clothing, and even lighter spirits. The trails smell of summer now—that earthen mixture of warmth and cool swirling together with pine and decay. (That, and of bug spray.) 

Black fly season has begun, and the mosquitos are just as hungry, and more aggressive than the Memorial Day weekend tourists who are already pouring into North Conway. Whenever I think of the bugs, these pests that get everywhere and sow madness and itching, I’m reminded that they are feasts for the birds who fill our skies with hope, color, and song. 

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Now that warmer days are here; we stop at least once each walk to play the Inbounds game. Think of basketball and the inbound pass after a score or a turnover or timeout. I am the player tossing the ball into play. Samwise is the “big” who guards me. When I sit, and prepare to throw, he jumps up to block the ball. Only in our game the basketball is a medium size riverstone, rounded into a pleasing smooth orb by the strong current throwing endless pebbles against stone. 

What was it Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote? “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” A riverstone is perfection.

Emily plays the part of the darting defender who positions herself behind Samwise to chase after the ball after it gets beyond her teammate. 

In this game, it is imperative I throw with enough arc and force that neither of them can reach the stone. But it cannot be tossed too hard, because they have to think they have a chance at getting that elusive ball. 

This game excites Samwise to the point where he whimpers in excitement when I reload a handful of stones, collecting and piling them up as if they are January snowballs for a backyard battle. I fake a toss. Samwise leaps. I feint in the other direction with a pump fake. He throws his body that way. His mouth…his eyes are wide open. His tongue hangs out. Both ears flap with the kind of movement that would make Dumbo envious. He’s so obsessed, he froths at the mouth.

Behind him, Emily, the water bug, darts from fake throw to real throw, changing direction with instant precision. She watches the riverstone fly above and beyond reach, gives chase, and listens for that satisfied plunk. 

Now here’s where it gets tricky. For the plunk must truly offer that satisfied plunk. 

They have to make a solid sound for her to consider the next step being worth her time and effort. The stones cannot be too small nor too big. Each must have enough heft to create a soulful plop when it enters the water. Too little and it means nothing to her. Too big and there is an explosion of water. With the right sound, Emily reaches where the stone has disappeared into the shallow river and bends forward like an old woman struggling with her balance to pick carrots out of the garden. She thrusts her head under the clear, cool mountain water, her fanny wavers above in comparison, much like that of a duck. She keeps her head underwater for as long as thirty seconds. Then, rising like a sea monster in triumphant, large stone in her mouth, face and ears drenched and dripping. She labors with the larger stones (never the ones I’ve tossed), and waddles over a hundred other riverstones to return to us, where she drops her prize, shakes off the river, and prepares for the next throw. 

It is a simple game, but one in which all three of us enjoy for different reasons. 

It’s a summer game, and it reminds us the good weather has returned. Long live summer, no matter how many shadows of uncertainty darken our current times. On a splendid summer morning, especially the early hours before it gets too hot or buggy, there is an infinitude of possibilities. 

Flagstaff Memories, Thorne Pond Mornings

While locked down here in Jackson, limiting myself to walking trails within either twenty minutes or twenty miles from home, I wonder when the time will come when road trips are safe to undertake again. I cannot help but think of last year’s 71-day trek around the west and how it would not be possible this year. There are moments when sitting here at my desk, I consider where we were on this day in 2019.

One year ago, we were walking gentle rolling hiking trails in Flagstaff, Arizona. We started the day in the Page, Arizona with a dawn visit to Horseshoe Bend, where the Colorado River makes a dramatic curve through the canyon below. As was typically the case, we rose before the sun and were the first ones there. It was eerily quiet, save for the call of a soaring raven and the hushed whispers of the wind riding over the cliff faces.

Horseshoe Bend is one of the places I was determined to see on our trip and it was perhaps the most disappointing stop. Although it took a while for the crowd to arrive, and create a samba line of tourists coming in while we were leaving, what I saw on the ground all around the rim were cigarette butts. They were everywhere. It was sad to see. There were also signs warning people about standing on the edge of the crumbling rocks to take selfies for social media posts. It seems folks fall to their deaths there each year—just so someone can capture the ultimate Instagram post.

A few hours later, we arrived in Flagstaff, and set out on trails I’d found via the All Trails app on my phone. We walked for five miles under blue skies, weaving across a sparsely-treed forest dotted with majestic ponderosa pines. Off in the distance, the San Francisco Peaks were capped in white. We never saw another person, after the first half mile, even though we moved along the trails close to midday. At one hilltop bend, however, Samwise’s back stiffened, his nub of a tail stuck straight out. Emily’s more extravagant tail curled to a still question mark. Thirty yards away moseyed a herd of powerful elk.

I missed many such photo opportunities during the trip because I chose to allow Samwise and Emily off leash, and needed my hands to offer them signals in our attempt to keep safe and quiet. It would happen repeatedly as we voyaged on in the coming weeks as well, when we encountered a rattlesnake, more elk, some bison, and even a mountain lion.

When I told one of my sisters about these close calls with nature, she’d almost always respond with, “Cool! Did you get a photo?”

Invariably I answered, “No, I had more important things for my hands to do.”

Besides, whatever photos I took would have taken me away from the experience of the moment. And rarely have I ever looked back on a photo that has been as vivid as a memory. Traveling with Samwise and Emily creates a different dynamic, especially when they are off leash.

We would see a few more elk while in Flagstaff, walking that same knot of trails. We’d leave the following morning, again, before dawn, to be at the Grand Canyon for sunrise. But it was snowing and while people were not active, elk were. Two were just ahead of us on a paved bike path.

Emily and Samwise are good listeners and stayed behind me when we came upon them. We followed them for a half mile before they got tired of us and meandered through the brush.

Getting back to our car, just after I fastened my seat belt, two mountain lions walked by in the most casual manner. There is something majestic about seeing a big cat moving gracefully by you. And the great blessing of this is two years prior, in close to the same spot at the same early hour, when it was just Samwise and me, two other cougars walked in front of our VW Beetle. We had the top down, and they came so close I could almost touch them. I still see Samwise’s face in my memory, how calm he was and how he studied them. Of the four of us, I was probably the one who was most excited!

I have no idea if we will ever make it back out west, although I’d like to think we will. The world has become more complicated. This virus has humbled us and urges us not to travel and take chances that might get us, or others, sick.

This morning, we woke up to the birds in our backyard. I always open my eyes just before dawn to find Samwise sitting up on the bed next to my head, looking out at the backyard and the comings and goings of winged neighbors and scurrying groundlings. I showered, made oatmeal with blueberries and flaxseed, and wrote my brother Eddie a letter. We were still early enough to have Thorne Pond to ourselves for four loops around the perimeter and through the small woodlands. It was only 45 degrees, but the sun made it more welcoming. The chorus of frogs was everything. They were abuzz to get the day started. We also saw our first beaver of the year. He was floating so close to the shore, looking up at us with mild curiosity (or so I imagined) that Emily was tempted to jump in and swim with him.

“Please stay here, Em.” I gave her the hand signals and she was good about remaining by my side. Samwise, as he often does while around wildlife, sat and watched.

Another group of common mergansers have made their way to the pond. They do not stay long during the shoulder seasons, making quick stopovers on their way back to where they want to be. Like the three of us last year in Arizona, they pick their spots for a quick layover and make the most of their short time in each place.

The plants of the forest have come to life. The mint and lime tones are already growing richer, darker. At first, the only leaves we saw were beech. But they now have company and soon they will be swallowed up by a denser foliage.

The river is no longer running as high as it was, but with these warm temperatures and the snowmelt heading toward the sea, it’s a still a healthy current with a grand flowing voice. Off in the distance, Mount Carrigain stood proudly. An interesting note about Carrigain—you can see more 4,000-footers from its summit than you can from any of the other forty-seven. (It’s why so many folks choose to finish the forty-eight there, so they can look out at many of the places they’d been to in their quest.) And yet, there are very few places where you can see Carrigain from the valleys. Where we walk is one of only three I know of.

Signal Ridge is a half mile from the tower at the top, and from where we were walking, it was easy to see that there’s plenty more snow to melt before those trails are clear.

That’s a lot of what we do this time of the year in the White Mountains. We watch trail conditions and look forward to trekking along byways free of ice and rotting snow. I keep an eye on the forest service road openings as well, to see which out-of-the-way trails we can escape to.

When we returned home, I checked the websites. Eighteen roads are now opened, with thirty-one still to go. Alas, the few I’m watching most closely are still gated and may be for another ten days.

Planning will be more important this year, now that we cannot make a getaway. That’s part of the fun of it, though. To get to trails and peaks not usually frequented, or get on them at times when others are not there. So we can have as humbling a quiet experience as we did a year ago, when we saw far more elk than humans during our Arizona walks.

I am grateful we live in this picturesque place. Doubly so for the company I get to share it with. Even when the summer crowds hit, we will be blessed to sneak off to our secret ledges, streams, and peaks, to have our private communions with nature.

If this is to be a year without travel, we are in a fine place to stay local and keep safe.

Emily's Growing Grace

Yesterday’s warmth and last night’s steady spring rain conspired to bring us a gift this morning. Until today, the shades of green had all been slowly emerging from the ground, new life intermingling with last year’s dead leaves. But overnight, the tightly bound buds of the young beech trees popped and when the sun was just rising and we hit the trail we were no longer just walking above color, it surrounded us with its effervescent shades of chlorophyll. It was like walking through clouds of woodland fairies all aflutter. 

The older trees have yet to fill in their over story, but dark clouds served that purpose today, while shards of golden sunrays cut through the openings between trees. Bruised sky above, ethereal light and shadow, great splashes of uniform beech leaves looking minty. There was even a smattering of purple appearing on the forest floor. What a dynamic to experience! 

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With the longer days, we now get out much earlier, put in our five miles, and are home by 8:00 am. I then busy myself with cooking and writing and short stabs out into the backyard with Samwise and Emily. There’s always a trip to the post office where I mail four or five letters or cards and bring home whatever has found its way into my post office box. I sit out back in one of the Adirondack chairs reading letters from friends while Samwise keeps watch over his provincial kingdom, and Emily watches me, hoping one of those envelopes I’m opening holds a treat or better yet a ball. 

Thus, goes our days. They are rather routine. It may seem boring to others, but it’s the peace I sought for so long. We finish our days with another three or four miles on one of the nearby trails where we never run into anyone. 

This evening, during that second walk, Emily gave a glimpse of who she’s become.

On most walks, she responds to Samwise and me, following our leads, looking to see if we are giving her direction. A scurrying chipmunk or a flitting chickadee causes her to give chase with eyes focused and ears flapping. She’s part cat, I do believe. Or maybe part fox. She’s proficient at pouncing. 

She’s never caught anything, which is why I still allow her to have her fun. But if she zeroes in on someone’s home in a hollow tree or a hole in the ground, I ask her to leave them be. With reluctance, she’s come to listen to me. 

I have no idea what she would do if she ever caught up with any of her prey. Mostly, I think it’s a game to her, and she would play with whoever she cornered. Samwise, on the other hand, caught a racing red squirrel once, by a marriage of quickness and guile, and before I could stop him, he snapped its neck in the powerful vice of his jaws. Samwise, I keep my eye on for that reason. He’s a former street dog who knows how to fend for himself. So, I often call him back to me. 

Here’s the funny thing about the two of them. Chirping chipmunks can stir them into a frenzy. As soon as one darts, it’s like Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, “The game’s afoot!” Off they charge. But if we come upon a chipmunk sitting on a log looking at us, Samwise will sit and look back in return, and Emily may get closer, because that’s her curious nature and verbishway, but she does not lunge or pounce or reach. There is a gentleness in both of them when they observe. 

On the tonight’s walk, we came to an island where the mighty Saco splits. On the far side, it races, leaps, and froths, especially now carrying snowmelt from the mountaintops. But the passage on our side of the island was smoother and the water not as deep. It’s only ten yards across. It’s almost listless in its movement, like slow glass. The bank we walk along sits several feet above the water. Erosion has played its part in this. But there is one area where the forest drops to only two feet above the flow and Samwise and Emily often hop down to wade or take a drink. 

This evening, Emily went down for her drink and I did not pay her much heed since I was calling Samwise back from a chase after a groundling. We kept walking and I expected Emily to hop back up onto the path, whiskers still wet, and catch up to us. But she didn’t. Samwise and I doubled back and returned to that low bank. He sat and watched, and I bent over to better see through the trees. Emily was knee deep in the water, her tail swishing slowly and happily as she watched a mother merganser and her flock of five tiny ones. Now mergansers, if you’ve encountered them, are shy and will quickly move away to the far side of the pond when we see them.  

However, this young family was unfazed by Ms. Emily. In turn she was delighted. Sensing I was there, she turned her head to look back at me. That gentle glee she shows me with her mouth slightly open and her tongue barely sliding over her teeth was there to see. I wanted to say something, but this was her moment, and I did not wish to interrupt. 

Her attention returned to mother and offspring, who were all within reach of her leap, should she choose to go after them, and watched them slowly move by her. 

These are the days I look at wonder in Emily, my very carbonated friend. When she first arrived, I regretted her stubbornness and wild spirit. She took advantage of her freedom and did not listen consistently. Often, when called, she would go in the opposite direction. 

She helped me grow my patience, even while my health was deteriorating again, and once I learned that, she learned to listen better. Together we’ve grown. It was as if she wanted me to recognize who she was and let her be. After that, she responded to gentle guidance. Although we always worked without a leash, we learned much about each other, and these days we may as well be tethered.  

Last year, she impressed me by being calm with bison close, and how she let a wild donkey get near enough to kiss her, and how when a coyote appeared on the trail in front of us, she looked to me for guidance. But tonight, was another level. In all those previous moments, I was there to offer her assurance. Tonight, this was all her. 

As I write this, I’m listening to Nigel Westlake’s Miss Potter soundtrack. It sways like a willow tree on a breezy summer day and makes me drop into a different world for my writing. Emily’s under the desk, her head is resting atop one of my feet. At home, she is rarely far away.

Tonight was one of the moments I’ll look back on one day when we are both much older. It will be a bitter sweet memory as I contemplate her innocence of being someone more for the first time, while standing closer to the other end of her life. This growth, the way we dance and age, and how her days are so important because her life is much shorter than mine—the poignancy is never lost on me.

She is just over three years old, but I am witnessing a grace she will grow old with. How fortunate for both of us as we walk each other home. 

A Golden Morning

Driving rains ended our outside miles early yesterday. We went to bed at 8:30, woke up at 4:30. A bit of reading, a stop at Big Dave’s Bagels when they opened, and we were on the trail by 6:15. How gratifying it is to start the day early, put in our five-morning miles in solitude, and be home by 8:30 to start work.

It was chilly this morning, made cold by a strong wind out of the east, and our first mile was heading into it. I wore my winter hat and moderate gloves. By the time we made our turn at the river, the wind was at our back, and I could feel its icy breath on my neck. Another half mile and, while we walked along the river, we were in the trees, and my hat and gloves came off. By the time we looped back east, sometime later, the wind had slowed to a breeze, and my fleece top was too warm for that last mile and a half.

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These are common challenges of spring in northern New England. It is often close to freezing in the morning, but mid-fifties three hours later. Wind can make it much colder. Bright sun has it feeling hotter than it is at noon.

This morning, the river, running high due to the slow spring thaw and yesterday’s rain, was as rough and choppy as a stormy sea. But the forest understory set a different tone with its vibrant multitude of youthful greens, just beginning to show, all awash in the dawn light slanting through the trees. These colors of green are impossible to describe. Are they mint, lime, neon, kelly, seafoam, shamrock, emerald—all charged with a volt of electricity? In the dawn light, they glow, almost preternaturally. It’s joyful and dizzying for the eyes and defies logic.

As a schoolboy, my art teacher would have told me, had I accurately painted these young shoots poking up from the dead leaves and mud, “There is no such color. Paint it green!”

But here in spring, there is every shade of immature green imaginable, and they are impossible to define as they grow and evolve. An accurate photo looks photoshopped of these scenes in the early light. So, I keep my camera in my pocket, realizing that no image would do the sight justice anyway.

Whatever this riot of colors, these splashes of chlorophyll that defy definition are to be called, to me, they are shards of hope. While humans struggle with being still and staying local and home from work, and being kind to others by wearing a mask, and prove how selfish we’ve been with the way we’ve looked at life, and this planet, Nature moves on. It’s been given a short reprieve from non-stop human encroachment. Animals now seem are showing themselves in places they wouldn’t have been seen in the past. The lack of cars on the road offers us a view of life with less pollution. And yet the forest understory would be this way whether we are on this world or we aren’t, proving we need Nature more than she needs us. Actually, she does not need us at all.

It’s one of the reasons I choose to spend more time in forests over society. I feel more comfortable in the company of trees, with the whispering of streams, the full-throated songs of blue jays and mountain rivers, the lush cool of stones and the dampness of ripening mosses, than I do with the hurry up and get there, hurry up and buy, buy, buy human world.

We stopped three times on our walk today. Once to remove a pebble from my left shoe. A second time so that Samwise and Emily could drink from a clear and fresh rivulet. The third time was a mile from the parking lot. The sun had risen fifteen degrees from where it was when we started out, the forest was slightly warmer, the wind was resting. For the first time in our walk, I heard the bird song. A pileated woodpecker was punctuating the rest of the melodies with his exotic pitch-changing vocalizations. Even Samwise and Emily had to look up at the enormous red-capped fellow.

Looking up, I saw the bare treetops and how sparse the buds are. Looking down, I am reminded that the understory fills in before the overstory does. When fall comes, the treetops lose their colors first, and the forest floor catches them. How wonderfully inverse these seasons are!

Walks like this morning’s are revelatory as well as renewing. They cleanse me of mental clutter and bring other thoughts to the forefront. Through the pandemic, many of us have come to conclusions about our lives. Mine is that I long to chase Nature and move away from this busy valley. It's not a new thought, but it has been renewed in me. We do not currently have the kind of crowds we do in peak summer or in foliage season, but many second homeowners have moved into the valley to sit out the spread of the virus, and it has changed the region.

I have no set plan. I merely know I want to be where fewer people are. I want to live where Northern New England still feels like northern New England and not so much an extension of Massachusetts. I want to be where the trees hold hushed conversations, and the thrum of roads are not easily heard. I long to live all my days as we lived this morning, as we live each morning, wrapped in original songs, celebrating peace.

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In the Company of Four-Leggeds

We were gifted yesterday by an encounter with a fox who had a lush, full, and colorful coat. His tail was a ripe flag. His boots were thin and black. His face so perfect, his body so light and graceful, it was as if he stepped out of a painting.

He was curious enough to stop and study us while crossing in front of us. I asked Samwise to stay by my side and then called Emily even closer. My biggest concern with each of them is that they are too friendly, but they listen well when around the company of wild things. And so it was that in the late afternoon, three different species stopped to acknowledge the others in a calm, respectful manner.

Mr. Fox took his time moving on. This delighted me. For I did not wish him to leave and could have spent hours with him. As he dipped down into thicket below the trail, we walked on. Of course, Samwise and Emily gave his path a good sniffing and watched him weave through the undergrowth until, at last, his tail was no longer visible.

I am reminded that on this day a year ago, we were headed west on our seventy-one-day odyssey. I was curious about how Emily would handle the wild souls we’d meet along the way. A Western adventure is much more perilous than those we’ve known in New England.

Both she and Samwise have been leashless in nature since their first days with me. But fussing with chipmunks and encountering mild-mannered foxes and black bears is nothing like coming close to scorpions, rattlesnakes, mountain goats, elk, coyotes, cougars, grizzlies, and bison. We would come close to all but two of these species when we were on our adventures, and Emily showed admirable restraint. Her poise rivaled Samwise’s and differed so from her usual carbonated self.

The three of us do well in the wild world. We are at our best; it seems when we are in nature and away from people. A tight thread exists, and while there are no leashes, we are connected. Yes, we have our close circle of those we are thrilled to visit with, but to slip from the grasp of the known and be amongst whispering trees or a singing brook is what fills our hearts.

For those who have read Will’s Red Coat, you know about the bond Atticus, and I shared with wild souls. Especially the black bears that visited us in our yard for the six years he lived here. Each year, we’d have anywhere between five and dozen bear visitors who came around so often I named most of them. There was Butkus, Passaconaway, Payton, State of Maine, Old Man, Weetamoo, Ditka, the Jackson Five (a mother and her four cubs who was known to many in town), among others.

Aragorn was the yearling who grew up with us and was our most regular visitor. But as I told a friend the other night, once Atticus died, the bears stopped coming around. Even Aragorn. Save for one more encounter.

Eleven months after I said goodbye to Atticus, I was sick on the night of my fifty-sixth birthday. Samwise was with me then, but still young. He heard a noise on our second-floor deck, and we went to investigate.

Through the glass, I saw a hulking body. I cracked the door open, and massive head turned to look at me, “Is that you, Aragorn?”

I recognized him immediately. Our eyes held each other as they had in previous years.

“He’s no longer here, my friend. He’s gone.” My voice cracked. The reality of saying it brought tears to my eyes. I paused, letting the silence settle. “But I think you know that.”

Regaining myself, “There’s another here now. His name is Samwise. He’s quite young.”

I turned to look for Sam. He was down the hallway, peering around the corner from a safe distance.

That night, Aragorn slept pushed up against the glass door, and I gathered the couch cushions and lay them on the opposite side of the glass. We fell asleep that night, gazing into each other’s eyes. Samwise eventually joined me, and that’s how the three of us spent the last hours of my birthday.

By the next morning, Aragorn was gone, and so was my fever.

Samwise sniffed along the old trail Aragorn had always used that led down to the Ellis River, until we reached the stony bank, and the glistening water rich with tannin, making it the color of iced tea.

We’ve not seen him since. Nor have we seen any other bears in the yard in these last three years. We do see them, quite often, on the trails near the house, however.

These mysteries that offer no definitive answers are gifts to be unwrapped. How fortunate we are to discover them from time to time. I actually like that they don’t come around anymore. Even my old friend Aragorn. It means that the magic of Atticus was as pure as it seemed to me when he was still breathing.

While wildlife no longer comes to our yard, I did have a sweet encounter the other night with another four-footed soul.

I was cleaning the kitchen and bent down to put a pan away. I looked up, and crouching on the countertop, so close to me, I could blow her backward with a mighty breath, was a tiny mouse. She was just as curious about me as yesterday’s fox, and we gazed into each other’s eyes. Though small, her soul glimmered behind them, just as might Aragorn’s had. Emily came to see who I was talking to, and I was pleased she was kind. The mouse skittered back a bit when seeing Emily get up on her hind legs. Soon, Samwise was looking on as well.

I scooped the little one up, but it was too cold to put her outside. Instead, I placed her in a cup and covered it while I went to work, cutting a weathered t-shirt into strips and spreading them into the bottom of a shoebox. I added a small jar lid filled with water, some fresh baked bread, pieces of a banana, and peanut butter.

It did not take very long for her to make herself at home.

I taped the lid on and punched holes in it. The next day it was still too cold to set her outside, but she seemed to be content in her shoebox condo. The following day I added more water, more peanut butter, and some apple. On the third day, temperatures were mild enough to move her outside. Using an Exacto Knife, I cut a mouse doorway for her and placed the shoebox outside between some birch trees.

She was still there the following day, but by yesterday she was gone.

Yes, I know I displaced her from her home in the house—she’d probably lived in our place her entire life—but I made peace with this compromise. Perhaps she found her way back inside by way of a crack or hole in the siding. I’ll never know. Unlike the bears who used to visit us, I have very little faith in my ability to tell one mouse from another.

These are tough times for all. We’ve all been inconvenienced, at least, and in some cases, various extremes stretching from distressed and depressed to shattered. No one has been exempt during the pandemic and the madness attending it. Yet, I find escape from the mental, emotional, and physical stress in the most peaceful places shared with those nonhumans who live in this world, if not always in our society.

A bit of kindness and curiosity goes a long way toward making our existence palatable, if not briefly, cheery.

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Even the Robins Are Acting Differently

Today, I said goodbye to friends I’ve known for years. It’s not the first time we’ve parted company nor the only time they’ve broken my heart and left me lonely as they drifted away. 

I always go through this when I return to a favorite book and finish it again. John Irving’s older books always do this to me. He makes my heartache as no one else can. 

I’ve read The Hotel New Hampshire several times, but this was the first time I listened to the audiobook. It came out this past month, and I’m happy to report that narrator Kirby Heyborne was superb. 

So here I am, once again moving through the wreckage of the Berry family and their three Hotel New Hampshire's. This passage is in one of the book’s last pages: “So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother, and someone’s older sister—they become heroes, too. We invent what we love, and what we fear. There is almost always a brave, lost brother—and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.” 

No wonder I will miss them so.

Last year, I listened to Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany while walking the same woodland paths day after day. In the months that followed, whenever we walked those trails again, I felt like I was returning to a place I used to frequent with friends. Those characters came to me like the ghosts of those I had known and loved. 

Comfort is crucial to me as we do our best to navigate this brutal coronavirus landscape. Change comes daily, if not more often, and we find that nothing is the same as it once had been. So favorite old books, and the characters who live in them, offer me a safe harbor. It’s a brief visit to normalcy. 

As I write to you tonight, we are now in for the evening. Our two walks stretched over ten miles of solitude. Before the second one, I prepared my favorite soup—a country lentil with potatoes, celery, mushrooms, and carrots—in the Instant Pot so it would be ready when we returned home. That also brought some comfort. With Samwise and Emily gnawing bones on either side of my desk, so entranced in digging deep into the marrow while Fantasia On a Theme by Thomas Tallis plays, this could almost be like any night in the past few years. 

Alas, it is not. 

Although it’s not been reported in the media yet, a friend told me one of his former employees died from COVID-19 the other day. She lived in the lower valley. 

The beast is getting closer. I know it’s already ravaged other areas of the country, but now it crawls into out of the way nooks and crannies, most likely brought to the country by those who sought refuge from busier and sicker states to our south. Even pokey, backwoods northern New England is not safe. 

For the first time, I wore face protection today. Other than that, it was a typical Sunday morning at Grant’s Shop ‘n Save. Picked up asparagus, unsweetened apple sauce, and mushrooms; looked in vain for marrow bones and fresh, affordable greens; and checked out with Deb Davis. It is our Sunday morning tradition—me choosing Deb’s register. That too, was a comfort. Only this time, I looked like a bank robber wearing my purple bandana. 

The thaw continues up here. Slowly, snow and ice melt, leaving behind mud. The rivers run high, but they are not flooding. I wore trail runners to the woods this evening. Shorts, too. Spring is slowly moving in. I hear it in the bird song, smell it in the whiff of April air, and see the increased scurrying of forest groundlings. The notoriously anti-social robins have even been floating through the trees together. A round of robins. 

I felt the same way when we were driving home from our walk and spied our friend Christine’s car parked at a trailhead. We pulled over and sought her and her four-leggeds out. Notoriously anti-social at times, like a robin, I was happy to walk an additional mile in good company. 

The comfort of the familiar is the medicine I need in this unfamiliar world.

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A Different Kind of Civilized

The snow started earlier than predicted this morning, and we were enchanted by the raw, feral feel of the storm while walking our woodland miles soon after sunrise. There is something about a February storm here in Northern New England that turns back the clock and simplifies life. Needs are streamlined: warmth, food, safe transportation, and shelter. Have these amid a winter storm, and you feel wrapped in the goodness of life. 

This morning’s peacefulness was not lost on me since it is happening in the heart of the least pleasant week of the year up here. 

It’s February school vacation week, and while we don’t dislike visitors—I was once one myself, after all, before becoming a resident—we are keenly aware of attitude. Nearly anyone can afford to come to these sacred peaks and stunning valleys in the green of summer or under the autumnal kaleidoscope of fall foliage. But to be able to afford a week of skiing for an entire family is a costly holiday. Add up the lodging, ski equipment, and lift passes, not to mention the food and drink, and it dwarfs simple family camping trips in July or August. 

The expense of this week is beyond the reach of most people, and these mountains never seem more white than now.

It’s a class thing, in a world never more disparately separated. 

Talking to my friends in the service industry, the word that echoes is entitlement. 

One can genuinely feel the temperament of the grocery stores change during this vacation week. Employees are tenser, and ready to be looked down upon, frowned upon, or yelled at. 

In my travels, I’ve often noted that the staff at any Whole Foods Market stands in stark contrast to the chain’s customers. I never quite know how they keep their pleasant and polite ways when dealing with some who can afford to shop there regularly.

I think of those employees I've met at Whole Foods during these touristy times. And I'm often inspired by the more entitled folks when I travel, now that I do travel. My goal is always to pay respect to those who live in a place I am visiting.

In past Februarys, I’ve made it a point to escape during this week and head out of state. Alas, this year money is tight. 

This morning’s walk was silent, save for the sound of snow falling. Even the river ran silently by with nary a whisper of song. The rumble of the ski train was all that punctuated the quiet of the forest on its way from North Conway to Attitash. After it roared past, though, it may as well have been a dream that faded within seconds. 

The train passes, and we are welcomed home by the forest and her denizens immediately. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like out West where we had to be extra careful in our travels, always aware of cougars, grizzlies, scorpions, and rattlesnakes. In New Hampshire, the bears are asleep—not that they are aggressive, we do not have mountain lions, and even the coyotes are the ones cautious around us. If anything, they watch us pass, as hidden as ghosts. We do see deer and, on increasingly rare occasions, a moose. 

This morning, even the birds were sitting out the storm. They were as mute as the river. I pictured them tucked tightly under their wings, sleeping the snow away. The same with the chipmunks and squirrels. They were invisible today. 

We moved about as if in prayer. My exposed face relished the cold snow falling against it. Samwise and Emily carried a slight coating on their fur, and my hat and sweater matched. I am still amazed that they have taken to the cold as they have, and are never put off by it. I’ve yet to see either of them shiver or shake, even when it’s as low as thirty below zero. 

It was in this dreamscape that we lost ourselves today—stride after stride, grove after grove, mile after mile. The trees were silent witnesses to our passing. And then we came around a corner to a sight that caught our attention. Hanging in the low crook of a tree was a deer's hind leg, fur and hoof on one end, white bone and blood on the other. Emily drew close to it at first, standing on her hind legs to sniff at it. She looked at me for a hint on how she should proceed.

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“Leave it be, please. That’s not for us." 

She and Samwise went about sniffing the snow in the area, while I noted this is the second kill we’ve found in the last two weeks. As much as I love the grace and gentle ways of deer, I have no qualms with a coyote needing to eat. 

I said a prayer for the dead deer, the gratefully full coyote, and our place in this wildness. I was standing in peace, where violence in the struggle for life had played out only hours before. 

The approaching return of the ski train interrupted all of that. It was on its way back to North Conway for more school vacation skiers.

Even this contrast had me counting my blessings for a life that is a bit different than the one I had imagined while growing up. Not worse off by any means. Just different. Fulfilled, and mostly peaceful. Even when the wealthy come to town and make things less friendly. 

When they crowd the area, we turn to the forest for a different kind of civilization—a purer kind.