By accident, you told me the sweetest thing to miss was the Mexican desert. You didn’t know the English words for the creatures surrounding the arid mountains. As your daughter, it’s instinct to believe I’m different. But neither of us is connected to the Maryland forest. Not enough to give it a name.
Maybe that’s why you refrain from explaining. Or talking. But I’m relieved. There’s an expectation in conversation.
So, instead, I focus on your scuffed leather sandals as you graze them over the creek’s bed. The water’s flow covers years of calluses off your feet. I’ll watch them dry. And the ochre lines etched into your heel will match the hard groves in the nearby White Oaks – along with the desert horizon that used to meet your sightline.
There’s sand in this creek, wet and gray from the water flow. If you ever looked down, would you see this flat monstrosity? Would you wish for the curves of the warm Mexican sand, for beige to blind you again?
You always prefer solace in nature’s echo. The creek’s ebbing whisper is deep and rich against the high-strung buzzing from the heated August air. I stand by you with my toes curved against gray pebbles, lean and sleek amongst the bedrock. Just like the tall grasses perched by the nearby ledge.
I imagine that’s how the native high rises feel here. Do they see the world in motion as they stand still? Or do they sometimes sway with the Maryland wind?
But I don’t ask. If I broke humidity’s seal against my lips, the woods would vacuum my words and float them eastward. So I wait until dusk, when the heat temporarily dissipates. Only then do you break the blanketed silence. You point with your knuckles, slowly, cautiously, waiting for my eyes to follow.
“They don’t have plants like these where I’m from,” you say. I grunt to agree. Enshrouded by evergreen, it’s an open secret that means I love you.
I motion. “Big tree. Size of our apartment.” The creek never keeps our conversations. Only with this information do you nod and grunt into the wind.
…
Once upon a time, there were bugs. And then, there was you. Forced to co-exist, you have a strained relationship. You didn’t dislike bugs. Not initially. But there was a transformative moment when you became civilized. Refined. Sophisticated. And sophisticated people don’t like bugs.
Why’s that? You might say they started to annoy you. But once upon a time, you were five. You heard whispers and sighs every time you entered the room. At three feet tall, you were small and helpless but too much for anyone’s liking. So you shape-shift, take up less air. But bugs didn’t get this memo. So they continue, claiming space proudly and fearlessly.
Instead, you offer that bugs are uncontrollable. But once upon a time, you played wild. Screamed loud. Jumped high. And afterward, you were scolded. Called stupid for not following unnamed rules. So you learned every one imaginable. But bugs didn’t adapt to this. So they continue, without bending to your preferences.
Finally, you mention the obvious. Bugs are ugly. But once upon a time, you were ugly. When you got out of the delivery room, people pointed and cooed at you. But at brunches, dinners, and bars, everyone agreed. You’re unpleasant on the eyes and worse on their nose.
The snarky comments only echo louder as you run faster. At your freest in the mud and sand, people are unafraid to tell you you’re sticky. Slimy. Dirty. Gross. So you stop. You stop touching the dirt so you can stop being ugly. But bugs, for millions of years, have remained the same. Even if you shame them, they are as equally weird and slimy and round as when they emerged from the ground.
Maybe that’s why you dislike bugs. They’re just like you when you were a kid. And unlike you, they were never forced to grow up.
…
Rust. Sienna. Charcoal. Clay. From dirt you came, to dirt you will become. It should be comforting. After we grow, destroy, and spit on the world, it welcomes us back.
But to me, becoming dry dust is punishment. As I walk the trail, my tennis shoes scrape, stomp, and crush the land. I never meant to, didn’t mean to suffocate.
Taupe. Ash. Coffee. Graphite. The trees stand tall, peaking through silhouettes of their hickory sisters. An unwavering witness to my follies. But it rained last week. Cut by wind, muffled by night, they toppled from the canopy. Now belonging to the umber.
How mighty they rose. How swiftly they fell. If sycamores can’t survive, how can I?
Hunter. Mint. Moss. Lime. Greens envelop the wooden skeletons that remain. The evergreen is brighter, but thinner now. It stormed days ago. I didn’t notice. I should’ve noticed. I never notice when others fall, unless they hit me first.
But my melodrama has no place in these woods. Practicality shines through as fungi stairs already dot the rotting bark. While I mourn their end, the trees laugh as their trunk still breathes life.
Crimson. Carmine. Ochre. Amber. The fallen leaves blanket the forest floor, forming a soggy mosaic. I’m hypersensitive to color. But my meticulousness will never capture their decay – or their nurturing. Because as they enrapture my boots, they gently envelop a sapling.
I stare at the nearby log. The smell of warm decomposition slaps my cheek. Perhaps it’s a gentle caress from an elder scabbed by her concentric rings. I’ve been here before, during and after storms. I’ve cried here many times. Was this the tree that always greeted my eyes? How selfish to think it waits.
Brown. Yellow. Red. Orange. Black. Gray. She leaves her gashes open to see. There are already insects crawling and laying within her. It’s ghastly. She lets me stare. One day, her wood will completely rot. One day, the stalactites that form her geometric body will be nothing but a memory.
A speck of wood breaks and drifts downward. Her particles, once mighty, high, and untouchable, will join me in the same dirt that we came from. It’s comforting to know that dust is only life recontextualized. When this passes, perhaps we’ll land in the same spot.
