Tag Archives: Trees

Germany

Herbst/Fall/Autumn

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There has been more than a little space between blog posts recently, and it’s not for lack of what to say. Rather, it’s due to time spent being in the world where, I am grateful to say, I have found myself in good company and laughing.

Playing, I said.
Living, came the response.

And in this moment, quite so.

Where I pause, however, is when I stop to consider the gulf between my small corner of the sky and the big, wide world around me. That’s when it’s hard to laugh, hard to remain positive, hard to stomach what I read in the news with my students every day. We’ve had beautiful sunshine lately and that affects my mood, too. Fall can be a quiet, contemplative time but lately it hasn’t been. It has been lively and full and it’s easy to get swept away in that. I need to remind myself to take stock, to take a step back. I am so lucky to be here.

A year ago we started watching this tree as the leaves changed, as the days grew colder and the nights crisper. We watch nature because we are at home in it, because it’s beautiful, because it quite literally soothes the soul. And we spend as much time out in nature as we can because we know that pleasant temperatures don’t last forever.

Lately I’ve been laughing a lot, despite what’s in the news and what we expect for winter in Europe. I cannot change the world’s geopolitics but can put into the world what I believe should be part of it. To this end, I’ve been laughing with someone who reminds me to slow down, to take it easy, to take time away in order to be present with what is there.

Here now in autumn, leaves change. Colours change. The way that we approach one another during times that many of us, to varying degrees, find profoundly unsettling, can also change. We can choose to be a little kinder, a little more open, a little more honest. We can look for reasons to laugh, to play, to live.

And in the world that I believe should be, we stand up together and support one another because that creates “us” and when there’s just “us” rather than “us and them”, that creates peace. We all laugh, after all, and peace means finding commonalities and making them count.

So I’ve been out in nature and laughing. And I hope this post, and my wish for the world, inspire you to get out there, as well.

New York

New York Mountains

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My family recently spent a week at a pond in an area of the Adirondack Mountains that doesn’t get cell phone service. We spent our days reading in the sunshine, paddling canoes and kayaks, and basking in the quiet and solitude.

We hiked through forests . . .

. . . climbed mountains . . .

. . . and waited by the fire for stars to appear.

The Adirondack Mountains are beautiful and also, in my biased opinion, a very special part of the state. The region includes an area called the High Peaks, forty-six mountains ranging from 3,820 feet (1,164 meters) to 5,344 feet (1,628 meters). Technically a High Peak is classified as anything over 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) but original list of 46 stems from the early twentieth century when surveys were less precise. Three of us were keen to climb Gothics, the tenth highest peak at 4,736 feet (1,443 meters), which we planned to reach via Pyramid Peak, a mountain tall enough to fit High Peaks criteria but unfortunately located too close to Gothics to be considered its own mountain.

The hike is approximately twelve miles (19 kilometers) of adventure through forest, across rivers and waterfalls, and over boulders. Having prepared coffee the night before, we left before dawn and only returned close to dark. I’m very comfortable rock climbing but free climbing on slabs was a new experience.

We had lunch on Pyramid Peak overlooking Gothics, marvelling at the trees and plants that are features of alpine terrain.

The hike is divided into three four-mile sections with the middle section containing the difficult climbing. It took us 11 hours and 38 minutes to complete, longer than the nine hours we’d read about and planned on. As we finished the last stretch of trail, we realized that many people likely walked the first and third sections along the road that we had decided to avoid. This was probably why the people we encountered in the woods commented that we were taking the scenic route to Gothics. It certainly was and I highly recommend it, but we were glad we started early and that we’d packed more food than we thought we needed.

After an hour in the car, we were glad to be back at the pond.

What I love about the Adirondacks is how far away it seems from the rest of the world. The air tastes cleaner, the sky is bigger and stars brighter, and the ecosystems around water and forest conjure a tranquility that seeps into my bones. There’s nothing to do but be out there, no time to keep, no opportunity for mindless distraction. Instead, the mind switches off while watching the fish jump early in the morning, and the senses sharpen as the arms, warmed by the sun, dip the kayak paddle into the water. The Adirondacks are a special place for me because they find all of me, scattered as I sometimes am, and bring me right there. Right there where there’s no place else to be.

Germany

The Beach

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I’m not sure how my parents chose the beach that ultimately became the beach we visited every summer, and then every other summer, and then one last time. I think it was advertised in a catalogue or maybe as part of a vacation package at a wholesale store. Whatever it was, we loved our family beach holidays, which started as soon as we got into the car and began the sixteen-hour or so adventure of reading, license plate spotting, occasional bickering, and listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion after dark. Throughout my childhood, the ocean was my happy place.

Until last week, it had been a while since I’d spent a holiday at the ocean, several years since the order of events upon arrival followed a familiar pattern: Unload the car, have something to eat, buy groceries, walk on the beach. It was my first trip to Warnemünde on the Ostsee, or Baltic Sea, where I was thrilled to have been invited, and my heart felt almost like I’d been there before.

Warnemünde is a fishing town with an active port and a popular destination for tourists and cruise ships. A port means boats and lighthouses, both of which remind me warmly of my years working on boats and never fail to capture my attention.

The water was warmer than I’d expected though still a shock each time we waded carefully in, laughing, slipping on rocks, getting tangled in seaweed, playing. The ocean was surprisingly flat even on windy days, and the beach rockier than usual, I was told. We tasted salt on our lips, dried off under the sun and wind, watched the seagulls marching along the sand. And when the sun went down, we walked quietly and in awe.

On the Ostsee, I learned, much of the beach emerges from the forest and this was completely new to me. We found a cozy spot, watched the approaching rainclouds, and walked calmly back in the storm that followed.

In the bright sunshine of my last day, we rented bikes and followed a path through the forest and along the coastline. We passed farms and little towns, stopped to eat and drink overlooking the ocean, and went swimming in the warmest water yet. We searched unsuccessfully for Hühnergotter, stones with a small hole through them that are supposed to bring good luck. The sound of the ocean was soothing and I nearly fell asleep on the sand.

The world is a beautiful place and I was lucky to be somewhere new to me, lucky to share it with people who have such fond memories of being there. The world is a beautiful place and to be part of it is a gift. I am glad to know this – every day.