i miss the woods…
We (me and my girls and some friends) spent last night at the camp I used to live and work at near Mt. Hood. I’d forgotten how incredibly quiet it is here at night. I’d also not realized how much I am missing the woods these days. Maybe it’s my church’s series on Faith and the Environment right now: maybe it just being gone from here for about 8 months: maybe it is how the sound of the river speaks to my heart, or maybe it is a combination of all three….but I didn’t realize how much I was missing this place ~ its smells, its sounds (or lack thereof), its people, its location, its soul. Yes, this place has a soul. I feel it when I am here, and, apparently, I miss it when I am not. I spent awhile walking the river trail this morning, and now, I am sitting in a room, the door wide open, typing away and listening to the river rush by. It is running really high right now - a testament to the amount of rain fall and snow pack (although I doubt that is melting much yet) Oregon has had this season. It sounds beautiful. I can hear my daughters and their friends playing tether ball nearby, and my dog (okay, she’s camp’s dog) is meandering back and forth between them and me, much like she did all night between our two rooms, not knowing if she wants to be close to them or to me. That is testament to her love for all of us I guess. What a blessing she is. What a blessing this place is. Yeh, I miss the woods…
May 17th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I too miss the woods. I remember being a little boy and when things got difficult I would escape to a place I called Rabbit Hill. I had 50 rabbits in the woods. I would spend hours making cages for them to live in (big cages because I felt sorry for them). I would make these great nesting boxes for them to sleep in. I was always in the woods, planning how I could make these rabbits lives more interesting and pleasant. But one day a disease came. One by one it wiped out nearly every rabbit I had. I was burying two to three bunnies a day and it was so difficult. I couldn’t build a cage that would protect them, I couldn’t give them a pill that would save them. There was no cure so I tried to make them comfortable and would wrap each dead animal in a towel thinking that was better than just placing them in the soil. At the time I didn’t get it. Looking back, I see the big picture, the real story. There are times in our lives when the places we find great comfort are temporarily taken over by things that are out of our control. We can’t change the circumstances we can only care for the dead and dying things in our lives, and bury them. If I could go back to those woods today I would not have unpleasant memories, even though so many horrible things happened there. I would remember building the cages, the nesting boxes and how good it felt to care for those animals. Barb, enjoy your trips back to the woods.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Rick what a great thought, Rick - that we can’t change the circumstances sometimes. Thanks for sharing.