Jo Berg

 

 

July 11, 2022

 Greetings from the middle of nowhere,

 There is a lonely spot in the desert of southern California, where even the ribbon of US 395 doesn’t make much of an impact on the wildness of the place.   It’s possible that one day you will be crossing through here, and I would urge you ease off the accelerator just slightly, or you may miss one of the few interesting facets there.

 The two lanes of 395 split the desert, a landscape almost entirely brown, other than the scraps of weeds that border the tarmac.  Half an hour after you leave the last gas station, you will come to hints of humanity.  A few empty shacks, the rusted shell of a car, a mound of trash where someone moved on.   

 If you are driving at the posted speed, you will barely register the town of Red Mountain, a few anonymous buildings crouched against the highway.  One crumbling structure advertises ‘prospecting equipment’, but nothing that would invite anyone to stop.  And then, barely two miles later, there is Johannesburg. 

 For perspective, Johannesburg is about 150 miles inland from Los Angeles, but no one would ever say it is near L.A.  It would be easier to say it is near the Sea of Tranquility.  There are other ways to tell people where it is, but there are more ways to never describe it.

 There are many notable things about this little stretch of desert, chief among them are the questions it inspires.  Questions and more questions.

 Why would someone choose to come here?  If you look back far enough, a century and half, there was a gold mine here, and then silver.  If they are still mining, it is well disguised.  Johannesburg was where people lived when they weren’t digging.   

 To be fair, my exposure to the town was fairly limited.  We turned off the highway out of curiosity, just past the ‘Johannesburg’ sign which featured an optimistic number of the population, and a suggestion to call 9-1-1 in case of emergency.  We saw no one outside, which made perfect sense, given the triple digit temperatures.  Also, there was a sign that said ‘living ghost town’ which holds a reputation that might encourage reclusion. 

 There is a small grid of rough roads framing a mixture of dwellings.  As we drove, I had this sense that people were watching.  It was also not hard to imagine a group with torches and pitchforks blocking the next road.  It is a world that invites all manner of imagination.

 There were corrugated metal buildings, rusted and sagging, and abandoned cars, pieces of farm equipment, and countless travel trailers, most of which were clearly never traveling again.  There was one burned out trailer, which seemed to have blossomed like a black tinged flower, and then left to rot in its own detritus.  

 There were a few traditional homes, some in decent condition, with newer trucks nearby.  But most of the lots held mobile homes, or a combination of that and some other vehicle attached to it to make a larger residence.  The rest of the housing was crumbling sheds surrounded by parts of sheds, which gave depth to the word ‘ramshackle’. 

 Nearly all the houses were surrounded by high fences, made from pallets and old signs and pieces of other fences.  It made me think they were expecting the apocalypse.  Or just experienced it.  There were a few political signs, most crudely fashioned, which I am confident reflected the attitudes of all the neighbors since there was no opposing point of view represented. 

 One of the most curious signs was a hand painted board, two in fact, that said: ‘Nick Buffalo Thief’.  With no other explanation, and no helpful punctuation, passers-by were left to speculate.  Perhaps the Nick in question was a buffalo thief.  Maybe the man’s full name was Nick Buffalo, and this was a condemnation of his general dishonesty.  Or maybe it was some kind of promotion for someone named Nick Buffalo Thief, a political sign perhaps.

 Whoever put up the signs for Nick Buffalo Thief felt strongly, from what we could tell from the bold strokes of whitewash on the boards.  The rest is left to question.

 There was a metallic effigy, perhaps leftover plumbing parts, hung by its neck above a fence with a sign around it stating: ‘Covid cure’.  Here again, not sure of the message or the motivation. 

 Whatever else brought people to Johannesburg, or suggested they stay, it was not the view.  The desert, while not featureless, offered little relief.  There were a few ridges that broke the horizon, but only rare trees, and nothing other than the sagging powerlines to break up the bleak landscape. 

 It is a curious place.  It attracts a different breed of people.

 A dozen miles away, and as far from there to any other place, we passed a man walking along the shoulder of 395.  He had wild hair, and a wilder beard.  He was dressed in layers of heavy clothing, despite the oppressive heat.  He was shambling toward Johannesburg, pulling a wagon behind him.  We went by at sixty, which might as well have been the speed of light, so it took a moment for the image to register.  My brother turned to me. “What?  Where is he GOING?”

 

I’m pretty sure it was Nick Buffalo.

  

Hope this finds you curiouser,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith

Cali

 

July 4, 2022

 

Greetings from her biggest fan,

 Occasionally you may wonder about the next generation of young people, perhaps even fallen into trading cliches about ‘kids today’, which seems to be the burden of every era.  Personally, I have great hope for those who follow us; I’d like to share one story about my niece Cali that I think will matter.  We should all have heroes.

 Cali works multiple part time jobs to help pay for her college tuition, a patchwork of house sitting and babysitting and tennis lessons and retail.  I think there are plenty of reasons to respect her as she goes through her life, but I want to give you this very powerful example.

 Last Wednesday Cali woke up at 1:00 in the morning and laced up her hiking shoes and shouldered her pack and began climbing Mount Whitney.  It is no small detail that the summit of this climb is the highest peak in the continental U.S, 14,505 feet above the Pacific.

 Cali was not alone; her father, who is my brother, and I were with her.  It is appropriate to write it this way, we were with her, because virtually every step of the vertical ascent, Cali was leading the way. 

 We hiked through the darkness, climbing steadily along jagged trails, clambering up rocky steps, fording streams in the glow of our headlamps.  By the time the sun came up we had reached a broad ledge of the mountain where we refilled our water, and considered the next challenge, a series of 99 switchbacks that lead to the spine of the mountain.

 I watched Cali as we climbed, all of us feeling the altitude and the effort of pulling ourselves up.  She was smiling, talking with hikers we met, seemed to be enjoying the day, but I knew the work had to be taking some toll.  By the time we crested the ridge we had been climbing for ten hours.  We stopped to eat and marvel at the view, gulping the thin air as we talked about the next push. 

 Cali is a gentle soul, a musician, a writer, a poet.  She speaks softly, has an easy laugh, and it is easy to see she has a kindness for people.  She is petite, moves more like a dancer.  All this belies a strength, an essence, that has served her in great challenges.  And it would be challenged on Whitney.

 We clambered across the back of the mountain, traversing the steep slope on a narrow, rocky trail, often inches from dropping thousands of feet to the world below us.  Cali led us across this ledge, stopping once in while for us to catch up.  As lightly as she moved, I could see the climb was beginning to affect her.  By the time we reached the last push to the summit, we were all struggling.  Cali’s steps slowed, but she ground her way up toward the peak, my brother Douglas right behind her.  My own steps, considerably slower, followed theirs a short time later.

 We celebrated at the top, an emotional reunion, a little punchy from exhaustion and the altitude.  We looked across the top of the world, for hundreds of miles in all directions.  The sun paused in the deep blue sky to congratulate us, but not for long.  We had now been on the mountain for thirteen hours. 

 We began the descent after a short break, already late.  We knew we would not get down before dark, but we had food and could get water from the streams along the way.  We were optimistic we could muscle our way back to the finish.  We were also really wrong.

 By the time we made it back to the 99 switchbacks, we were trembling with fatigue.  All of us were too nauseated to eat much.  Worse, the wind had picked up in the last hour and now the temperature had dropped over fifteen degrees.  We scrambled down the switchbacks, skipping our chance for water to get out of the freezing wind.  By the time we reached the bottom of the switchbacks, the sun was gone behind Whitney, and dusk was rushing at us from the rocks.

 We put on whatever clothes we had to get warm, but we had left our thermal gear back at the hotel, never believing we would still be up on the mountain when it got cold.  Cali told us later that she was moving too fast on the switchbacks because she was trying to get warm.

 Now she was shaking with the cold as we stumbled across the rock shelf toward the trail down.  As soon as it got fully dark, we got fully lost.  Somehow after an hour of climbing down, nothing seemed right, we couldn’t trust our map and we doubled back to get our bearings.  And got lost again.

 We were all cold, but now Cali was getting the worst of it, with almost no fat on her body to keep her warm.  We bundled her in a foil blanket, and every chance there was, Douglas huddled with her out of the wind, trying to fight the cold.  Never once in these hours did she complain, only later did Douglas tell me Cali said, through chattering teeth: “Dad, I’m trying to be a good sport, but….”

 We were past exhaustion, now chilled, all of us fighting panic.  We clustered behind a rock, weighing our options, Douglas and I both holding the most desperate choices in our minds.  Douglas decided to do one more reconnaissance to get our bearings, walked up the rocks into the dark, while I sat with Cali, both of us shaking. 

 What happened next cannot be explained in ordinary terms.  Douglas walked less than five minutes in the pitch dark along a mound of a rock, and somehow met another couple coming the other way.  They had summited late, had lost their pack off a cliff and didn’t have headlamps.  But they did have a working GPS map.  We saved each other.

 Over the next five hours we zig zagged down the steep canyon in the dark.  It was a grueling death march, our legs already shredded from nearly twenty hours of climbing and descending.  Douglas and I clomped along, bringing up the rear, grateful to know how at least the direction to follow.  We barely had the energy to speak, both of our throats dry from dehydration and the mountain air.

 Cali found another depth.  We could see her just ahead of us in the dark, our lights dancing over rocks and rivers, and finally trees, as we made our way down.  She was gracious and chatty with the couple, thanking them again and again for helping us, making small talk as we slowly edged to lower elevation.  I watched her climb down, sure footed, lightly navigating each turn,

 When we got within an hour of the trailhead, the air warmed around us, and the last of the fear faded.  We were all weak and so tired we were seeing things, but we weren’t thinking about survival, we just wanted to get a shower and get in bed.

 Cali led us along the path toward the car, the last mile an easy, wide path.  We could hear the river roaring in the dark near us, and hikers were passing us coming up, trading good mornings as they started their climb.  Cali wished everyone good luck, answered brief questions about our day.  I think everyone that passed us wondered how we were still on the climb twenty-five hours later.

 We parted ways with our ‘lost’ companions and slumped into our car and wound our way down the mountain to our motel.  

 I am writing more than I intended, and it barely touches the surface of what I want to show you about my friend Cali.   She showed remarkable courage the entire adventure, never once blinking at the dangers of the climb or any of our challenges.  But what was most impressive, what gives me the greatest hope for her and for all of us, was the way she dug into a deeper place when she needed to.  At the end of our physical capacity, faced with what could easily be life threatening moments, she remained calm, and positive.

 Cali is my hero.  That may sound a bit dramatic, and maybe given the fact that she is a third my age the word seems awkward.  But I admire her steel, her courage, the way she shared herself with others when she had so little to give.  Even when things were at their hardest, she remained Cali.

 

Hope this finds you cheering,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith

Sweet By and By

 

June 27, 2022

 Greetings from before long,

 We become accustomed to the whirl of the world around us, adapting to the minor changes that ordinarily occur until we can almost navigate without thinking about it.  There is no sin in this, no slight against the gift, it is simply how life unfolds sometimes.  Thankfully, creation will sometimes nudge us gently to say ‘Now, pay attention’.

 I followed a rugged path through the woods, intent on how long I would hike, aware of the pack on my back, gauging and thinking, focused more on this as a training exercise than what it was.  Which was something else.

 People passed me, some on bikes, some on foot, some would say “Happy Father’s Day” and then left me to wonder what the correct response is.  “You too?”  Then overthought that for a while.

I would be in the woods for six hours or so, plenty of time to overthink all manner of things.  Like whether my shoelaces were too heavy, or if that was stone in my shoe or a heel spur.  Or if I say ‘thank you’ enough.  I wince when I remember when I forget to say that, like weeks too late.

 I came up behind an older couple on the path, and we exchanged remarks about the beautiful day.  The man said they had hiked ahead of their friends, who I had heard behind me talking loudly about insurance or other insults to humanity.  He said they were happy “…to be away from the din.”  And just for using the word ‘din’ he became my friend.  I told them a story as my gratitude for the exchange, and then hiked on alone.

 I could feel the fatigue in my legs, a good ache, the sensation I had been training for, knowing I was building strength for something.  The day warmed, my shirt clung to me, gnats and mosquitoes hovered, delighted my smorgasbord.

Step, pole, step, pole.  I found a rhythm, up and down the steep twists and turns, winding through pines and oaks, the canopy above me nearly hiding the deep blue arcing above all of us.   I leaned into the rhythm, the breathing and heartbeat making a counterpoint.  Miles slipped by and I lost track of where I was, focused on climbing a mountain that was weeks away.

 I have found this groove when I run, or on a long bike ride.  I lose track of what the body is doing, unfocused on my surroundings, go to other places.  Step, pole, step, pole.  Breathe, pulse, step, breathe, pole, pulse, step, pole, breathe.

Eleven miles clicked by, and I knew I should eat, and as soon as I knew it, I was ravenous.  I followed the path into a wide space, the edge of an empty campground and found a picnic table, heaved my back onto the stained boards.

 I stood in the soft light of the woods, felt the sweat running down my skin, felt the thud in my chest slow just slightly, and looked around me.  I could hear music, but it was so unexpected I didn’t trust what I was hearing.   Not just music, even more unbelievable, banjo music.

 Down the hill below me was a small lake, I could make out its color between the leaves.  Drifting into view behind the curtain of green, a small boat.  At first, I thought the music was recorded, then I heard the man stop, tune the strings, and begin singing as he played. 

 There was a woman with him on the boat, and a dog.  They couldn’t know I was there, I was too far up into the trees, but I was close enough to hear them move around the boat, to catch glimpses of them there in the sun.  He sang, plinked at the banjo, someone who had played a good deal, and I couldn’t tell you the songs, only that they were a beautiful gift.

I sat at the picnic table and unwrapped my smushed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sipped the warm water from my bottle, a gourmet meal, and now with live music to accompany the repast.  There was something pure and lovely about the sound across the water.  I didn’t want the man to stop playing.  I realized this when he stopped playing.

 I heard him slip into the lake and call out to his dog to come in the water, and banter with the woman, who would not get wet.  I heard him climb back on the boat, and without enough time to even dry his hands, began playing again.

‘In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore

In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful, beautiful shore’

 He wandered off on the strings, little riffs that I could tell were just for fun, and then back to the hymn, the strings clanging and his voice wound into their sounds, all lifting up into the trees to settle in the only place they would be heard.  If a banjo is played in the forest…

 I sat and savored my meal and the music and the gentle air, and I felt the untwisting, felt the knot of intention and plans and training siphon off.  Felt creation nudge me.  ‘Now, pay attention.’

  

Hope this finds you by and by,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith

Institutions

 

June 20, 2022

 

Greetings from the casual consumer,

 I needed to find a stamp, a need that has not arisen in so long I wonder if it ever happened.  If we have stamps, I don’t know where they are.  If we don’t have them, it means I need to go to the post office. 

 I feel awkward going to the post office, that unease of going to any institution that reminds me of being sent to see the principal.  I realize I don’t know the price of a stamp, which as a citizen I am required to complain about, and suddenly I feel that same guilt as when I am asked to vote for college regents.

 Then this; whenever I think the post office, I think of the library.

 Libraries and post offices are fixtures in most communities.  I suspect that most people view them like teenagers view their grandparents.  Aware of them, but only visit on unusual occasions. 

 The post office, and its bookend, the local library, are often in outdated buildings, and seem to be perpetually from another era.  They smell different, a mixture of mustiness that comes from old paper and dust, and whatever solution they use to clean jails and schools.

 The people who work there are cousins of the people at the DMV, underappreciated, overworked, doing their best not to be as surly and resentful as they probably feel.  The post office clerk and the librarian have a specialized knowledge, which we might not respect to the degree it deserves.

I will admit that I have thought for a long time that both these icons are almost obsolete.  Technological advances, it would seem, would make them irrelevant.  “Oh, are we still doing that?” I would ask, so smug and cynical, two adjectives born of ignorance. 

 Library cards and stamps have a quaint nostalgia to them, a reminder of some simpler time, when people sewed and sat on porches, and families ate together without screens to distract them.  I realize this might sound condescending, but in truth the importance of this thread to those times is just becoming real to me.

 I have realized more recently that both the library and the post office provide incredible values to us as their constituents.  Stamps, which I have learned cost fifty eight cents, are a miracle.  I can send a sheet of paper to virtually anywhere in the country for spare change in my pocket.  Libraries are virtually free.  Books at Barnes and Noble cost $20.00 to read.  At the library, they give you a 100% discount.  Read it, and afterward, they will recycle it for you.  Of course if you finish reading it later than you promised, you are penalized four cents or something, which you probably have left over from buying stamps.

 All of this is the wandering-around-conversation in my head that led to the main thing that libraries and post offices have in common.  They are both filled with stories.

 Libraries have shelves lined with books that hold the stories that someone needed to write down before they slipped away.  Ideas too big to be held by one person.  Stories of adventure and romance and history and friendships and fantastic thoughts about the future.  Stories of us. 

 Post offices have stories.  People write them on sheets of paper, another quaint and terribly important tradition, and put them in envelopes, a lovely, simple, nearly sacred apparatus.  They tell the story, freeze it in time, and fold it, slide it into the slot at the post office, and add it to the millions of stories others are sending to the people who need to hear them.  Right now, these stories are migrating all over the country, the world, like enormous swarms of literary butterflies.  Stories of us.

 Libraries and post offices are filled with stories of us, because we have walked through their doors and made use of them, been helped by them, changed by them, for generations.  Just because we may have forgotten the stories, doesn’t mean they no longer exist.

 It's remarkable.  These fixtures hold a legacy that has mattered for hundreds of years.  In every town that lasted people built a school and a church and a library and a post office.  They became, and remain, places of community, of exchange, places where we weave our stories together.  Interesting what we value.  If these bastions of stories become irrelevant, what will we build in their place?

  

Hope this finds you visiting,

 

David

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith

In the gutter

 

June 13, 2022

 

Greetings from a great height,

 Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where afterward I say “I need to spend more time doing that.” 

 Typically, these are the golden moments we hope we will come across in our day.  We meet someone interesting, create a friendship, we see a beautiful sunset, we hit our stride doing something we love, or perhaps discover a talent we didn’t know we possessed.

 This week I cleaned my gutters. 

 There are things you can buy that will prevent your gutters from filling with debris.  These can be as simple as small fixtures that attach at the downspouts, or guards that cover all of the gutters.  These don’t work on my house.  Because I forgot to buy them and put them on.

 I have avoided doing this fascinating work for several years, owing to a full schedule and a healthy fear of hurtling to the earth without means of resisting gravity.  At first, I ‘let nature take its course’, which is a sophisticated way of procrastinating.  When nature took its course, which means choked the eves troughs with leaves, then I ‘delegated’, also a sophisticated way of procrastinating, it turns out.

 I delegated to a guy who, for legal reasons, we will call ‘Tony’.  Also because that’s his name.  Tony undoubtedly has many fine abilities, but his gutter cleaning skills I will say, again for legal reasons, are atrocious.  Imagine having that reputation.

 The result of all this procrastinating was that every time it rained, we would have magnificent waterfalls cascading over the rooflines.  I found this enjoyable to watch, reminiscent of a Frank Lloyd Wright design, but the majority of the other people living here found it objectionable.  And so, I gleefully attacked the job of gutter cleaning.  Yes, ‘full of glee’ is how I would describe that.

 I could have delegated this job to another Tony, but I needed an interesting story to share with my brother, whose life lacks the complex texture of my own, and yearns to hear more about my gleeful home repair escapades.

 I hauled my extension ladder from the garage, after moving a generation of life’s flotsam from around it, including an authentic lawn mower I forgot I owned.  (I’ll share lawn mowing stories later, I don’t want to overwhelm my brother with too much excitement.)  I clambered lithely up the ladder (using the term ‘lithely’ liberally) and scampered across the roof.  By ‘scampered’ I mean clung desperately to the shingles, my legs trembling like a newborn fawn’s.

 There are devices you can buy to make working on your roof safely.  Harnesses and hooks and nets and other such things.  But these don’t work on my house.  Because I forgot to buy them and put them on.

 The likelihood of falling from my roof and ruining the impeccable landscaping below is fairly slim, which why the majority of the other people living here was willing to risk the hibiscus and rhododendron, or whatever those things are.  Of course, I didn’t know the exact odds against falling from a great height while cleaning, but every time I looked down at the earth, which somehow became several thousand feet away, the odds didn’t matter.  Because odds won’t break your fall.

 There are more disgusting things than rotted leaves and needles soaking in a stew of green rainwater which has been fermenting since the Bush presidency.  (W, not 41, I’m not a complete barbarian).  I was going to start that list of disgusting things, but I only got as far as the pizza they served at Chuck E Cheese and my mind went blank.

 Anyway, aside from the smell, and the slime, and the occasional gagging when I discovered something recognizable in the ooze, it really was more than a disgusting experience, it was also a little scary, and crawling around on the hot shingles made my knees ache.  So I had that going for me.

 I began by saying that every once in a while I find myself in a situation where afterward I say “I need to spend more time doing that.”  (I scrolled back to check just now, because it didn’t really sound like something I would say in this context.)  Here’s the truth of it.

 This little job won’t matter to anyone, (including my brother, unless he’s having a really dull day) and its completion is invisible to everyone, other than the neighbors who may have enjoyed the magnificent waterfall display previously mentioned.  But it mattered to me for a few hours.

 It is satisfying to do a simple thing, to put your hand to a basic task and think only about what is in front of you.  There is a sense of accomplishment seeing the real result of that effort, in this case watching the water run freely along the eves trough, and swirl and gurgle down some unseen path to the soil below. 

 It is not a vocation or a hobby or even an inspiration to spend more time cleaning the gutters.  It is, however, a reminder of the truth inside of this.  In nearly everything we do there exists the same satisfaction, the same sense of accomplishment.  It is often hidden by routine, or resentment, or the desire to do anything else, and occasionally hidden by slimy, rotting leaves. 

 There is beauty in everything we do if we seek it.  If we bring it.

 

 

Hope this finds you uncovering,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith

A walk with a friend

 

June 6, 2022

 

Greetings from outside,

 “Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”  Henry David Thoreau

 I stopped to drink water, my breath loud in my ears, laboring after the pull up the hill.  My legs were a little rubbery, not accustomed to this work, or the miles that piled up on them already from the days before.

 The forest was dense with green, a tangled canopy of living things over me, almost hiding the sky’s color.  It sheltered me from the hot sun and from rainstorms.  It is a different place than the world I left.  I thought of my brother’s urging to the world to ‘go outside’.  To put away the news and go breathe in the soul-saving air of nature.

 This hike in the woods had purpose, to push the tired muscles, ask them to work harder so they can build strength for more challenging days ahead.  Miles of huffing up hills, breathing differently, challenging the legs, confusing the body, asking it to try.

 But the real purpose was to be with my friend.  We would have time to talk and listen, to take those thoughts and hold them up in the dappled light and see what they really mean.  I trust my friend with every shade of me.  No one in the history of creation is closer to me.  We finish each other’s thoughts.  We begin each other’s thoughts.

 We have sometimes found moments, here and there, to spend time with each other.  An early morning run, a cup of coffee, a late-night moment before sleep. But this is a rare place, where we can talk out loud and unabashedly.  We had the forest to ourselves.  Time seemed to have gone to manage other moments.

 I had things to consider.  Some of them were choices that were on the horizon, some were as close as the moment.  I scattered the small distractions that didn’t belong, those petty trespassers. 

 I also had moments to consider, memories, thoughts, and feelings that held all those in one place.  All that was needed was the time and space to let them come.  And time with my friend.

 We talked about the easy things, and then sang, and then said silly things.  We changed subjects, left sentences unfinished, dropped improper tenses, elaborate exaggeration, nonsensical segues.  If you had been eavesdropping, you would have guessed we were lunatics.  Or best friends.

 Some of the time we did not speak.  We simply moved along the path, content to follow our feet, a little ballet between roots and rocks.  I remembered a line from a favorite book; “The place spoke for us, and it was a kind of speech.”

 The woods are quiet, but only to a visitor’s ears.  There are no phones, no cars, no lawn mowers, no whirr and click of mechanical things.  But in a little while, the ears adjust to the quiet, and can hear the soft sounds of life there.

 The trees creak, leaves sigh in the wind.  Birds gossip, some shrill and long winded, others simply offer a single note and then listen.  Anonymous rustling in the groundcover, perhaps better not known.  Here the nearly silent vein of water, happy in its meandering, content in its small part in the tableau.  I can only hear it by holding my breath and choosing to.

 I added my voice, and my friend’s.  We talked about the days ahead, and those passed.  Our conversation is as natural as the creation around us, both in sound and substance.  There are no carefully chosen words, no desire to influence or impress.  We are giving each other word gifts with no expectation or judgment. 

 We stopped and the quiet caught up with us.  For a moment the light in the woods changed.  It became dark, as if someone painted the world with a shadow.  It felt ominous for a moment, I had this sliver of uneasiness in my chest.  And then, almost as an answer, sunlight made its way back into the forest.  It melted the dimness, slowly making grey into green, sepia into gold, ash into light.

 “It’s magic.” I said out loud.  We were both in awe.

 I love my friend.  We are honest together, and forgiving.  We encourage, even in the asking of hard questions, even in not answering them.  We put each thought on a tray of truth and offer it to the other.  One of the pleasures of the day was realizing what we had been given; this blank canvas of time.

 The miles followed the wriggling path, and my legs lost the weariness, and discovered their strength.  The sun moved over the woods, taking the day to other forests, to other friends who were wise enough to be outside.

 I tramped the path to its end and eased the pack from my aching shoulders.  I stood in the different world and looked back into the tunnel of green I had just left.  I waved to my friend and felt the wave in return.  “Until next time.” we said.

 Hope this finds you in good company,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith