The H.J. Andrews: Forest Reflections, Forest Clouds
He recalled a Russian saying:
“A fearful wolf should stay out of the forest,”
but decided to go anyway, take a chance,
or how would he know what went on in the world?
— Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
November 2012: Day One
An Experiment in Solitude
First, start with fingers that cramp for holding the pen for more hours than a washcloth. Let them get their grip back on the formidable keys of your grandmother’s typewriter. She never shirked. You remember this old rhythm of lift and strike, of carriage and bell. The little brown wonder is even named the same as another famous forest: Olympia. Deluxe. As in luxury. As in climax, before old growth, ahead of its decline. Was there a better time than right now? 60 years ago, was there more or less? Priorities shift, sediment redistributes itself along creek-banks. Gravel bars become porous to secret upwellings. Braids plait the impulses of trout.
No doubt there are lessons here: I am meant to glean. A flock of varied thrush, one of my favorite birds, scrapes the mossy lawn under my window, leave tracks like claws. Beyond the scrim of cedar saplings surrounding Headquarters, the real forest idles, breathes, shifts in the wind. Northern spotted owl will have long, contentious conversations with the barred owl tonight. None of it is for me to interrupt or manage or suggest an outcome. My only role in this new-born silence, on this saturated Monday at the helm of so many keys jambing like logs at the mouth of a river, is to sip tea, stay well, take note. Protect the habitat.
Continue reading Berger’s “The H.J. Andrews: Forest Reflections, Forest Clouds.“
