Thistle’s Note: This post is quite different (and longer) than normal. I wrote this essay for a creative nonfiction/memoir writing workshop, but it feels fitting for the upcoming Samhain season. The events of this essay were almost eight years ago.
Solo Hike
“Be Bear Aware,” the yellow sign cheerfully warned me.
This is new, I thought to myself. The three-and-a-half mile trail was not new to me; I’d hiked it for years, though it had been a few years since I had done so. The Firetower Trail at Roaring River State Park, a small but well-built park snuggled into a cleave in the Ozark hills, had always been a trail where I figured things out or tested my determination. The park itself was a salve to my soul, but this trail was different.
This new addition, screwed into a cedar tree, made me pause as I was heading on the trail alone. It was a crisp November day, past the fishing and camping season everyone flocked to the park for. The lack of cars in the parking areas suggested I may not run into anyone else on the trail. Alone is what I wanted but not alone with a bear.
The metal sign bore the image of a genial brown bear with different points of caution in yellow type across its heavy body.
“Never approach or feed a bear.” Well, duh.
“Keep your dog on a leash. Keep your children close to you. Make noise as you go.” That sounded well and good, but I really wasn’t feeling up to making noise as I hiked. Quite the opposite, I was here to avoid noise. I did have a whistle in my pack, so I took it out and stuffed it in my back pocket. Better be safe than sorry, I heard my Mom’s voice echo from a memory.
Shrugging, I headed up the slippery incline that introduced people to the trail. The horseshoe-shaped trail started and ended with steep slopes, the latter an ankle twister loaded with rocks. These features kept a lot of insincere hikers off the trail, especially when shorter and more interesting trails lie in wait.
Another new thing on the trail with me was a camera. In the past, my Border collie Zoe had always accompanied me, or rather, lead me. The first time on this trail, I wouldn’t have made it up the incline on damp earth if she hadn’t pulled me up in some places. I remember her looking back at me as if to say, Come on! Now, Zoe was 14 years old and stiff whenever she arose, and I doubted she could do the trail plus the mile or so back to the car. Before now, it would have been difficult handling a dog and a camera.
After making it up the steepest part of the incline, I took it out and kept an eye out for a shot. A few images caught my eye, all pretty typical for me: fungi on logs, rock formations, lichen on the base of trees, and so on. Recent drought, however, had drained the landscape of the moisture and color that made photos pop. After a while, the camera mostly hung from my neck, the strap scratching at my skin.
The trail leveled off for the mile and a half that was flat and easy, though sometimes downed trees across the trail offered some scrambling opportunities. Walking along, having long forgotten about bears, I saw a black post amid the trees just off trail. Getting closer, I could see it was the remains of a tree that had burned, with jarring holes through it. Healthy trees ringed around it, as though surrounding a fallen comrade. Was it victim to a lightning strike or perhaps the park’s termite control?
I touched it, as if I would be able to sense the cause of its demise. It shouldn’t matter; everything must eventually come to an end, and the healthy trees nearby did not suggest an epidemic. Yet there I stood, feeling like the tree deserved some memorial that no one else would give it. I had brought a chunk of calcite with me to leave somewhere on the trail. I dug it out of the bag and placed it on a curve of charred wood.
Near the base of the trunk was an oval hole like a window to the other side of the tree. I crouched down, peering through as if it would act in place of a hag stone, a stone with a naturally formed hole. Local folklore said if you looked through such a stone, you would see the Otherworld and the fairies that reside there. I saw nothing but more dry leaves.
Sighing, I stood up and left the tree remains to return to the trail.
Soon the old fire tower began revealing itself through the trees. You can’t see the whole thing until you get right to it – the trees block it from view. The cold, metal structure, weathered a solid rust, stood tall among the trees, taller than some of them.
It had been years since I climbed to the top and gazed over the hills and trees of the Ozarks. The steps were constructed of narrow metal bars, and Zoe could never navigate them with her slender paws. Once, I left her tied to the bottom of the tower as I climbed up, but she was a dog who must know where her people are and she whined the entire time. As I had climbed, the thought that something could happen at the bottom before I could get back down there halted my steps about halfway up. The next time, I actually carried Zoe up the steps to the flat platform at the top, only to discover she was as nervous there as she was tied up at the bottom.
But today I was alone, just me and a camera. I climbed, noting the metal support beams crossing in each section, the sacred geometry supporting the park rangers before they used planes and helicopters to spot fires, I suppose. Rising higher, I could feel the structure wasn’t as rigid as it looked. The breeze caught on the metal bars and made a slight swaying. Reaching the top, I was a bit disappointed. Even ten years ago, I remembered seeing the treed hills and rocky outcroppings, but too many trees had grown tall enough to block most of the view.
Looking around instead, I noticed how strange it was to be looking eye to eye with many trees, and looking down their trunks instead of up. The perspective was interesting but jarring, and I felt a bit queasy. Lying down in the center of the lookout platform, I closed my eyes until the feeling subsided. When I reopened them, several tree branches created a canopy overhead. Their leaves still had some green mixed with the brown against the clear blue sky they framed. They surrounded and supported me much like the trees around the burned out trunk. Tears came forward in spite of their efforts. The weeks after my mother’s death had been filled with tears, but still more came each day. Alone out in the woods I was free to let them loose while in the presence of the nature that always nurtured my soul – not like shedding them in secret down the shower drain or curled up on the couch while watching a marathon of Hallmark Hall of Fame movies that Mom and I used to watch together.
I closed my eyes and emptied my lungs into the crisp air. The memory of the top of the fire tower seemed better than the current reality, so I gave up trying to make it something it wasn’t and climbed back down.
At the base, I turned toward the second half of the trail, feeling drained and dry. The rest of the trail was dry too. A new feeling came over me: I didn’t want to finish this trail today.
I knew if I backtracked, there would be a cut-off trail connected to the top of the Deer Leap Trail that arched over the spring that fed the river. A trail that would have misty damp areas and the sound of a waterfall landing into a bright blue pool at the entrance of a cave. Maybe it was just all the shed tears, but my soul needed the essence of water.
Readjusting the slingpack with day hike essentials, I turned back and retraced my path down the trail. Soon I spotted the white blaze for the connecting trail and turned to it.
While walking through a shaded spot, I noticed a little flower standing tall despite the autumn leaves, its sunny face toward the light.
Something about the flower stopped me.
It looked out of place; a petite white-petaled bloom with a yellow center. It belonged in a summer meadow as a child’s treasure, but here it was in the autumn woods finding light in the deep shadows. The yellow center called my Mom to mind; that was her favorite color and she’d enjoyed any flower that color. As children, we would bring her armfuls of daffodils from a nearby woods that had rows of naturalizing bulbs. As adults, she loved yellow roses, lilies, or daisies. Yellow was the prominent color of the flowers that draped her casket, but she had received their beauty throughout her adult life.
But this little bloom made me pause. For those who study the Druids, you learn about augury, or reading things from nature as signs or omens of the future.
A few weeks before Mom passed in September, I had been lost on a trail at a women’s spiritual festival, on an unsought spirit quest. At one point I stopped and tried to calm myself (it was also a very warm September day). As I stopped trying to find my way out, I noticed things around me. About 10 feet ahead was a thistle, a plant I’d always felt aligned to spiritually. On it was a yellow butterfly. As I watched, the butterfly flew off and was soon lost in the bright sunlight.
In that moment, I knew I was the thistle and my Mom was the butterfly, and that – though we had been thinking her condition could be helped – she would soon be leaving us. The moment was both sad and peaceful, bound together with acceptance. I turned and immediately saw the opening to the path from which I had came. Lined with trees, some vines had grown over it to create an archway. All around this arch flew dozens of dragonflies, their wings glinting in the sunlight. The primary symbolism of these creatures, transformation and transition, was not lost on me. To go back home was to accept this transition. I stepped through the arch, knowing life would never be the same.
Now in a very different woods, seeing this little flower reminded me that even though she was gone, she was like that little yellow center – always a part of me. Always the grounding center of me. Even though the world was looking dead and dry, she was there reminding me that it truly wasn’t dead. Winter would still be ahead, but spring rains would come and bring back the leaves, the grass, and all the yellow flowers. Learning to live without her wouldn’t be fun or easy, but I would get through that too.
Continuing down the trail, I trekked to the wooden platform that overlooked the spring-fed pond where they kept some of the biggest trout in the hatchery that was also part of the park. Nearby were the holding tanks for the majority of the fish, where they were released into the river to gamble their fate: evade the hooks with bait and continue on their journey downstream or fall for the trap. I leaned over the railing to get a clear photo of the layout of the hatchery. A sense of caution slipped over me, as if my mom’s hand were there to hold me back like when I was a child. I took a photo and then moved on.
The path turned into a wooden stairway winding down the steep hill. Exiting, I turned the opposite direction of the car and walked alongside the pond toward the hatchery tanks.
There, I spent a few quarters on fish food. Tossing the stinking feed into the stone-edged holding tanks brought a mass of slick bodies to the water’s surface. Brushing the crumbs on my jeans and glancing at the water, I was tempted to dip my hands in to wash away the remaining smell. As I leaned forward, I noticed the sign by the tanks: Keep Hands Out of Water. It seemed cruel. The water looked so fresh and inviting after the dry trail and leaves. My skin felt parched and dusty. Even though it was only in the mid-40s, it felt almost warm after the hike.
The obedient child my mother raised moved back from the edge. Looking down the row of tanks, I saw the river beyond them, beckoning me over. It was free for the taking. You could sit in it and no one would care. I walked to the river’s edge and dipped my hands in. My fingers felt alive as the frigid current swept over them. As the water seeped into the pores, I swept a handful of water up on my face, shocking myself.
Gasping for a breath, a laugh bubbled up and I threw sprays of water across the rippling water. Looking around, there were still green mosses growing on rocks at the river’s edge and birds calling back and forth in the woods. Squirrels scolded each other from tree limbs. The earth was alive, and she had reminded me that I was too.
Parting the Mists 