Hiking

I love the woods.  I am exhilarated to be there in the middle of spring, with the rustle of the trees in the wind and the uneven feel of the ground under my feet.  I walk along paths that twist and turn, while the fresh vegetation brushes against my legs.  I enjoy the warm, loamy soil, the pungent aroma of decaying leaf litter, and the way the sunlight breaks through the canopy and falls in patches on the forest floor.  As I walk, I watch for the tiny, dusty toads that seem to pop out of the soil and the flash of a spring azure butterfly’s lavender wings when I disturb the insect from its spot on the path.  Sometimes I even glimpse a blue-tailed skink’s bright scales as the lizard scuttles into the piles of dead leaves from last winter.

I love the surprise of coming upon a narrow, meandering creek in the middle of the woods.  I watch the sun gleaming on the surface of the water, the revolving bands of whirligig beetles, and the skitter of water striders.  The sounds of the birds in the woods catch my attention, as does the sight of a golden yellow Prothonotary Warbler materializing like a speck of sunshine from the darkness of the trees.  I love hearing the shrill cry of a hawk overhead and the thrill of spotting an owl awake and perched on a branch in the middle of the afternoon.  The owl stares back at me with a wide-eyed gaze and startles away, taking off through the forest with silent beats of its mottled wings.

I love the smell of sap from the pine trees, the feel of the corky bark on the sweet gum twigs, and the rasping calls of the gray treefrogs.  My calf muscles ache and my breaths become a little shorter as I ascend a small slope.  I am in my element.  The rush and frenzy of the rest of the world seems to fall away, replaced by the chatter of birds in the undergrowth along the sides of the path, the squirrels barking from the branches far overhead, and the glimpse of a large saturniid moth that is resting in the shadows.  Sometimes I find ticks clinging to the inside of my socks and mosquito bites that I never noticed earlier.  I relax back into civilization, wishing that I could go outdoors and experience it all over again.

Polyphemus moth