Water Through the Trees

I practice the art of moving silently. It is easy on a well-worn path through the woods, but I am beyond that. I go off-trail where there are dry leaves and brittle twigs to challenge me. My feet know the way better when they are bare. Though my soles are as tough as the leathery pads of a dog’s paw, they have not lost their sensitivity to the subtle changes in the forest floor. I have trained them, day after day, summer after summer, in the woods behind Grandma’s cabin overlooking the spring-fed lake.

My big toe slides under a small twig. The rest of my foot glides like slow water through decomposing leaves. Ankle, shin, knee, thigh, hip follow the toe in a fluid motion more akin to skating than to walking. I am swimming through air. My breathing is steady and rhythmic. My nostrils inhale the smells of leaf mold and earth and sassafras--the sort of enriched oxygen my blood requires to be fully alive and well. My breathing waltzes with my heart and limbs. I am heading toward the slope above the lake.

Arms are rudders that balance me in this dimension and keep gravity from toppling me over when I pause to watch a young doe digging for acorns beneath an ancient oak. She snorts the dust from her nostrils as she routs beneath the tree. She looks up at me without alarm. We size up one another through a long gaze. Brown eyes penetrate blue eyes; blue penetrates brown. Sensing no malicious intent, she blinks and returns to her solitary grazing. I watch and wait until she moves deeper into the forest.

I am always amazed at how silently such a large creature can move. She is my inspiration. But I am equally astounded at how noisy something as small as a chipmunk can be. Chipmunks couldn't care less. They are a rambunctious lot, much like my little brothers. They are the wild, little boys of the forest, chasing one another up and over a rotting log, splashing about in the dry leaves. They make me smile.

I “swim” my way over to a venerable beech tree high upon a hill in a part of the woods that thins to sassafras saplings and a scattering of middle-aged sugar maples as it slopes downward to the cove at our neck of the fishing lake. Were it not for the narrow lane leading to the gently sloping meadow in front of Grandma’s cabin, the woods would grow right up to the thin line of reeds and rushes lining the edge of our cove. White, lotus-shaped water lilies rest on their green blankets at the water’s edge spreading out from the reeds toward the deeper water.

I rest my palm on the beech tree. I trace the scars on its trunk--generations of sweethearts’ initials carved there long ago and forgotten. I memorize the lost loves before I make myself comfortable at the tree’s base. There is a place in the side of the hill where two large roots “vee” outward from the trunk and cling to the downward slope. They are the perfect width apart for my denim-clad rear end. I lean back against the trunk and watch the water glisten through the trees. The canopy of summer green is thick enough that I cannot see the sky except in reflection on the calm surface of the cove. Clouds wrinkle when a breeze caresses the surface.

Phoebes call to one another on either side of me. A frog croaks occasionally in the cove as though it were merely obliged to do so. A bobber plops near the lilies. I see my younger cousin, Nathaniel, and my younger brothers, John and Joseph, a little off to the left along the lane. They stand as still as herons in the reeds at the water’s edge quietly stalking blue-gills with their cane poles. Across the lake, in a cornfield, a crow caws. Another returns the call from the edge of the wood near the pasture beside Grandma’s cabin. The second call may well be my brother, Robert. It is getting harder to tell the difference, for he has practiced cawing as much as I have practiced moving silently.

In the trailer, down to my right, I hear the first groaning of Cousin Anton’s bow across the strings of his violin as he tunes up for afternoon practice. Aunt Mary mildly coughs and clears her throat. I cannot see her, for the trailer blocks my view, yet I know she is sitting in her usual spot at the picnic table in front of the trailer, beneath the tulip tree near the water between the cove and the dock. I picture her glasses perched on her slender nose and her book laid open on top of the picnic table. I imagine the book’s pages fluttering like leaves in the heavenly breeze that now races off of the lake and tempers the afternoon heat. Briefly, I wonder what she is reading--probably something in Italian. But Anton begins to play and the water glistens and captures my spirit. I soar into another dimension.