Quiet and still

Dove and I both love the outdoors in very different ways.

I like hikes through quiet woods. I can handle light to medium activity—I am a bit roly poly and cannot manage overly vigorous activity. I do not wish to be outside when it is too hot or too cold. I would like to sleep on, at minimum, a cot with a good cushion.

I know a little about a lot of things in Missouri nature. I collect names: turkeytails, phlox, karst, hellbenders, juncos, drusi, ramps. I like the poetry of it, of being able to point to a flash of feathers and or a tendril of leaves and be able to name it and know it as friend.

My absolute favorite thing to do outside is to lay in a hammock.

First, the conditions must be right. I don’t want to be seen. I don’t to hear any noises except nature.

Hammocks are therapeutic for me. A few years ago when I was dealing with a terrible bout of anxiety, I kept one indoors in the living room so I could curl up in one all year round, regardless of the weather. While I do nap and read and write and draw in hammocks, most often I just lay there and think.

It becomes a meditation.

I watch. I watch the clouds slowly move across the sky, slowly roiling into new shapes and patterns. I watch the branches above my head shudder, and see how it is only the leaves on a certain level, with the wind coming from a specific direction. I look at the colors and shape of the trees around me, trying to discern which are the same species.

I listen. I try to differentiate each birdcall: where is it coming from? How many? Are they moving, how does their call change? I use the help of the Merlin app to figure out who is singing.

I pretend. I watch a squirrel leaping from tree to tree, and I imagine myself in that small furry body— my claws digging lightly into bark to keep me stable, the immense speed of which I run, propelling myself quickly from a limb and never even pausing. I imagine myself curled in a nest of leaves with my mate, with my kits.

I imagine that I am a tree. That one takes more time to center upon, more senses to consider. Growth. My rings growing year after year, pushing myself a layer at a time towards the future. My feet quest down and out, deeper and deeper into rich soil, and I become not just tall but wide. I have an entire ecosystem within my skin, living and breeding and dying inside me- would it itch? I imagine drinking in sunshine and slumbering in winter. I think about what the passage of time must be like.

Even without a hammock, I stand at windows and watch and let my mind wander. This is not an issue at Robin Woods.

This habit made me look weird as hell at my old house. I would lay in my bed next to my dog Mabel, staring out the window, watching birds— but our window faced the street, so my neighbors probably assumed I was just incredibly nosy.

I wanted land because I wanted room to just exist, away from noise and eyes.

Photo taken of the moon from my hammock at night in Robin Woods, light glowing from a bonfire below.