almost, almost, almost...

friday.

it's so close i can see it, if i stand on my tippy-toes.

time has just been tripping by, the last weeks. i was all excited last week because it seemed as if a new car was within reach; and now this week i've been handed an empty envelope, as the guy whose number i was given to call has a fax machine for a phone. i keep forgetting to fax him a note saying, hey, jeremy, what the fuck? so maybe i'll email myself later.

last week i ended up driving to the vortex again. i know, pretty often for a two-month time span. but sunday was v-day for cari, and i wanted to be there as if nothing else a distraction.

it ended up being something of a reminder and healing experience for me. on top of being all pms-y and weepy, i made a promise to myself that if i got to bemidji before noon i'd go for a walk in the state park, one of my favorite and most familiar places to walk.

it so happened that i arrived around 1130, so i parked in the parking lot of the country club, wrapped boots around my feet, and tromped off with camera in hand into the woods.

i haven't been in the woods for a while. i think it's something that's so sacred for me, combined with so comforting, that being in unfamiliar woods down here, with planes grumbling overhead and the tang of highway just a stone's throw away, doesn't allow me to remove myself enough from the mundanity of life.

i could hear the whiz of snowmobiles out on the lake, the silence unbroken by shouts or anything. i'm not sure if all the men fishing have that deep understanding of silence; maybe it was just the brightness of the sun, the cold cold air, sucking breath from lungs. the snow made that lovely crunching sound underneath my boots, blocking out any noises that might exist, save the chitter of a few squirrels.

for a good hour and a half i just was at home in the woods. lost myself in the smell of crushed pine, the swoop of a bird, leftover snow falling in great clumps from tree boughs as a chipmunk skittered through. i was hoping, on the last leg of the walk, to see the does that i often encountered while rambling. three does--i always imagined the trinity they shared, maiden-mother-crone. the three fates, three pairs of hands holding thread. i loved seeing their slender necks turn, ears perk, tails swish. by that last leg i'd seen all kinds of tracks--deer, raccoon, dog, some kind of cat, squirrel, rabbit, and the tiny, tiny delicate indentations of a mouse, which ends up being two little dips and a swoosh of tail. adorable, and admirable to walk barefoot in so chill a climate.

on that last leg i was missing my walks so intensely that i just wanted to sit down and cry. i long for the woods so much some times that i think maybe there's something flawed in me--i'd much rather be out in the woods, soaking up earth, than anywhere. it's like finding your favorite pair of old, worn shoes, slipping them on and just knowing that they fit every inch of your foot, cradle your step.

when i was a kid, seeing a deer was something of a religious experience for our family; someone would point one out, and we'd all freeze and just watch, and be watched. that's something i have always carried, dad's reverence for the natural world, and his great respect for living things, the space he gave them and the silence he offered to them, his only gift.

i looked up and across the road, directly across the path from me, were those does, eyes focused on me, ears hearing my heart thud around like that favorite shoe in the drier. it felt like a gift, a divinely wrapped and given gift.

i stood there, weeping, for a good ten minutes. feeling both bereft and healed, in some way. i thanked everyone i could.

some things you have to accept. some things are just meant to be. if i'd lingered longer on the beach, i'd have missed them.

i've been trying for a long time now to come to terms with where i am, to understand why i have been put here. four deer in the woods do not solve a lifetime of unanswered questions; they don't solve things. they solidify; they remind. i remembered the joy i had, walking in the woods, the comfort unasked the trees offered. i remembered the feel of my pockets weighed down by stones picked to make runes, sharp blue crab claws clinging to frozen sand. the feel of wind so hard on my cheeks that i almost, almost, almost wanted a scarf. bottomless sky, in a bowl over my head broken only by piercing sun.

i miss all those days. the whole time i was thinking: do i have to miss this? do i have to give this up? i don't. i could find something down here, in the middle of the cities, that would fill my soul. right?

i have this feeling that i needed that moment, all those minutes, alone in the woods; i needed the gift of seeing those deer; i needed the solitude and the completeness that those woods allow me. i needed that time to make a spot inside my soul that i can visit from time to time, when i need space but cannot find it, when peace eludes me. cool water on a dry throat.

i need to give these things to myself, again. i need to gift myself with time, with space, with nature, before i wither and become a shell around that warm memory carried within.