A Simple Life: Chapter 80 (Patreon)

I walk amongst the feet of venerable giants, themselves mere hairs upon the toes of a more ancient titan.  High above me the heads of mighty pine, spruce and hemlock sway to the steady western breeze blowing in off of the endless Pacific as I climb the slope of the green peak on which they grew.  These arboreal residents clothed by vestments of verdant moss and festooned with the draping finery of bearded lichens stood proud and ancient as my fool ass scrambled over and around the rotting limbs and trunks of those whose days in the sun were over and were now returning to the mountain.

Brushing my hands the soft fronds of damp ferns in the shade and the rasping branches and thorns of the shrubby underbrush in the places the light found the ground.  Underfoot dried twigs and desiccated needles crunch beneath my treads.  The way was not easy.  There were no paths here.  No trail to guide my way.  But I had been this way many times before.

It was only a few steps in when the voices of Winona and Amos had been swallowed by the forest and wind and now, except for the occasional intrusion of a vehicle passing down the highway, the sounds of that world were absent here.  When my footfalls fell still a subtle symphony would reveal itself.  The soft breath of the forest boughs.  The distant sigh of the surf.  The long rise and fade of the buzz of a passing bee.  The shrill repetitive peep-peep-peep of a Northern Flicker joined the pips and trills of contented Chickadees to give it all vibrant drama.  For as much as I loved him, even Beethoven’s great genius sounded the plonking of an amateur by comparison.  And there, among it all, my own breathing made deep from the effort of my climb.  Not apart from it, but a part of it.

With each of those breaths I take in the heavy aroma of earth and pine mixed with the sweet dewy fragrance of fern and flowers.  It is cool in the shadow of the towering conifers and warm upon the sun-kissed stones of the outcroppings.

It is on one of these outcroppings that I pause to find my peace.

I sit down cross-legged at north edge of a flat expanse of granite that I had found nearly nine years ago.  Swaddled on all sides by forest I could not see the ocean or the garage or anything beyond this sanctuary despite my elevation.  Without even really thinking about it I begin to search for, and soon find, the wild alpine strawberries I knew would be there.  One by one I begin to collect the saccharine scarlet morsels and place them in a small depression in the rock.  These had not been provided for me.  These gifts of the mountain were here for another’s hungry palate.  But nobody would mind.  The last of our island bears had been shot in 1953.

Between the sixth and seventh berry I stop, close my eyes, and let out a long breath.

There it was.  Oh yes.  There it was.  That moment where the steady, constant drain on my energy of just existing reversed to begin replenishing instead.  I didn’t know it at the time but that little heart to heart I shared with Mama on the way up here had helped to clear the slate of confusing emotions so that I could find this moment of still all the easier.  I guess that therapist might have been onto something after all.  Maybe talking things out, while not solving anything in itself, helped to open the way.

I open my eyes and look around.  What I see is all things in their place.  All things in their context.  All things put into proper perspective.  Aligned and interwoven.  From the ageless mountains to the enduring forest to me to the singing chickadee to the ladybug crawling across the stone that was here a year to the violet nightshade blooms across the clearing from me that were would only show for a season.  I was in it.  Among it.  One with it.  Ehkolie.  My home.

Everything suddenly became so simple.  Not easy, but simple.  Here there was no judgment.  No pride or shame.  No love or hatred.  No need to be clever or witty or know the right thing to say to make people like me.  The chickadee didn’t care that I stuttered or giggled in that childish way I had.  To it I was just another silly human bumbling through the brush.  The mountain didn’t care about my black eye or how I’d gotten it.  To it I was but a brief speck that would be here and gone in scant instant.  Here it was just life, unvarnished.  Life with all of its hardships and beauty.  Like the trees I would have my days in the sun before returning to my mountain.  Like the birds and the flowers I would sing my songs and show my colors before they faded forever.

I pick the remainder of the ripe red berries then spin in place and stretch out on the warming rock.  I pop a strawberry into my mouth then put my hands behind my head to stare up at the breaking clouds above me.  The sky sure was blue today.  And this berry was delicious!

During the climb up here I had been wishing that I’d brought my camera and maybe a bit of gear for a day camp but now that I was here I had no regrets.  I might have been able to get some great shots but it would have distracted me from…this.  This wonderful peace.  And as for the gear, as good as this was I had no intention of spending the day up here.  There was now another call of nature competing with the first.  I needed this time as much as sleep or sustenance but there was something else I needed just a much now.  And that something was her.  My girlfriend Winona.

I smile and stretch out.  “Girlfriend.  I have a girlfriend.”  I sigh.  “Wait until Grandpa hears.”

I take one of the berries and hold it in front of me between my thumb and finger, enjoying how the brilliant red popped against the azure heavens and marveling at just how tiny those seeds were.  I think about myself like one of those little seeds clung to the side of the mountain.  A thing so miniscule that under the right conditions might sprout and grow and give nourishing joy to the world.  Soaking up the sun’s life-giving rays as surely as the strawberry leaves and drawing up Earth’s nurturing nutrients as surely as the strawberry’s sprawling roots I lay and decompress from all of the stress and socializing of the past couple of days..  The resulting fruit might not be as sweet but it would see me through another bout back there.

I munch down the berry and savor again the incredible potency of its sweet flavor.  Those big strawberries in the store had nothing on these little gems.  I’m not sure how long I lay there staring and listening and immersing myself in Ehkolie’s rejuvenating aura.  Maybe an hour.  Maybe even two.  Long enough to watch the lazily drifting clouds break apart until there is more blue than white in the sky above.  The longer I lay there the more my thoughts and daydreams return…to her.

“Hahhhh.”  I sit up and look to the little black-capped avian friend that had been serenading me the past ten minutes.  I giggle as I think that maybe he’d been actually telling me off all that time for laying on his favorite rock.  Either way I’d been happy for the music.  “Thank you Mr. Chickadee-dee-dee.  I hope your song finds you a girl as nice as mine.”  I collect up the uneaten berries and put them in my pocket.  “I wish I could stay longer but I have a j-job to do.  I’m a photographer if you didn’t know.”

While not completely recharged my battery was back in the safe zone again.  I get to my feet and brush myself off.  I then set off to explore the area for good angles of the garage.

Chapter 81