What ailment can bring down a writer worse than a case of writer’s block? It has been several years since I had last experienced any sort of productivity with my writing, and even though I have been exposed to countless exercises, motivational opportunities, and memorable experiences worth writing down, something had always kept me from “getting back into the swing of things.” I entered my writing project class one day and our group was greeted with a chance to escape the dreary room and to explore the campus, looking for inspiration and attention to detail. We were free to drive anywhere or walk anywhere we chose; we could even make a journey down the nature trails that wound throughout the campus. I jumped at this chance to experience an unexpected hike, although I chose to share my time with no one else.
Despite my inherent love for the natural world and almost anything outdoors, I viewed the morning’s activities with mixed emotions. If I had known beforehand that I would be having the pleasure of tramping through the woods, surely I would have thought twice about wearing flip-flops, a nice collared shirt, and a couple sprays of cologne. Although I was not dressed appropriately for a morning hike, it was an extraordinary surprise for me and it gave rise to myriad memories from my boyhood, so many that I could not possibly hope to address them all here. The trails, which were maintained by the Missouri Department of Conservation and wound through the 745-acre campus of Missouri Western State College, seemed to be a safe destination for me to have chosen on my own escape.
I first arrived at the Regional Department of Conservation office and was both impressed and astonished at what I saw. The brown building was surrounded by numerous flowers whose colors and bouquets tantalized my senses. However, my first steps along the way fell upon concrete slabs and I found myself wondering if those people who regularly maintained the trails had paved the entire way with concrete. The cement marked the exact path. It took the freedom out of the equation by telling whoever walked along it where they should go or toward which direction to wander. It took away from the sense of adventure and I absolutely despised its presence in my nature walk. I soon espied a break in the trees where a single post that bore a painted number one on it marked the beginning of a new path covered with bark and wood chippings. Now even though the bark-covered trail repulsed me less than the concrete did, I had to speculate as to how one could justly expect to find an adequate venture into the woods to absorb as much as the earth had to offer while all the while tramping upon man-made wood chips, an item suitable for a garden or other landscaping feats, but not for a journey through a wood. It was bad enough that the serenity was marred by the steady roar of traffic. Some intruding highway passed nearby and the sounds of cars whizzing by at top speeds nearly caused me to throw my notebook down and scream at the top of my lungs. This near-madness came even closer to fruition when I heard the thumping of bass notes and the rattle of some poorly installed car-speaker system. In my head I screamed, Turn down the bass, asshole! but in reality I simply continued my walk without giving in to my anger.
I was only able to resume my peaceful walk once I had consciously shut out the noise of the cars. Perhaps that was all that I could do, to simply ignore it like some playground bully that is constantly in your face, calling you names, making fun of your clothes, or threatening to beat you up. This disturbance must just be a fact of this life and one that we need to accept. The footpath’s coverings of wood chips did not last long, thankfully. I could scarcely imagine the expense of time, money, and resources that it would take to have properly and completely covered an entire system of trails like that. It would be an exercise in futility for one to do so and to think that rain would not wash it all away!
Although my mind focused too closely and cynically on the dreary artificiality of the trails, they quickly became quite beautiful as I furthered my walk into the forest. Robert Frost and his yellow wood came to mind when I approached a split in the road, one arm leading down toward lesser regions and one leading upward. I had a decision to make at this fork in the road that was marked by a post with the number two painted on it: which road should I take? Either one of them could have been seen as a well-traveled road, so I doubted that the logic of America’s poet would suit me much at that point. So, laying Frost aside and relying on simpler criteria, I decided to take the one that led straight downhill. Again, this way reminded me of past hikes with my father and the various ecological engineering feats failed to escape my observing eyes. I marveled at the sight of expertly placed logs along the lower sides of the trails; logs that seemed to belong there, and because they seemed so appropriately placed and useful, their presence hardly distracted me at all. They were covered with leaves and smaller twigs, and it was without question that they blended in with the nature as though they were any commonplace fallen limb or small tree trunk. Along the way, scattered railroad ties were imbedded across the trail and though they were so obviously man-made and placed, they served a purpose by preventing soil from washing out down the hill.
My mind, caught by surprise at this amazing series of trails in the middle of America’s heartland, a region notorious for its flatness, instinctively employed the memories of my youth and my underused imagination to craft a flurry of ideas. These ideas darted around like tiny hummingbirds; they were ideas on future writings and reminders of past attempts at getting notions down on paper, and my head swooned with the creative energy dashing back and forth and bouncing off of the walls of my mind. I was scarcely able to remember that I was hiking a trail in Missouri, and I felt myself transported to the gently and powerfully rolling mountains of the Shenandoahs or the easing lowlands of the Green Mountains. With all of these memories so readily popping back into the forefront of my consciousness, how could I ever have endured any sort of writer’s block? How could I have allowed myself to not break free of the entanglement of my mundane world?
I followed the trail ahead of me, a trail that wound back and forth and I hadn’t the utmost clue as to where it would lead. I could see a small rivulet making its way through the trees, yet it no longer bore any water along its way; the summer had already entered the driest times and the moss and the mud of the creek beds had withered into crumbly, hard soil. A small bridge, another mark of mankind, crossed over the empty rivulet and as I stepped onto the wooden planks, I knew that my footsteps’ echo would scare away whatever else crouched nearby.
I continued my walk beyond the bridge, an element of the trail that without water over which it should span now looked more ornamental than useful. Tap-tap-tap. I heard from somewhere in the distance. It sounded like the clatter of an unknown person hammering away at some project. Tap-tap-tap. The resounding noise was getting nearer and nearer, and all the while it was quickening. Tap-tap-tap. It was now too quick, the taps too close together to be someone hammering. It was too rhythmical and the taps now sounded more like clicks, perhaps of some bird or beetle. They progressed in a crescendo from a low peeling drum roll into a swift shaking of maracas, yet it abruptly tapered off and all became silent again.
All was silent, that is, save for the chirping of birds and the low roar of traffic and the intruding noise of my footsteps. The distinctive smell of a nearby pond wafted toward my nose; the stagnant water’s odor unmistakable. Some might call it pungent, like a whiff of scum and dead leaves and other bits of filth that one might find in a gutter. Yet, it doesn’t stink to me, nor does it turn me back toward the fragrant flowers and trees toward the top of the hill. The pond was just what I wanted to see, an ideal spot of placidity and ease. My pace quickened with the eagerness of a schoolboy going to recess, not allowed to run yet undeniably walking with ferocity in his gait. As I all but raced down the trail, the sudden flapping of great wings startled me. A deep cry pierced the calm morning air, and the rustling of tree limbs caught my attention. Looking skyward, I was able to see a hawk or a falcon or some other bird of prey soaring away. It was too far gone and too close to the sun for me to have been able to tell for sure what it was, but I knew that its surprise was greater than my own.
I paused for a moment, reflecting upon my first true encounter with wildlife that morning. What beauty it appeared to my eyes I doubt I could effectively describe here. All I can say is that just seeing the great bird escaping from the confines of the trees, the boundaries that keep us all mundane, was enough to make me forget about the petty worries that waited for me back in civilization. My eyes burned as I tried to follow the bird’s path, but the sun shone too brightly and the bird flew too cleverly. When I recovered, the bird was nowhere to be seen, and it had left me alone in the woods with the playful chirping of birds that, although they were lesser-bodied, were just as magnificent in beauty.
I resumed my trek down the unfamiliar path and could only think of the bird and of my disappointment at not getting a better glimpse of it. Yet, as I emerged upon the pond, my eyes must have gleamed with delight. All about the pond I glimpsed such simple elements of the natural world as spider webs, bits of poison ivy, ant hills, and lily pads. A wooden post with the number three painted upon its head rose out of the ground at the clearing where the path passed the pond at its closest point. A cicada’s shell remained attached to the post, its abandoned claws still dug into the wood, perhaps for eternity or at least as long as it could withstand the rain, the wind, or the threat of humanity. Also, there was something about the spider webs that I couldn’t help but to compare with all those other webs I had seen while hiking with my father in the Appalachian Mountains. I wished that the webs had glistened in the morning sun, covered with dew and gleaming as though they were made of silver, their sparkle serving not only as a warning to those weary travelers who might walk into them, but also as a symbol of how nature’s beauty can be found anywhere, especially on an unexpected morning hike. Yet the morning dew did not come that day and there was no warning for the weary traveler. Cobwebs, as dry as the soil beneath my feet, caught on my notebook, in my mouth, and in my hair.
As I swatted away the bits of web from my face and dusted them off my body, I could see the pond glistening in the morning sun and I could see how low the water level really was. Not only had the creek beds run dry, but the area surrounding the pond and the pond itself had also assumed an arid atmosphere. I could see to what heights the pond had formerly reached due to the plentiful rains of the springtime. Then, the level had been quite high, as I could discern from the sparse growth of plants at the pond’s edge. This was a pond that occupied a small crater there in the Missouri woods. All about its perimeter I could see dabbled rings of water ripples; not the ever-growing ones that come from the jumping of a fish or the disturbing impact of a thrown rock, but single rings. And as I noticed more and more rings appearing, rings that suggested a light sprinkle, I could also discern the myriad bugs that darted over the water’s surface, and more specifically, the water bugs that glided along as though they skated on ice.
This outer ring of the pond surrounded a massive growth of water lilies in the middle. All about this ring were little shoots and stalks of water flora. I had observed the outer parts first, yet as the lilies caught my eye, I sought a new angle from which I could view them. A frog cried out, a screech in alarm as I neared the shallows of the pond. He leapt back into the depths of the pond as though he was alerting other denizens of the pond to my presence. He truly was a worthy sentinel to the security of the pond. His scream sounded as shrill and alarming as a child’s harsh yell or squeal. I could see where he had sought security, the spot from which he could remain in the water and at the same time keep his eyes upon me. His head peeked out above the surface, his two great big eyes glancing at me. We sat there in absolute silence as he watched me and I watched him.
Once again, the peace, my beloved calmness and commune with nature, was interrupted by human presence. My attention diverted from my friend the frog-sentinel, and I noticed how the air gradually filled with the voice of some tour guide, some poor fool trying in vain to show a group of school children around the forest. He talked much too loudly for the forest. Perhaps he thought that his volume was necessary so that the kids could hear him over the roar of passing cars, the songs of birds, and the whispers of those other children uninterested in matters of natural beauty. Shut up, man—let them listen! Let the children suck it all in, absorb the very feeling of what the woods is supposed to provide. Let the flies buzz and land and bite and let them not swat at them. Let them hear it all, feel it all, see it all, and breathe it all. Feel for themselves what life is, for how can one learn that lesson by hearing a canned and rehearsed speech and not by mere experience?
The guide’s voice soon faded away as they took a path different from the one I had chosen, and I turned my attention back to the pond. Why do all the lily pads gather toward the middle, I asked myself. They did not favor one side or the other and I found myself wondering if they ever moved with the rising sun or the blowing wind. The great gathering of lily pads gave the impression of being alive, a great green city that thrived and prospered in the middle of the pond. The tallest pads lay more toward the center, although not exactly in the geographic center. Rather, they were spread out, much like today’s great cities, with great bunches sprouted up throughout. They reached skyward as the immense buildings of some futuristic metropolis. Do they always reach up toward the blue sky? No, as toward the perimeter, the outer cluster of pads lay flat, much different from the innermost ones that cupped upwards. Some of these outer ones lay partly submerged, while others were barely afloat. And all around these lilies flew a steady traffic that consisted of annoying mosquitoes, graceful and swift dragonflies, and other buzzing insects darting through the air and flitting from pad one to another.
With all that I am able to note with this remarkable city of green, something lacked. The vista set before me, despite all of the little flittings-about of the pond’s inhabitants, began to look more and more two-dimensional. The longer I sat by the pond, the more of a static image I had in my head. As I had often been instructed as a student, I remembered that a thing’s true beauty can never be appreciated from only a single perspective I stepped over the dried embankment, seeking that new angle from which I could view this city, I noticed how the dirt was covered by long slivers of yellow leaves. The ground abounded with these leaves, which fell even as I moved along the bank. From this new angle I was surprised to see a new aspect of the lily pads, the great pond city, one that I had not seen before. Great white lily blossoms flourished throughout the green and mossy dark water of the pond, white petals that bloomed and absorbed the morning sun’s rays the way the children on their nature walk should have been absorbing the life of the forest.
To invoke an old cliché, one that I truthfully cannot avoid here, I felt as though time had arrived at a standstill the whole while I was at that pond. My little walk through the trees and to the pond, which had begun as a classroom exercise, was nearly over. As I had entered the woods, I was a student seeking solace, a calm place in which I could find a rare muse, one who could take away the mundanity in my life. I had entered the woods in my sandals and nice collared shirt, while my cologne had attracted gnats, ants, and flies as I went. My feet tramped heavily as my hopes and demands impelled me further into the wood. I cursed the trail’s civilization with much disdain, wondering how I could ever be able to find any sort of commune on an adventure that began with concrete and wood chips.
I slowly came to a realization as I went. My pace quickened as the trail angled downhill, yet I was brought to a stop with the simple thrashing wings of a hawk. Even still, as I came to the pond, I still couldn’t begin to decide as to where I should begin with my musings. I had taken off my nice shirt and placed it on the dirt for me to sit on. I kicked off my sandals while I walked around that pond, and that is where everything finally came together.
