Time Travel

 

 

 

"Red Pine Trail"
Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary

Nikon D800
Nikkor 50.0mm 1.4 lens
Lighroom
Snapseed
Brushstroke

I've been time-traveling of late - doing something I did a lot of as a lad - walking by myself in a large wooded / marshy area near me. The place is big enough that you can get away from people and all you hear is birdsong, the wind in the branches, the crunch and swish of leaves underfoot..    I used to do exactly this as a boy. I would pack a lunch and walk the mile and a half to get to Lynn woods. I carried a map of the place and a compass in my pack, but after the fourth hike, I pretty much knew the place.  The walks back then took all day. In the late fall, I would be walking home in the dark.  Of course, back then there was not the cell-phone tether we all AbsolutelyMustHaveOnUsAtAllTimes nowadays.. So - if shit went sideways, like I fell off a cliff, or crashed through the ice on one of the ponds - oh well.. Nice knowin' you, kid. Honestly - that made things a whole lot more fun. That was very best thing though - even with the risk - I was out of their reach. No unpredictable raging adults, no Nuns, no neighborhood bullies, nobody. Just me and the animals and the trees.  And in the winters - oh my God.. glorious - especially after a snowstorm or - even better - an ice-storm which would turn everything sparkly and tinkling. The other most excellent thing to do in winter was to pack in ice skates and skate the length (almost a mile) of the frozen reservoir... talk about freedom - it was like flying..  Anyway - when I am out in the woods now, walking slowly as I do with a slight old man's limp, these memories swirl up around me mixing with the scent of pines and dead leaves - and I am transported back... Turns out, there is still a lot of that twelve year old boy in this broken down body. And - it turns out - that twelve year-old had a lot of wisdom. He knew where he had to go in order to survive the rest of his life.. ~