Out of My Snow Bound Tree

"I wish to grow dumber, to slip deep into woods that grow blinder with each step I take, until the fingers let go of their numbers and the hands are finally ignorant as paws. Unable to count the petals, I will not know who loves me, who loves me not. Nothing to remember, nothing to forgive, I will stumble into the juice of the berry, the shag of bark, I will be dense and happy as fur."
Noelle Oxenhandler

Thoroughly weary of cold and snow these days, I find my thoughts turning not to palm trees, oceans and gentle breezes, but to wildnesses north of Lake Superior. Just what is that all about?

What it comes down to is the simple fact that I am still crazy after all these years, still an untamed creature if there ever was one. In the depths of winter, I dream of doing again a wild thing done often when younger - donning a heavy parka, multitudinous layers of thermal underpinnings, wool trousers, boots and snowshoes, packing a tent and a camp stove, tucking my paints under my arm and heading deep into the woods for a nice long sojourn, far from the madding crowd. After forty years, winter wildnesses continue to call in voices at once plangent and clamorous.

It never fails. On dark winter nights, when the wind howls around the little blue house, I should be dreaming of tropical islands. Instead, I dream of sitting beside a campfire, snowy trees all around, a bright moon and a sky full of stars overhead. There are wolves and owls in the distance, and I am cold, but as happy as one wil(d)y old woman can be. Standing among the snow drowned trees on the heights, I look south over the lake and its rocky shores; then I turn and look over forests stretching north for thousands of miles. Yes indeedy, I am home.

Times change of course. I am well past doing such a thing, too elderly to be trudging into the woods north of Superior for weeks on end, wearing snowshoes and packing all the necessities on my back. These days I would be carrying a digital camera rather than lugging the old 4 x 5 view camera and a whole bag of associated equipment. My bones and joints ossify at the very thought of doing such a thing, and the inner crone is appalled.

Nevertheless, the dreams persist. Some of the best images I ever captured were with the old camera looking out over the north woods. I may be out of my tree, but what a fine snowy tree it is.