Ever, Ever On

The road goes ever, ever on
down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
and I must follow if I can,
pursuing it with eager feet
until it joins some larger way
where many paths and errands meet,
and whither then, I cannot say.

Brush Hollow

Save the last dance for me. Just one more dance. Let's not rush our goodbyes. We'll dance long and slow until the music dies out forever over gorge and glade, over rocky crest and hemlock-darkened brook. And even then, after the last notes fade, still we can stand cheek to cheek lingering in the afterglow until the moment passes from our grasp.

Moments do pass. They rush ahead, without looking back. You and me...we look back. But time does not. Today, since I didn't get to hike on Sunday, I skipped out of work in the middle of the day and took one last trek through the Allegheny National Forest. At long last, I did the Brush Hollow Trail system near the hamlet of Highland.

This place isn't called "Brush Hollow" and "Brushy Gap" for nothing. There are blackberries all over the place, and don't try to hike it in shorts.










Jeff Mitchell calls that top photo "a vista," which is a little bit ambitious. But it's a nice enough view. The whole trail system--mostly meant for cross country skiing--makes a scenic hike, with lots of variation in scenery.


The blackberry bushes are already fruiting, reminding me that
"fruition" doesn't always happen on the same timetable as we'd expect or prefer. Things happen when it's time, and most of us never live long enough to see our labors produce much fruit...

When a couple, very much in love, comes together one last time, do they know it? If one of them is dying, or if they're just getting too old, do they think about the fact that they may never again celebrate the act of physical love? Do they dare admit it, or is the sorrow just too much? Or maybe by that time, they're just too tired and matter-of-fact to care!


I've been trying to hike the Brush Hollow Trails for about three years now, and each time I've been prevented from doing it. Once I didn't have enough time to go further than a quarter mile. The second time, in the dead of winter, I arrived to find a group of about twenty senior citizens on skis. But today was the long-awaited day. It also happened to be my very last hike in the ANF before moving away. I'll hike here again someday, surely, but not as a local. What becomes of all the intimate knowledge I have of this forest? Does it get stashed away in the cerebral archives, there to be slowly consumed by the moths and mold of time?

~It was a gift, this last dance. It wasn't the Trail of Tears. It was a trek much like the others. And now I'll trek in new territory. But I'm grateful for this time, which drew to a close like the arrival of blackberry season, so much faster than I anticipated.

Redemption

I've long believed that you make a life for yourself wherever you go. Life is a moveable feast, and every place offers things to celebrate and enjoy. In Oklahoma, I loved the grassy, windswept plains, but I hated the conservatism. In Africa, I loved the steaming rainforests, but I hated being unable to disappear into the crowd. Every place has its charms and its drawbacks, and you can find ways to lead a meaningful, pleasant existence no matter where you live.

Of course, there are places like Fallujah where life is just hell for everyone. But for the most part, life is what you make of it, and the place where you choose to live is pretty much just the backdrop.

And yet, I have loved living here in the Wilds of Northern Pennsylvania. I've loved it so much because the forests and hills have been more than "the setting" for my life; they've been a character in the drama. I am leaving here a calmer, wiser, happier man than I was when I came. And for that, I'm grateful.

I look forward to the next phase of life with eager anticipation. Last Friday and Saturday, we were at the new house near Pittsburgh to mow the lawn and paint. I've never "owned" property before. There was something very empowering to know that I was mowing a lawn that belonged to me and painting my walls the colors I had chosen.

I'll enjoy life in the Pittsburgh area. We've bought a Civil War-era brick farmhouse, fully restored, and I've claimed one of the outbuildings as my private escape: the old smokehouse with its huge walk-in fireplace. There's good hiking within a forty-five minute drive, at Raccoon Creek State Park and Hillman State Park. I love my new church, too. Heck, my new office even has an executive washroom!

But I will miss this place. I'll miss these people. I'll miss the streams, and the hemlocks, and the boulders. I'll miss the snow and the way the leaves start to change colors as early as mid-August. I'll miss the way they used to run their raucous firetrucks up and down the main street whenever the local team won a sporting event. (Okay...maybe I won't miss that.) I'll miss being a medium size fish in a small pond.

More than anything else, I'll miss the fact that there's forest in every single direction from here, and all of it worth discovering. I'll miss being surrounded by the Unknown, full of beauty and adventure. I'll miss knowing, each time I step out into the woods for my Sunday afternoon trek, that I'll discover something I've never seen before, something I'll surely never see again, since there's just so much else to explore.

Living here has transformed me in ways that I cannot confide to the Internet. These wooded hills, these steep valleys, these rocky streambeds with their abandoned town sites and their rusting derricks; these things have given me a whole new sense for life. I'm leaving, yes. But I'm leaving with a new joy for living, determined to drink from these deep, life-sustaining wells wherever my path leads. I'm leaving here...redeemed.

Forgotten Debris of Forgotten Years

Deep in our subconscious, we are told
Lie all the memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, outmoded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
~Noel Coward

"As the Heart Grows Older"

"Spring and Fall: to a small child"

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! As the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are all the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart had heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight that man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

~Gerard Manley Hopkins

Buzzard Swamp

Despite its dismal name, Buzzard Swamp is one of my favorite places in the forest. It's a sort of bird sanctuary, a vast grassy area with fifteen ponds, all encircled by a grassy forest road. It also has a few rustic camp sites.

Buzzard Swamp is mostly level. Some of the ponds are clear and inviting, and others are covered in lily pads and algae. Some ponds are visible, even approachable, whereas others are completely hidden from view.

This might be what rural Minnesota is like. Aside from all the pools, the landscape actually reminds me of an area in Northern France and Belgium, where the grassy fields stretch off to the furthest horizon in endless expanses of wind and sky. I spent a lonely summer exploring that sad countryside on a bicycle, lo these twenty years ago...

But unlike Flanders Fields (where you can still hear the ghostly rumbling of the tanks if you listen) this part of the Allegheny National Forest is a place of intense peace. Fishers come here, and a few birders come in the spring and fall. But otherwise, it's a place of solitude and silence. The variety of birds is overwhelming. Their songs are the only noise. And the wind. And the insects.

There are dragonflies, and great clouds of butterflies, and some of the smaller birds move in unison, like schools of fish.

There are bumble bees in the wildflowers, and the honey bees seem to be making a comeback, at least here at Buzzard Swamp. Even the Canada geese--pests on so much of the continent--are peaceful here, as seen in the third photo.

I don't know what it is about water that draws us. But it does. Water feels like life, somehow. Buzzard Swamp is best on a bike; it's just a little too big to cover in a single 3-hour hike, especially because there are so many scenic spots to stop and linger.

Take South Forest Street southward out of Marienville, away from the crazy 5-point intersection at the heart of town. After about a mile, turn left onto FR127 and go a little more than 2 miles to the parking area. The Songbird Interpretive Trail isn't really that interesting, so pass it by and hike over by the ponds instead.

Perspective

These broad vistas are rare. Most of the time I scramble over rocks, picking my slow way over tree roots, through weeds, and among brambles. I have to swat mosquitoes and watch for mud. I rarely see more than the half-lit forest all around me.

















Surely eyes and voices are wasted on those who have them. These twin boulders have been presiding over this wooded valley since before my ancestors learned how to make fire. There they still stand, blind and mute in ancient splendor. And I pass them by without thinking.

















This mossy chasm, with its walls fifteen feet high, in centuries past may have been the scene of some great act of heroism or cowardice. Or maybe nothing has ever happened here besides the scurrying of woodland creatures, as preoccupied with their own small worries and duties as any modern passerby. There is no knowing.

There's nothing like a wall of ferns to bring things into perspective. Ferns keep their secrets, and one day, they'll wear this boulder down and reduce it to gravel. But not for a long, long time.