Layers of memories

When I go back to a place, memories often poke up from the past. As if I were an archaeologist with a soft brush and little tools, pushing away the present and revealing the past. An old fossil of a story may be sticking out, easy to find, kind of laying there to pick up and bring back to life. Or it may hide a bit, something about the place makes me stop, compelling me to hang out, which most likely is what happened years ago, and now once again hooks me. With a smile of recognition I remember, “Hello. It’s good to be back.”

I have walked a path along a stream in Maine a hundred times over the last 25 years. I go back any time I can as it never fails to show new treasures, and if I pay attention, past memories are unveiled.

1.

At the beginning of the path, there is a large boulder, about five feet tall, and when you pull yourself up, you can walk out on a flat ledge overlooking the stream. It is an invitation created by the last glacial age which together with the powerful forces of expanding ice in small cracks, split the rock in two, followed by thousands of years of being buffeted by the force of water. It has become a perfect viewing platform to witness the torrent below.

Before I even step onto the ledge, I come face to face with a branch of a balsam fir. I smell its spicy perfume as it brushes across me. And that is the exact moment memories come alive. It happens that way each and every year. The branch beckons me to step forward, revealing just enough of the ledge, in the same graceful way a gardener has created a path in a Japanese garden that pulls you forward with a tease of a scene. I wonder if the coolness and lack of sunshine in this one stretch of the river has kept the branch from growing. It has become the greeter for all who hop up on the rock and enter the ledge, giving each of us a fragrant welcome.

One year I hopped up, was embraced by the branch, and saw the most perfect red maple leaf caught in the tangle of fir needles. Red against green, like a show-off in the crowd. I tried my best to find an angle for a photograph, for quite some time, but it didn’t work. It became one of those many photographic ideas that were best enjoyed with my eyes, and then, adding reenforcement to letting go, a gentle wind lifted the leaf up and off on a journey downstream.

Whenever I enter the ledge, after being welcomed by the fir, I think about the red leaf, and the lesson of letting go.

2.

There is another spot upstream that always beckons for an exploration. Now I realize it is because the forest view from the path parts as if theater curtains are pulled back, framing a sweet scene to the stream. You walk along the path, look to your right, and there it is. Always, I can’t help it, and walk to the stream. My strongest memory was when I was crouching down right at the water’s edge. I was mesmerized by the way a little two-foot tall waterfall was so actively changing its appearance. The color reflections from autumn trees in sunlight above, were flickering like a candle of rainbow colors. The pulsing and vibrating of the color surface was happening in split seconds. A fast moving kaleidoscope of color.

I was so intensely focused on this dynamic scene in front of me—I truly was the water, in it and being sprayed by it—when I felt a presence. How that happens, with such locked-in focus amidst the roaring sound of water, I have no idea. Did an underused sense, or perhaps a very fine-tuned sense, come alive? I raised my head slowly, and there, walking along the other side of the stream, maybe five feet away, was a yearling black bear, sniffing, ambling indeed, and oblivious to me.

The parted curtain view always pulls me in, and I always think of the little bear.

3.

There is a spot on the path where it gets very narrow, with six foot drops on either side. On your right, walking upstream, is the stream, which at this point is a plunging cascade. That keeps you focused, kind of raising the danger level to real, and on the other, a mossy bottom of the forest floor, also six feet straight down. When I shuffle over, it’s only a few feet long, but also only a foot wide, I am very thoughtful. Instead of getting past as quick as possible, I always stop and look down in both directions. One year, when my son was six, we were walking across the narrow divide when I saw some puffball mushrooms down in the moss. I was so focused on keeping him and his childlike bursts of energy from bouncing off the narrow isthmus, holding his hand as we inched forward, I almost missed them.

The day had started when he came in the cabin with a stick he had found. It was as tall as he was, at least a couple inches thick, and solid. As we started our walk, he brought the stick, and he proceeded to bash every tree he came across. Swinging and thumping, complete with ninja moves. I let his energy pour out as we walked through the maple, beech, and conifer forests, on our way to the stream, keeping my mouth shut. When there seemed to be no end of destruction in sight, I said with a smile, “Do you want to know the real purpose of your stick? It’s pretty magical, but only if you hold it a certain way.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, puzzled.

“I’ll show you. Let me borrow it for just a minute.”

He handed over the stick, I held it by the thickest end as he had, and offered, “You were holding it up like this,” I demonstrated, holding it up like a sword, “But that deactivates it.”

“Huh? I don’t get it,” he said.

“If you point it towards the ground, and move it side to side, it starts to vibrate when it finds cool mushrooms,” and just as I started to move the stick side to side, it almost jumped out of my hand and pulled me a few feet to the left, and right up to a clump of bright yellow mushrooms. “See!” I exclaimed, “Oh, oh, I feel it pulling me over here,” as I lurched forward in the other direction to a beautiful, shiny maroon mushroom.

“I want to try!” He exclaimed, reaching out to take back the stick.

“Sure, it’s your stick. Just remember to stop it just an inch away from any mushrooms. They are very delicate.”

Our morning completely switched from destruction to discovery, being pulled in a zigzag journey along the path. “There’s a red one!” “Wow, look at these tiny ones!” “Hey, Dad, are these mushrooms?” He asked as the stick brought him to an old log, crumbling in decay, and covered with shelf fungus. “I think they are!”

It must have been two hours after we started, a distance you might walk in 30 minutes, but we were busy following the stick, and it found a lot of mushrooms. And it always stopped an inch from every mushroom, often with great flair. We stopped for water and a snack, and soon the path took us along the stream, and then to the narrow ledge where I spotted the puffballs. The stick and its owner had been getting a bit tired, plus we were more focused on the rushing water, when I said, “I just saw something that might be cool, right down there,” as I pointed into the forest floor. “Let’s climb down, and,” I paused, “I think you’ll need the stick.

We scrambled down, and he saw them, like little white pillows, and when he did, the stick woke up and pointed right at them.

“Exactly!” I confirmed, and this time I encouraged him to give one of the puffballs a little poke with the magic stick. A tiny poke. He did, and poof! a little cloud of cream-colored smoke rose up into the air.

“Whoa! Sick!”

We talked about spores and how mushrooms are created. Some of it might have sunk in, but he made sure to poke each and every puffball before we moved along.

Every time I walk that narrow path I always look down into the forest floor, hoping for puffballs.

4.

There is a spot along the stream where it drops into a larger pool, about 50 feet long, maybe even 15 feet wide. Everything slows down. The water is surrounded by trees, green fir and spruce, and the light is blocked by a rock wall on the south side. It feels primeval. At the end of the pool, as the water is about to get squeezed through a narrow rocky passage, it starts to crest over itself, swirl around, almost in anticipation of another tumultuous journey. In this backed up area, as if water was waiting for its turn to ride the shoot, there is almost always a little whirlpool, just a foot wide. In low water it is easily revealed. In high water, almost hidden, you can still see the water move in circles while the rest of the stream moves downstream. And right below the whirlpool, the water travels over what has the shape of a tablet, most likely from an upturned flat rock. It is a strange little mixing of water that is always different depending on the level of the pool and the colors above, but always guaranteed for a show. So of course, I stop.

5.

Further upstream, often on the far end of where I go, the path leaves the stream, meanders through a pine and birch forest, then returns to follow the edge of two little ponds. They are actually brief pauses for the stream, perhaps giving it a chance to slow down, flatten out, make good homes for frogs and fish, and a landing place for ducks, before emptying into its frenetic self.

They are quintessential northern ponds. As soon as I see them, memories from canoeing in southern Ontario, walking across Isle Royale, or pitching a tent along a lake in northern Minnesota, pour in. If quintessential means typical or being a perfect example of a place, these little ponds surely are. Cattails growing along one side, a small grove of swamp maples come to the shore of both, water lilies float just offshore, anchored with slender roots to the silty bottoms. Both ponds have a granite ledge right along the shore that the path steps out onto. The granite is sprinkled with crusty lichens, lime green, chalky black, and bright orange. Years ago I read that black and orange lichens are an indication of clean air. But one of the ponds, the one I always stop at, has a magnificent white pine growing tall and distinct out of the rock. Its branches reach up, like arms stretched to the sky. There is a lightning strike down one side, an important side trunk weakened and fell, but the tree itself looks strong. It commands attention, which is why I always stop. This one rocky ledge, in autumn, is sprinkled with rusty brown pine needles. They collect in little grooves and cracks, creating a surreal and abstract pattern. And when I lie down to look closer, I inevitably roll over, looking up, and the gentle rocking of the green-needled branches, like seaweed swaying in the shallows, lulls me into the most perfect of all naps. A gentle breeze kisses my face, pine boughs rub together softly, with the sound you get when you quietly rub your palms together close to your ears, and I am out, most likely dreaming of other days, letting go of the world underneath a glorious white pine.

Adventures and memories. If I am present for one, the other shows up.

Photographs ©Eddie Soloway