A Walk in the Woods

"In nature, I feel my wholeness return." - Terry Tempest Williams

When I close my eyes after all I have lived through these past months, the same vision comes back. The view is from below, looking up to a canopy of trees that allow the light to sprinkle across my face while the wind makes the treetops dance. I close my eyes and feel the light still shining on me.

I come here every day. I walk through this space that is timeless and without rules or expectations. I tell God all my silliest and deepest thoughts. That was the gift I was given. My God is a wise and kind Grandpa. He doesn't say much, but he always nods knowingly.

The woods are a magical and mysterious place. Never dark or scary. Always friendly. Always welcoming. They are my woods. No one will be there but me. I am safe in my solitude. There is so much busyness in the woods. Squirrels and birds moving here and there. It is alive. There is nothing abandoned here. Even the fallen tree has grown moss and makes a lovely home for the animals, a resting place for passersby. Daddy long legs don't scare me out here. They have other agendas. I don't need to worry about them.

In this space each day where I come home to myself, I am dazzled. I'm my favorite person to spend time with. I am fully myself and have no need to perform or be different than I am. It's a place of perfect acceptance. And God is there with me, my quiet companion. Ready to listen, always present.

This young girl - I am still her. I never stopped being her. I am arrested at that age, maybe 12. Maybe younger. There is so much joy and optimism coming from inside. She sees so much magic and beauty. I think about how when my kids were younger, I always wanted to build fairy houses with them. I wanted to create a whole fairy village. Even now, when I see them in photos or stores, I am filled with delight. I never made those fairy villages as kid. But that part of me that found myself in the woods each day lived in the world of fairies. The magical world that seems to exist just below surface of every day life. Quite small and mostly unseen by adults. I wanted my kids to have access to that world. But you can't build a fairy village for a child. It's a creation they have to find within themselves.

This image keeps coming back to me because I am speaking with that girl, as that girl, so much more now than I have in so long. We put away the childish things. We perform for the world. We lose time for the woods. And we forget who we are.

And you know here is the strangest thing. That girl inside me is incredibly kind and honest. She sees so much good - but - it feels like a secret shame. What is that? Wouldn't you think that in the quiet and safe spaces in our lives where we can choose to let it all hang out - where we can really be who we want to be - that we would choose....badness? Wouldn't we want to give freedom to our darkest thoughts? Wouldn't we want to be angry and let out all the rage?

But I didn't.

What was going on in those woods? I felt like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. I felt lovely and wonderful and beloved by the animals. What was that young girl doing in those woods? What was she escaping from? Where was the shame coming from? Was it shame?

We had yellow linoleum kitchen floors that never really felt clean. I would mop and mop and still - a layer of grime persisted. It was 1990 and the 1970 decor had far exceeded it's usefulness. The appliances struggled to do their jobs and the cabinetry held, without grace, all the jobs they had done. They were tired and not at all joyous in their longevity. Every day I would come home to an empty house and feel a kindred spirit with the forgottenness of the home.

Sometimes I would clean and scrub it, making tidy the way one does when feeling particularly ugly and vulnerable. But mostly I would give to the space that could never give back - always letting me know that it would still be old, tired, and unable to perform no matter how much I shined it.

But mostly I would make quick work of getting a snack and then head to the woods.