Woods Wanderer

Just about the time the first homeowners put up Christmas lights, I feel it.  Oddly enough, the feeling usually comes in the middle of the day, when the muted, overcast light of late November isn’t enough to read by.  After a long walk in bone-chilling rain, I’m happy enough to stay indoors the rest of the day, but it seems strange to be doing everything by artificial light.

Every year I am given plenty of warning.  Daylight Savings Time kicks in around Halloween and I’m eating dinner in the dark for weeks before it gets to me.  Then all of a sudden pow! I’m in a funk for no reason whatsoever.  I’m not alone in this.  Millions of people have Seasonal Affective Disorder and millions more don’t particularly care for these short days and long nights.  But like all those who suffer SAD, the dark season is something I experience in deep solitude no matter how many people around me are suffering the same. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Yes, I know all about sun lights and the many other strategies one can employ to keep SAD at bay, but the darkness still hounds me.  I’m adept now at staying a step ahead of it most of the time, but there are moments during the course of each short day when the sense of desolation is overwhelming.  Surely this feeling is as old as humanity itself.  Surely the first self-aware hominid felt something like it when he/she suddenly realized that several lean months lay directly ahead, and that not everyone in the clan would make it to spring.  Awareness is damning that way.

I am a creature of light.  I revel in the long days of early summer when it seems the sun will never set.  My two-week sojourn in the Alaskan bush was the greatest high of my life, and I’m sure that the 20-hour days had a lot to do with it.  Conversely, the only time I seriously considered suicide came on a day much like today.  Thank god I didn’t follow through on that urge, otherwise I would have missed out on dozens of glorious springs and as many magnificent summers!

Just now the snow-dusted landscape out my window becomes more visible as a lazy sun rises behind a wall of gray clouds. Later on this morning, I will go for a long walk in quiet defiance, as if to affirm that I will live to see the wildflowers bloom again.  Like my distant ancestors, I have seen this coming and have braced myself against it.  Awareness is redeeming that way.

I can’t help but think that my sensitivity to light and darkness is somehow linked to my close association to the wild.  Rationally speaking, though, this makes no sense.  There are plenty of nature lovers indifferent to these long nights.  Still, the Winter Solstice rituals of the Druids and other pagans make me wonder if there isn’t some aversion to darkness deep within us all.  Everyone braces against it, one way or another.  No doubt the candle makers and manufacturers of Christmas lights will have plenty of buyers for their wares for many years to come.

Tags: Alaska, awareness, moods, seasonal change

Just past noon I left the house dressed in heavy boots, wools and rain gear.  The sky was steel gray and rain was falling steadily as it had been since daybreak.  It was one of those dreary autumn days when the chill in the air and the distinct lack of light reminds you that the warm season has ended and winter isn’t far away.  My thoughts ran as gray as the day.  I parked my car on the edge of town then stepped onto the Rail Trail with my head down.  I was brooding about all manner of troubles, ranging from the personal to the global.  I had plenty of material to work with.

Matika bounded down the stony path completely oblivious to the rain or my funky mood.  She sniffed at the grass along the edge of the trail, checked her p-mail, then bolted thirty yards just for the sheer joy of running.  I ignored her.

Gray is the best word to describe how I was feeling.  I was neither happy nor sad but teetering between the two, subconsciously trying to decide which way to fall.  The view across the fields seemed to match my mood.  The somber colors of the advanced season – burnt orange, rust, faded yellow and brown – dominated the nearby hills.  But here and there through the mist a burst of brilliant gold defied the otherwise somber landscape.  Yeah, it could go either way.

I slowly picked up my pace as I walked.  What started as a casual stroll became a forced march.  I shot past a mile marker where I usually turn around, crossed a road and kept going.  I got it in my head that enough sweat would swing my mood to the positive.  I’d been here before and that’s usually how things went.  But this time I just kept walking as my knitted brow strained against the cold drizzle.

Suddenly I stopped to look around.  A dead oak stood alone in a bright green cow pasture.  Beyond it a little color burst from an otherwise dark brown woodlot.  On the other side of the trail, a cornfield recently cleared of its bounty had been plowed over.  Beyond that rose those misty hills.  The clouds overhead seemed close enough to touch.  A dismal day to be sure, yet I felt strangely comfortable in it.  Glad I hadn’t stayed indoors.

Just then wave after wave of Canada geese flew past in long, undulating Vs.  There were hundreds of them, headed south at first then turning around – a great swirl of honking and wing flapping.  As I watched them turn, I couldn’t help but feel blessed by their presence.  Then it occurred to me how fortunate I was to be walking through this rural landscape despite the rain.  I turned around then kept walking.  Matika followed.  The geese landed in the barren cornfield next to the trail and nature’s endless cycles seemed palpable.  Another day, another season, and on and on like that into eternity.

While finishing the walk, I told my dog that life is good.  She responded with the big, dopey grin that all creatures living in the moment display when things are going well.  That was confirmation enough.  So I ambled the last half mile as slow as possible just make it last.  I was sweaty, chilled, and a little achy by the time I reached the car.  Matika was completely soaked.  But neither one of us could have been any happier.

Tags: Canada geese, hiking with dogs, moods, walking