July 26, 2009
From my notes:
We make our way out of the forest just as the sun sets. Bill walks ahead of me a bit, stops at the place where this trail joins another. Two young men stand there. They are unfamiliar to me, wear droopy trousers and tattoos. For a moment I am wary.
They stand one behind the other, the tall one in back, the slight one in front. The tall one jumps at the sound of a towhee scratching in the undergrowth. The slight one steps towards us. Bill greets him as he does all humans, a full on puppy wiggle - head down, tail wagging, big toothy grin. The tall one takes a quick step back, glances from Bill into the shadows. The slight one touches Bill's head but does not smile, says something in heavily accented English that I don't quite understand. "His name is Bill", I say, not knowing what to say. He scratches Bill's head and repeats his question, slower this time.
"Are there spirits in these woods?"
"Spirits?"
"Yes. Are there spirits in these woods?"
I don't quite know how to answer, stand silently for a long time, thinking: Are there spirits here? Do fallen trees have ghosts? Do the spirits of the Lake People still walk on these paths? Do unborn salmon haunt the shoreline, searching for their ancestral spawning grounds? Did the fires that burnt the peninsula before my great-grandparents were born leave the ghosts of squirrel, of huckleberry, of coyote? Does the serpent a'yahos who shook the ground 1100 years ago still sleep here? Does the bedrock remember the glaciers that carved the lakebed and left this peninsula to support the forest I walk in every day?
"I don't know", I finally say. "If there are spirits here they've never bothered me."
"OK" he says, as if this answer is enough.
We make our way out of the forest just as the sun sets. Bill walks ahead of me a bit, stops at the place where this trail joins another. Two young men stand there. They are unfamiliar to me, wear droopy trousers and tattoos. For a moment I am wary.
They stand one behind the other, the tall one in back, the slight one in front. The tall one jumps at the sound of a towhee scratching in the undergrowth. The slight one steps towards us. Bill greets him as he does all humans, a full on puppy wiggle - head down, tail wagging, big toothy grin. The tall one takes a quick step back, glances from Bill into the shadows. The slight one touches Bill's head but does not smile, says something in heavily accented English that I don't quite understand. "His name is Bill", I say, not knowing what to say. He scratches Bill's head and repeats his question, slower this time.
"Are there spirits in these woods?"
"Spirits?"
"Yes. Are there spirits in these woods?"
I don't quite know how to answer, stand silently for a long time, thinking: Are there spirits here? Do fallen trees have ghosts? Do the spirits of the Lake People still walk on these paths? Do unborn salmon haunt the shoreline, searching for their ancestral spawning grounds? Did the fires that burnt the peninsula before my great-grandparents were born leave the ghosts of squirrel, of huckleberry, of coyote? Does the serpent a'yahos who shook the ground 1100 years ago still sleep here? Does the bedrock remember the glaciers that carved the lakebed and left this peninsula to support the forest I walk in every day?
"I don't know", I finally say. "If there are spirits here they've never bothered me."
"OK" he says, as if this answer is enough.
posted by C. M. Alexander at 5:05 PM
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