Happy New Year! Hopefully, you’ve been enjoying your local climate, flora, and fauna whenever you can. I hope you’ve also been participating in #FieldNotesFriday, but if you haven’t, consider this entry a little nudge of encouragement.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to take myself and my son out on a trail at least once a week. I started things off right by visiting one of my favorite trails in DFW. It’s replete with oak trees, undulations in topography, and a flowing creek that visits you often on your journey. It’s the Black Jack Trail at the LLELA Nature Preserve.
These thoughts accompany the observations I made in my new Rite in the Rain Journal.
Foremost in my mind is the embracing feeling I had when I set my toddler down in the leaves, right as we passed the trailhead. He silently took my fingers in his hand, and we walked side by side through the long morning shadows, out of the icy reach of the gusty cold front that was blowing in, and into the magical warm heart of a tiny remnant forest.
I had the overwhelming sense that this — parent and child walking hand in hand, calmly, happily, quietly, among a wilderness that’s welcoming but not too tame — this is both primal and joy-inducing, and is what parents have been doing with their children since humans were humans (and even before!). I felt at peace, and powerfully connected to others, even though we were alone*.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but it reminds me of another primal parent-and-child duo I have felt cosmically connected to since becoming a mother. Once, before humans had distinguished themselves from our ancestral lineages, one of our distant humanoid relatives walked with her child through the African savannah. We know she was there, and we know she was walking upright, because she walked through recently laid volcanic ashes and her prints were preserved, along with those of her much smaller companion. They may have been hand-in-hand; their tracks are close and evenly spaced. I’ve heard speculation that this was a mother and child, and even before I was considering becoming a mother myself, the situation made sense to me. Now, it makes even more sense.
I don’t always feel a cosmic connection with living and past humans when I explore trails, and I don’t always feel joined by tiny threads to every living thing when I’m under the open sky, but I can tell you it happens more often than when I’m scrolling through social media or fretting about finances or listing my chores.
If you need some peace this year, get outside. Find a place that speaks to you. Listen beyond the traffic on the ground or in the sky. Look beyond the signs of human disturbance. You’ll find connection.
*Yes, my safety-minded friends, key people knew where we were and when to expect us to check in. I’m glad you thought of that.
the happy naturalist 