IT HAD BEEN FAR TOO LONG.

One year, nine months, two weeks, and six days.  That’s how long it had been since I’d last walked in Hitchcock Woods – enjoying the absolute magic of it – the slopes and curves, the pathways and trails, the greens and browns, the damps and dries, the sights and sounds and scents, the authentic heaven-blessed earth-rich connection of it.   

I knew it had been at least that long because I counted the days and weeks and months on a calendar, beginning with the day that my two rowdy dogs blind-sided me and I went down hard and damaged many, many parts of myself (the dogs were fine, thank you).  It had been that long between that day of crashing and breaking and last Saturday – when I took myself, along with two strong walking poles and one strong sense of longing, back into this beloved place that I had been missing for almost two years.  Far too long.  

It felt rather like coming home, somehow.  And yet, It was more than that, too.  It was like finding parts of myself again.  Missing parts that I needed put back into place … in that place.

I wore shoes of a very thin material – the closest I could come to being barefoot.  And I stepped slowly, deliberately, intensely aware of my still-limited strength and balance, through the soft sand and crunchy pinestraw of the forest floor.  And it felt as though I was suddenly walking “normally” again.  I felt in balance, steady, sure.  And I had no pain.

I was, of course, exceedingly careful.  But still I caught my foot on one sassy tree root.  But just that once.  And the tree was there to catch me.  I stopped often to rest and listen to the silence, to listen to the forest voices beneath the silence.  I found the old tree-stump-fairy-castle just where I remembered it; worn away a bit, yet quite recognizable still.  Hurricane Helene had obviously altered some of the landscape of the woods, but not the sanctuary of it.  I watched small creatures scurry across the paths, and searched for deer and turtles where the edges grow wild.  I looked for owls and saw the remnants of woodpeckers, counted squirrel nests and bird songs.  Seeds dropped around me in greeting.  And grasses rustled like whispered secrets.  I felt the texture of mosses beneath my fingers.  I hugged all the trees within reach.  (They promptly hugged me back.) 

And I thought of all the times I had come to the woods before for comfort and counsel – sometimes to mend my heart, often my body, always my soul.  And the woods was constant and there for me and took me in and nurtured me. 

And then, about half way along this wandering, remembering walk, I suddenly grew very tired.  Almost overwhelmingly fatigued.  The old pain was creeping back.  So I stopped to rest against a nearby tree – a beautiful old pine with a mottled coat and a bend just right to cradle me as I leaned against it.  And I turned my head to press my ear against its barky skin, to listen to its inner rhythm and flow of life.  And there, just inches from my eyes, was a tiny sparkling droplet, like a single tear … and then another … no bigger than a fairy’s finger tips.  The tree had shared two tears with me and left them glistening in the sunlight … just there … just where I would see them and understand.  

Like a friend that loves you best, the tree was at once sharing my pain and welcoming me home.  And so I stayed with it just that much longer, and spoke to it of gratitude.

I don’t know why a forest always heals me so deeply, so generously and faithfully – as it does for all of us who seek it.  But I suspect it’s why I mourn for all the trees that die in needless fires, and drown in heartless floods, and are cut down in deliberate greed; it’s why I grieve even more for all the trees that are devastated in the brutality of human wars.  

But now I know that at least one tree shed its own tears for me as well.  It happened last Saturday in Hitchcock Woods.  Perhaps because it breathed in and held my pain for me for a little while as I rested against it.  Or perhaps it was simply because I had returned to its woods – after being separated for longer than one year, nine months, two weeks, and six days.