So often now days, the past is forgotten. We forget the odd pleasure at seeing simple things as they truly are as designed by nature, beautiful. Seeing beauty in things that are common to us later on in life, but so beautiful and equisite to us in youth. That simple joy and oddity of youth is forgotten when adulthood snatches us away. Taking us so swiftly that we still have a whiff of it in our memory like the old memory of a pine forest, like those in Oregon.
The sky was a pale gray with cloud cover, but still warm enough to be outside without a jacket. The weather had been temperate for at least three weeks of the month we spent high in the mountains. Grandpa Marvin’s tiny trailor seemed to have shrankwith the additions Chris, my one year older brother, and I, being six. Making for a perfect excuse to roam about in the tall standing forest; where the pine and furr trees seemed to touch the sky and hurt the neck when one tried to look up to the top of one. Boulders were small mountains, with barely climbable peaks, and dark sinister caves underneath. While forest was a continous adventure and a peaceful sanctuary in retrospect. Everything was touched and glistening with such life that is impossible to ever fully capture in picture, though was ever present in memories of it.
Strolling through the woods alone, as was my custom; my brother prefer to avoid even his own sister’s girl germs. Yet, that never bothered me, my senses were being filled and feed by the forest which my Grandpa and Father were cutting in another section of it. Such carreers kept them near what was so amazing. Nature has such a strange quality of bringing peace to people who enter into it’s depths.
On one of my wonderings I had found a small, but deep pond. There was something about it that generated an intoxication of ease inside. Visiting it daily, gazing into it’s clear watery depths, looking at the life even underneath it’s surface was a day well spent. As most small girls, I preformed my imaginary games near it; talking to the forest fairies, being a forest creature, and many more things that cause the sides of my lips to curve for the inevitable chuckle soon following.
Nothing seemed to scare me while I was near that pond. Even when a snake had passed only a foot from me, going on it’s merry way, didn’t cause a flintch from me. He simply gained a name, Mr. Coilly, by our chance encounter. Since he meant no menace, there was no reason to be scared of him.
Though, the larger the creature the harder it is to remain so calm. While walking down the dirt road on my way to the pond. I had came around a turn at a quick step, when I finally looked up my eyes meet the soft golden brown eyes of a bear. It did not cry out, it didn’t stand up on it’s hind legs. It just copied my reaction, running back the way it had come, scared that some strange monster was after it. I never saw another bear after that except for the ones at the zoo on the school field trip.
It was so odd to me that a creature that size had shared my startled feelings. However, what one creature feels, it is quite easy to think that the other may feel the same. Sometimes, when we are younger, a thought is planted in our head that we don’t full comprehend.Things of higher consciousnes that is beyond our mentality of that time; most of the time, they are so suttle that they aren't noticed. A tiny while ago, I discovered my planted thought and my personal attempt to understand it.
As I was hiking one day out in the local forest, full of Douglas furs and white pine. While wondering through the follage, looking for a plant to sketch, a familiar scent reached my nose. It brought with it thoughts of the pond, and I realized I had been truly happy so long ago. Such a simple realization caused that old feeling to over lap to the present and brought back the forgotten smile.
Even now the smell of the forest brings a washing feeling over my distress of the present when remembering the past. Seeing moss covered rocks near tiny streams releasing the old sights of the past into my mind like rain. Bring at first scattered thoughts and visions, then thundering to more full memories, subsequently. All coming at once, washing the mind’s conscious thoughts off as the rain does for the earth. Leaving a new freshness to the mind and heart, with a smile as well.