On Hiking (or just a walk through the woods)
I am no expert on hiking, despite having lived in Colorado for 15 years. My lack of experience in outdoor-sporting is completely shocking to most people I meet here in North Carolina (no, I have never been skiing or snowboarding. No, not even once). I am a fat woman who hates vigorous exercise, generally speaking. I do not own the proper footwear for hiking; I am wearing roughed-up black and white suede sneakers I got on clearance from the discount shoe store more than 3 years ago. I do not have a hat with a ponytail hole, or a walking stick and cargo shorts. I do not look anything like the little happy dude on all the trail markers.
But I love being here just the same. Noticing, witnessing, observing. The roots and moss growing in tandem with each other, a downy feather gently vibrating in the breeze, the papery thin birch leaves long dead hanging by a crunchy filament, a giant abandoned owl’s nest way up in the pine, tree trunks as unique as human skin, the perfect radial symmetry of a pinecone laid akimbo on the dirt. Sometimes the trees that have fallen are so enormous that I am in complete awe of them.
I like walking alone or with a loved one, silently. It’s the not-talking I like — I want to hear the sound of my footsteps and the waves crashing on the lakeshore from the occasional speedboat. I want to notice the squirrels squirreling, the birds chirping in unison, the insects humming their electric hum: my thoughts.
A new trail is exciting. It can be similar to other trails, or different in subtle ways: the rockiness, steepness of elevation, rough or smooth surface, view, shade or sun, amount and variation of bugs, flora, foliage. When I take a new path, sometimes I feel like I'm in a completely different world altogether (I am). It is a mini-vacation, a respite from the similarities of daily ritual; I feel transported to a new life altogether. We are on a new hike in a new place with new discoveries to be made at every twist and turn of the trail.
My biggest fears are walking into spider webs or stepping on a snake or losing my footing on a sharp decline and twisting an ankle. The thought occurs to me that a spider web is like the shelter the contestants have to build on the show Alone; when it catches fire (when we knock it down), they have to rebuild quickly or starve. How fast can a spider rebuild its web, if hungry enough?
On Alone they just tap out. But the spider can't find food without first having shelter. The spider can’t tap out.
Perhaps there is more to be afraid of but I am happy to stay blissfully unaware. Tree roots are dangerous tripping hazards but they are also stairways. I do not know the names of all the plants and trees, just the most poisonous ones, and I want to learn about all the mushrooms but as of right now I just marvel at how they pop up out of nowhere — mushrooms growing in on themselves, like hugging bodies.
Today I saw the skull of a creature, white bone sticking out of the leaves, vertebrae intact, jaw open, perfectly wiped clean by some other critter. I wonder if I see the same things that other hikers see. I saw a frog, and a tiny little green snake at the head of the second part of the trail that wiggled vigorously and opened its tiny little mouth at me so aggressively it felt like a sign not to continue. But my loved one saw my fear and said, "sometimes a snake is just a snake." Then we saw a giant heron flying above the shore and I thought to myself, well, a heron is never just a heron. It felt like luck. It felt like god.