I recently came across a poem written by Mary Oliver that resonated greatly with me. It was titled “How I go to the Woods” and is as follows:
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of the dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
The poem read so familiarly, as if this Mary Oliver was a kindred spirit, or maybe I was her in a past life.
I read this poem to my therapist, and while reading it, I was so overcome with emotion, I almost cried. My eyes had welled with tears and my voice broke. Fortunately, it was on Zoom, so I could look away or pretend that my poor internet connection had made it seem like I was crying when in reality, I was crying but trying really hard not to.
My therapist knew I wrote this blog and simply asked if this was my version of the Woods.
I had imagined the Woods as a magical place that someone like Christopher Robin had, where all his friends like Winnie the Pooh and Tigger lived on forever. I never thought of a poorly written blog as my own version of the Woods, where I could roam freely, sit quietly, reflect, and just be my true self. Reserved, vindictive, slightly ashamed of myself.
“It might be…” I responded, looking up, away from the camera.
It rained over the next week, off and on. It rarely ever rains these days, even in the winter. So when the rain stopped for a few moments, I put a leash on Moxie and took her out for a walk.
The air was crisp and smelled of ozone, or sweaty gym clothes that had been stashed under a pile of dirty laundry for too long. The ground had a sheen of water and it seemed like smoke was rising from the street as the water evaporated into the air. The neighborhood was silent in the early morning. Cars, drenched from the rain, sat on the street, dark and quiet. Moxie stepped gingerly through the puddles of water, mired in her own misery of having woken up too early.
Whenever it rains, the sidewalk and streets are full of worms and snails trying to escape the water. The only problem is they end up in the middle of the street, half an hour before people head to work in their cars.
With Moxie in tow, I pick up a wet twig and head towards the pale wriggling lines on the street. I fight off Moxie (who has somehow developed a taste for worms) as I slowly pick up a worm with the twig and carry the flaccid annelid to a patch of grass where I deposit the invertebrate as it seemingly comes out of its drunken stupor.
I head back to the middle of the street to “help” the next worm, imaging myself a great savior of the weak and helpless.
And for a moment, I am content to be crouched there in the dim, early morning light as a droplets of rain resume its descent toward the earth. I imagine this is how Mary Oliver or Christopher Robin felt in their own Woods. Free to do as they please, no one around to break the peace. Life and imagination, vibrant, amorphous. The world, my world, is in balance.
I should get a tattoo to commemorate this, I think to myself.