It is now the time of the wildfires and web worms. The digital map of fire shows their size and location, and we look surrounded—though the air quality is still good. The web worms gather in clumps on certain kinds of trees. It’s giving a pre-apocalyptic look but it’s always like that as summer wears on, the land just needs the rain to set it straight.

I set out alone again on the trail down the center of the state park, though it was cloudy and cool and felt barren with no one else around, only the dry rustling of some birds flopping around in dead leaves. There is a distinct crunch to the dry gravel on the path and the grass beside it looks withered and stunted, a light bronze. Still evidence of last fall’s bomb cyclone storm that left trees down everywhere, lots of large branches caught in mid-descent tangled in other branches, suspended in mid-air and moss covered. The web worms have the look of fake spider webs, the kind you buy around Halloween. I am breaking webs across the trail too, getting them caught in my beard and hair; it’s like breaking the finish line ribbon a hundred times over but I don’t mind, it’s only spit.

The color palette is that trio of green, yellow, and brown; the backdrop all gray, the kind of gray that can kill you if you let it come fall. It keeps the temperatures down, keeps things warmer come winter. I come for the sights and sounds but the smells as well, this fresh air is an infusion for the mind. I used to hang upside down in the yoga studio to reverse the blood flow and get fresh oxygen to my brain. It’s more enjoyable walking.

Some of the browns are more rust colored, or copper, like a dull penny. The blooms on the bridal veil bushes are soft brown too. Everything is in a state of slow collapse but I love the beauty and drama in that. The grass is so tall in places it’s flopped over by the weight of itself, the feathery plumes arced downwards. With the cougar warnings I probably shouldn’t stray from the main path but of course I do.

There are places the trail is really narrow and the grass strokes my ankles, here a salal bush that’s got ripe blue-black berries and brick-red leaves. Somewhere a woodpecker tentatively tapping a tree.

When Lily went to wilderness therapy we learned about interoception, and with the “feelings wheel” we were given a language to describe how we felt in different parts of our body: the head, heart, and spirit. That last one was the hardest and people often said they felt connected. Connected to the land, to the place, to themselves. Anchored, like. And they emphasized how important it was when getting into that meditative space to not lay on a comfortable bed or sofa but to do it on the ground. To get in touch with how that felt, grounded.

Up ahead the trail rolls like the tongue of a Chinese New Year dragon. It twists like a snake through the woods. The trail is braided with roots that resemble veins, the trapped rocks along the way rise like bumps. Everywhere sword ferns with Devil’s Club climbing up. Bridal Veil and dead trees, the bark gone gray; others tall, looking down. And the vines and leaning branches with the moss knobs and lichen, the little dabs of red in the salal if you look hard. It is so quiet with just the birds and occasional squirrels. Upturned root sacks with the undersides dangling, more trapped rock underneath. At times the roots across the trail look like knuckles, hands braided for a pose.

Beneath the dirt in places it’s gray-black, could be evidence of charcoal from ancient burns and people long gone, some buried right here below. They are re-assimilated among the leaves—what you might call grounded. We could be this connected as the living, too.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, prose

Tags: Memoir, pacific northwest, Poetry, prose