Cold Dry Wind

January 3, 2011 | Laughing Knees | 31 Comments 

The wind blows off Oku­tama reser­voir, whistling through the bare lat­tices of the road­side trel­lis and bites at my cheeks. It is cold enough to bring tears to my eyes and I swing off my pack to pull out the fin­ger­less bunting gloves from the back pocket. Sun­light, falling from high in the mid-​​day sky, glances off the metal­lic blue of the reser­voir wa­ter and seems to lose strength with the meet­ing, so that al­though the af­ter­noon is bathed in a gold lus­ter, I can feel the win­try chill seep through my three lay­ers of clothes. I rum­mage in my pack again for an ex­tra layer, a wind­shirt, to cut the wind and stave off, for a while, the fi­nal dip into the end of the year, the sink­ing into deep winter.

Two more days and the new year begins.

I meant to take the bus fur­ther out along the reser­voir, to where the moun­tains jut up higher into the wilds of the west­ern sky, but buses run later and more slowly with the hol­i­days, and some­thing about the past year, with its dis­ap­point­ments and un­spo­ken hes­i­ta­tions, urges me to get off early and stay low. I stand at the edge of the curb, watch­ing the bus, now tiny along the arm of land reach­ing out into the reser­voir, trundling away to the end of the fin­ger of land, round the tip, and dis­ap­pear. It isn’t so much a scram­ble I am af­ter, but more of a con­fir­ma­tion that I still have that rest­less call to wan­der the hills and woods whip­ping about within my soul. So it is a slow stroll I start out upon, noth­ing too stren­u­ous or untamed.

I had be­gun to doubt my own ca­pac­ity to step out into the open and sim­ply love what­ever weath­ers and en­coun­ters I would find, just as they are. The de­tails are unim­por­tant, but for 48 years I had never failed to mark my­self, or more ac­cu­rately, “be aware of” my­self, within the ur­gency and im­me­di­acy of a liv­ing world, a bound­less feel­ing and way of see­ing that makes it im­pos­si­ble to re­main con­tent with as­phalt streets, park­ing lots, cars, and hori­zons choked with noth­ing but humankind.

Then two years ago the courage to get out there seemed to go still. I of­ten stood by my win­dow gaz­ing out at the rain, and felt far away. I packed up my back­pack in an empty ges­ture, wrote up gear lists and route itin­er­aries, even went out and bought the in­gre­di­ents for meals to be cooked over a tiny al­co­hol stove, only to heft my pack, reach the front door of my apart­ment, and stop there, star­ing at my shoes. I just couldn’t get my­self to go.

Last No­vem­ber I turned 50. I had long ago promised my­self that, for my birth­day, I would go on a jour­ney to a child­hood dream, to Patag­o­nia. I sat scrolling through Face­book posts in­stead, not re­ally feel­ing anything.

I start up the trail, cam­era in hand, and just let the cant of the hill talk to me with its crunch of gravel and dash of old leaves. It al­ways takes a while for my sight to fo­cus enough that pho­to­graphic im­ages present them­selves. Some­times it comes ef­fort­lessly; I raise my eyes and pat­terns or jux­ta­po­si­tions, fore­bod­ings or de­lights jump out at me, fix­ing them­selves into po­si­tion and all I have to do is raise the lens and see. At other times it is like a sheet of wa­ter washes over the glass and the patina of rel­e­vance re­mains cold and hard as a shell.

I’ve heard peo­ple say about the places I love to wan­der as be­ing empty, with noth­ing there, but when the sight is good, that’s not how nat­ural places re­veal them­selves. There is al­ways some­thing go­ing on or self-​​revealing in the eye of the old world. Per­haps places rely upon the ker­nel bud­ding in si­lences, with the heart beat­ing at the cen­ter of root­ed­ness. Per­haps adap­ta­tion be­gins when you rec­og­nize why you can longer stay the way you were.

I reach the pass with the wind heav­ing in the brit­tle for­est. Branches rat­tle against lichen-​​splotched stat­ues that have long ago re­turned to the for­est. I lis­ten for the call of a watch­ful jay or the busy, skir­ling twit­ter­ing of siskins in the brush, and they are ghosts, swept along my pe­riph­eral vi­sion like smoke. I kneel amidst the fallen leaves and smell the sweet burn­ing of the past sum­mer, half pray­ing, half ask­ing for for­give­ness. When I stand, the world tilts for a spell, as if to drain ill words and muddy expectations.

All af­ter­noon the trail and road wind through the forests and hills and ravines in a rit­ual of touch and go, step­ping in to lean over a trick­ling brook, then swing­ing back out to bow to the cur­tains of beech and maple that stand rapt in the at­ten­tion of the late af­ter­noon sun­light. The path both hides from and reaches up to the open sky, and with­out an­other per­son, not once, to bring the path to life, I feel as if I am slip­ping from mem­ory, the fur­ther along I ram­ble, the deeper into the great sleep of the for­est I be­come en­veloped. The sun dips into the hori­zon and the world closes in with a slow, bated breath.

Oku­tama is not far from the city and this walk along an old log­ging road only takes a head­long push through the tun­nel of trees to reach the end at the train sta­tion, but as the dark­ness de­scends the hills ris­ing all about switch masks and with the grip of the cold to ac­cen­tu­ate the loom of the trees and the holes in the vis­i­bil­ity of the ravines that yawn to one side of the trail, seem to rise in stature un­til I am but this tiny crea­ture step­ping past hid­den, watch­ful eyes. Oku­tama now seems like a for­bid­ding king­dom, one whose bor­ders I’ve in­ad­ver­tently passed into and there is no turn­ing back.

But as all tun­nels go, you pass through and even­tu­ally reach the other side. Oku­tama is rid­dled with tun­nels. They bur­row through the folds of the land­scape like thread­ing holes in an old jacket. Some­how the trail holds to­gether and I weave through the dark­est groves with just enough light to find my way to the verges of hu­man set­tle­ment. We al­ways leave guide­posts for un­wary wan­der­ers, per­haps to re­mind us that with­out our walls and doors and fences there re­ally isn’t much out there to hold our ten­dency to drift in check. If we wait long enough even­tu­ally the trees start grow­ing in upon our stead. The wild re­ally has lit­tle in­cli­na­tion for sit­ting still.

I step back onto the main road closer to the end of the year and just five min­utes be­fore the last bus would pass. The wind has abated, but clouds hang on the ten­drils of my breath, bow­ing their heads for dawn. I still have time to ride back to the trains, to bright lights and the straight­ness of chairs and door­ways, and al­ready imag­ine the hot bath that will melt the fi­nal cast of the mountains.