into the forest

It strikes me that my life is not over. I haven’t lived in the forest. Not yet.

I’d like to live in the forest with Ann now. In a small cottage, painted yellow or dark green. Shutters and trim the other color. There at the edge of the forest, or, in the best of all worlds, tucked in fifty yards or so. In the forest.

My bests friends might be birds – morning doves come to wake me; a cardinal so red, an amazement to the ears and eyes, to all my cherished history. Or a tentative fox, one yearning for a bit of trust from a two-leg, while laying the odds with safe distance. Ann would be my best friend too, there in the forest.

When I was a kid in Wareham, Massachusetts I would walk up High and around the bend to Gibbs, meet Donnie out in his yard, and walk straight back into the Everett Woods, where there were no houses and no nine to five; no assigned homework. We’d cross the fire road, silken with fallen pine needles, and venture into the woods – this day’s journey, another day’s treasure map.

Then there were the pieces of a couple of years hiking on Point Reyes, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Out from Bear Valley, up to the Divide Meadow, a hard right onto the Old Pine Trail, with its most interesting name, as it passed through a forest of massive Douglas Firs. I was almost always alone on those slow walks, and I could feel the forest hold me. Encourage me. Praise me even. Me and my two legs.

My life isn’t over. Not until my mail’s delivered to this address: Buddy Cushman (and friends). In the forest. One coast or the other. Check with the nearest blue jay for the zip code.

(This post supported by the generous donations of four readers.}