Nature Calling

Yesterday was one of those days that I could have spent entirely outdoors, hiking through the woods on a meandering forest trail, letting my mind wander surrounded by crisp clean air, silence, and the rhythmic crunch of boots on dried leaves.  I didn't spend the entire day outside, though, despite my deep yearning to do so.  As it was the weekend, I spent the majority of the day inside with my family; my wife, my son, and my parents who came to visit for a few hours in the afternoon.  Gone are the days where I can just pick up, get in my Jeep with the dogs, and head into the woods for a few hours.  I get those deep, resonating pangs of yearning for the outdoors, but these days they seem more muted than they did before I was a father.  Either they are more muted, or I am better able to gently move them aside because there is also a deep yearning to spend time with my wife and son.  Still, yesterday was about as close to perfect as you can get for a day in the middle of January.  What would normally be a bitterly cold, bleak day with a good wind blowing turned out instead to be a day that reached the upper 40's and almost felt like spring.  I say almost because there was still a quiet bite to the air, not quite cold, yet definitely not warm enough for a T-shirt and shorts.  As I think back to yesterday, I can't quite put my finger on what made it so appealing.  It could have been the clean air peppered with a slight breeze or the blazing sun making it feel slightly warmer than it actually was.  I even thought I smelled spring in the air, just a hint, but enough to make me pause before coming indoors, close my eyes and take a deep breath, and hold it for a few seconds letting the smell of freshenss linger.  There are no buds or leaves on the trees, no colorful flowers bursting forth from their winter slumber; in fact, there was very little to indicate that it would be a spring day except for the feel of it.  To many, nature looks bleak in the winter; dormant, depressed, sleeping, muted.  To me, winter holds a different kind of beauty; a stark, ethereal, dramatic beauty.  Every season puts its own unique spin on nature.  We can not look at any one season in relation to the others, rather, we must take each one for what it has to offer. 

I have always loved winter.  Ever since I was little, there was something about winter that touched me deeply.  I never thought about it much when I was younger, I just enjoyed it then.  Now, though, as time has passed and I can look at things with a little more perspective, I am better able to identify what draws me outside in the freezing cold.  Part of that draw is the cold.  I am a lover of cold weather, in fact, the colder it is, the more likely I am to head out into the woods.  Walking through a forest in 20 degree weather is amazing to me.  If you stop and listen in the middle of the woods, you can hear the trees talking, stiff branches rubbing against one another, the gentle creak of a 60 year old oak as it shifts slightly in the breeze, the occasional echoing call of hawk searching for its prey.  The breeze picks up and the trees start singing, whistling softly as the wind flows unimpeded through their canopy.  Moving on, I am left alone in the woods, the trees singing around me, my boots crunching through dead leaves and snow offering the only rhythm to their off tempo serenade.  Shadows with thin bony fingers reach for me, grasp at my own shadow only to slither through, waiting for their next phantom victim to come along.  Even the streams are silenced by a thin veil of ice like a faucet turned low to keep the pipes from freezing.  Some would say there is no color in the winter, nothing to indicate life or vitality.  I would beg to differ.  To me, the sun is more brilliant in the winter than any other season, its colors more vibrant through the crisp air, not tempered by humidity and haze.  The snow creats offers a blank canvas for the sun to paint its every changing masterpiece on, reflecting the hues so often lost in spring, summer, and fall.  In winter, we can truly see the colors through the trees, their vibrancy a stark contrast to the sterile whites and browns that abound.  Winter offers views like any other time, an ability to see farther than any other time, the view unimpeded by leaves and other interference, just the trunks of trees and their crowns like inverted root balls reaching for the sky.  There is rhythm and order if you choose to find it, chaotic maybe, but it is there.  Some may say I am crazy for loving winter and its landscape the way I do.  I say people are crazy for not loving it. 

Yet for now, memories of the forest landscapes, frozen waterfalls, and ornately painted snow will have to suffice.  While the grandeur of it still beckons me outside, there is much more beauty for me in spending time with my wife and son.  If there had been time, we probably would have gone into the woods as a family, however, this weekend we did not.  There will be plenty of time for hiking with my family, maybe next weekend will offer us a chance to head into the woods.  We have been taking our son hiking since he was a month old.  Back then he was a lump of breathing flesh, now he can start to see the world around him and take it all in.  All I want to do is present to him the forest and let him make of it what he will.  I will of course show him everything I can, explain what things are, but it will be up to him to formulate his own opinion on it.  I simply want to plant the seed of exploration and let it flourish within him.  When he is a little older and we go hiking, I will have no problem stopping for hours if necessary to play by a lake or stream, or even to go exploring the boulders of a hillside, their nooks and crannies hiding untold treasures of age old pirates and smugglers.  We shall see what happens in time.  All I know is that I am excited this year to see what my son does in the woods, to see what his interests are, to be there to encourage and to explain.  I am sure he will teach me many things that I have forgotten, will teach me how to see the small things that together make up the big picture.  I want to see the world as he does and I am sure he will bring me down to his level.  He will teach me, I hope, to take my eyes off the clouds for a minute and look at the life on the ground.  And then, once he teaches me that, I will teach him how to climb a tree, for nothing is better than getting up into the limbs of a behemoth and viewing the world from a squirrels perspective.  Well, there are better things than that, but I will definitely show him how to climb trees and I will be up there with him, looking down on the world together.