Peeling like a snake, literally and figuratively.
Green scales, and exposed skin, you shared that favorite color.
In the nursing home and unfamiliar woods.
Almost as if calling in and activating my own rebirth as well as your own.
Piece by piece, layer by layer,
breathing out small cold clouds, dark trees blocking out the sky.
It was peaceful here for a moment, without my flashlight.
Before the search party was [fully] activated, the dispatch continually checking in, the ATV and the two fire trucks.
Alone with my slowed thoughts, the crickets, spiders, toads, and moss.
I thought I would stay until the sun filtered through that first canopy of leaves.
They don’t tell you just how long it takes, being rescued.
Delirious and hungry, but otherwise more or less ok.
Stuck in this beautiful place I never had enough time in, nor grew to fully understand or navigate.
Lost in multiple ways: lessons in letting go
to false perceptions and outdated versions of self.
Surrendering to new forms of care and relationships, allowing for and even welcoming greater support, despite its different appearance to what I had earlier imagined.
And despite all of these seemingly impenetrable shields, I have craved for so long to be cradled like this.
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I left myself this voice audio at 23:30 on Tuesday, September 19, 2023, my final evening in Connecticut:
I had left late that day from my father’s rehabilitation facility for some much needed self care and alone time in nature. As if life itself foreshadowed what was to come, I got lost on my way to Hemlock Hills. Around 17:40 with no map in sight, I dove downward into the valley on the first trail of the evening. The yellow tree markers were quickly replaced by red ones. Inspired by a long and intense barefoot hike up the Chief Stawamus trail only a week prior, I took off my shoes to better feel the Earth and reconnect with this land after many years apart. The red markers became blue, then pink, and I wandered, finding various creeks, small wooden bridges, and even a little pond. As the land rose and fell, I crossed over and between towering trees, large rocks, sticks and branches, sharp stones, and patches of mud. Maintaining my quick and steady pace, I paid more attention to where I was stepping than to my surroundings.
About an hour in, I came across a trail runner. He asked if I was alright and showed me his trails app, an incredibly intricate system, a tangle of lines. I assured him I would be fine, comparing his screen with my google map, and hoping that the trail presently headed in the direction of the car would continue that way. I later tried downloading the app, but was unable to without internet. With some desperation, I left the safety of the trail, and anxiously scrambled through the brush in waning twilight in an attempt to land my little blue dot at the park entrance.
I tried retracing my steps, and reversing the color sequence in my mind. It was cold and I put on my shoes. At 20:30 I called my sibling to relay that I was lost, and that if I could not find the trail head in the next half hour, I would call 911. I also requested that if they didn’t hear from me by 21:00 that they phone 911.
Partially because of how I was raised, part-personality, I have always been stubborn, proud, and ready to do it all myself. Giving up, and asking for help are two things that in no way come naturally to me. And it wasn’t until I could barely see two feet beyond my shitty cell phone flashlight, and the yellow markers suddenly turned pink, that I decided I had gone far enough. I stood standing on a ridge directly across from the car, between us an expansive valley, with various unseen obstacles blocking my way.
Shortly after 21:00 I called the police. I was on the phone with dispatch for an hour, yelling into the forest, which seemed wrong and even sacrilegious to destroy such exquisite peace. “I’m up here…over here…on the ridge.” “Can you hear me?” I shouted out into the darkness, “I’m right in front of you.” And what I mistook for flashlights coming toward me were actually the headlights of the two fire trucks parked below, while the ridge I could barely make out some distance ahead and above me was in fact a third ridge, my car on the ridge far below.
Eventually they came. Though grateful, I simultaneously resented the disruption of my somewhat forced opportunity to sit, slow down, listen, be. To clearly distinguish one thought from the next, to hear all of the insects and forest waking up, coming alive with a rich and profound energy. Standing still, I let this energy wash over me. My more headstrong aspect communicated that if it weren’t for the rental car needing to be charged, my father dying a few miles down the road, and my flight departing the next afternoon from New York City, I might have just stayed the night and tried my luck in the daytime. I had barely eaten all day, and suppose I arrived far more emotionally disheveled than previously imagined.
As the two middle aged firefighters accompanied me back, with their easy confidence and much brighter flashlights, they revealed that I wasn’t on the yellow trail, but the yellow/white trail, and that there wasn’t simply a blue trail, there was also a twice marked blue trail. A mistake that I’m sure has been committed not only by the most novice hikers, but also by those with even more experience than me.
I eventually found my way back to the hotel, some microwaveable dinner from the mini fridge, and to sleep for a few hours.
Crescent Phrasing 