The pull to be in no man’s land
Where images narrate the passage
Trees viewed differently
Compelled to share my ideas of the forest, as I have never been so much in them. Not my favourite kind of landscape, by far not as there is really not much to see when it comes to sweeping distances. Unending waves of land like a desert are none. Yet, there is this strong pull to be in the forest.
When I was a child in elementary school we had to listen to a tape with some sort of classical music. Our teacher said to write down what we heard. I loved this kind of lesson, the few where I would pay full attention to, most other lessons I would stare out of the window and be in another void far off. Not now, I listened intently and wrote fast. I scribbled so small that my teacher asked me to form bigger letters for she could read it more easily. I said: ‘No, I can’t because my story will not fit the page otherwise’. She must have smiled. Telling me to write as much as I wanted, as she would provide me with more writing paper.
I wrote endlessly about wondering in a forest, as the music on the tape took me there.
The month of May where the forest takes a deep breath, ready to start the great exercise of life.
I said yes to Geo and to the many things, besides himsef, he gives me. Like the kickbike or a bushbox stove, a down air pillow and so much more. I said squarely no to a dishwasher, a car and electric bicycle but when Geo asked me whether I wanted new lenses for my Fujifilm camera, I had to think. The forest with a large range zoom lens would enable me to make wild life photos, of frogs and bores, mice and deer. I could catch a bird up close and bright green lizards without scurrying off.
I walk into the forest for the usual hours on end, expanding the map in my head of the uncountable array of tracks, sometimes getting lost and other times too busy with keeping a fire going, I think I am too impatient to have a new lens and I decided for a no.
I love to wander, ideally in a new landscape and most preferred in a desert but these are not outside our home, so I have to do with my forest. The benefits are that I can go back to certain places, retrace a spot and get lost. Hyperactivity simply gives no room to sit and catch a close-up of an animal with my would-be new lens. Though, admittedly, the forest is rather boring, with mostly young trees for economical purpose and its wildlife has to be managed by hunters.
The month of May brings wild boar piglets and excitement to an innocent passerby like myself. This can cause very stirring moments and the good thing is that I feel adventure just a stone throw from home.
Still, why does walking in nature reset so much? Why is it that when you wade through a forest, or somewhere else, as long as there is no visible human intervention and as long as there are no other humans, you feel rejuvenated?
The light is ever-changing, never a better moment and always just right, it all depends on how you look.
The month of June is pleasant enough, although each year’s different climate circumstances makes gardening a challenge. But strolling through the forest is winding down from the garden defiance. Only here I see there’s little reason to give up all for a paprika and aubergine.
Is it the perfection of light and shadow? Is it the balance of all that crawls and flutters? Although I can spray my skin with bug repellent, in summer it means itchy bumps, inevitable start oozing clear fluid that then becomes scabs.
Is it therefore that we create art, to get to the same perfection as nature shows us. Would I go hours on end walking without my camera? I want to be in touch with beauty, not through museums or a cellphone. I want to be stimulated, not by shopping or drinking coffees somewhere. Does it show that I have lost touch with civilization when I pee whenever I feel the need. Just like kittens, in their play they undisturbed squat down and a forest is the ideal place for this.
A perfection we can not match, we can not grab and we can only admire. Still, I want to be creative and I want to catch it in my own way.
When I am tired, when I feel I’ve had enough of the endless tasks that never seem to come to an end and that, when you think of it, makes you want to live in a cave, the forest will bring me back to senses. Though I like most tasks very much, tiredness makes them a chore.
When you get stuck in thoughts (unimportant things really) and see no clear answer, the forest will give them to you.
I recognized this unnatural looking thing in the forest at once. It must have been rattled loose from the cow herder its bicycle.
When I feel stuck with a thought, it will be taken into consideration deep in the forest. Where walls keep thoughts spinning around, bouncing back and forth to the structure it is embraced by, into the forest it will be dissolved.
Forests are not my favourite landscape to be in. Desert is, bareness, seemingly nakedness and ocher colored tones where my eyes wander until they can’t no more. Trees block my view yet they are tiny mirrors, each leaf shimmering its reflection back to your brain. Only from going out in nature will you come back full and empty all at once. The mental space such nature provides where the absence of multiple things to do is reduced and the nervous system, which gives rise to a state of restorative restfulness, is activated.
The month of July and the forest becomes rather a place to avoid as prickly stuff moves in your socks, horseflies and wasps hurt you and insects stick to your sweaty skin, not to mention the amount of mosquitoes.
Now, with finishing this short forest observations, I am going to gather my breakfast, from the garden Geo and I created. Where I sow and go slow, where I bond and play in. Where I care for and where smell and contemplation are given to me. Where there is celebration and diversity, but the confrontation with life is in the forest mostly.
It takes vigour to go out from the walls surrounding, the garden ever attentive needs, the house its servant.
I wish you an inspiring summer, where there is not much excuse to not go out and explore (the outside and your internal nature).
I found a coat in the forest. I left it a month in a visible spot yet no one retrieved it. I made good use of it
And, some images showing me working at something, this pouch was created, I’d named it Summer.
