Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990 TAG: 9004020186
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I used to walk often in the woods, following a path we'd cut from the house to a spring. Those were the days when I picked gallons of blackberries every summer, when I gathered windfall apples and knotty peaches from old and wormy trees, when I could still see an old hay rake on the crest of a hill, and when I still tried to grow tomatoes. Those were romantic days when I thought the world wouldn't change around me because what I'd found was perfect.
But, without noticing what was happening, I got bored with blackberries and imperfect apples. I gave up on tomatoes. I walked less and less often into the woods, and thought about other things.
Shift your attention away for even the shortest span of time, and when you look back at what you'd thought was so perfect, so familiar, it will be something different. Fail to walk into the woods for a while, and when you do again you'll have to rediscover your path, realign your senses. Trees change and so do women. The other week, when I walked into the snowy woods, I had to keep watching all the time to see just where I was.
For one thing, last fall's hurricane had swept across a neighbor's logged acres and thrown down a stand of our trees. Great pines were snapped off 20 feet from the ground, their crowns flung into other trees that bent down under the weight. Sycamores and cedars were torn up by the roots. Trunks and fading branches were heaped in the draw and jumbled across our old path.
But even without that destruction, I would have been turned around. The already-changed woods were changed even more by the snow. Against a stark white background, laurel and pine, the remnants of fences stood out like black skeletons. I told myself, at least I can follow my own footprints out if I must. But all around me soft, melting snow plopped to the ground leaving phantom impressions beside mine, as if others were walking with me, deliberately disturbing my trail.
And then I found a fence I thought I'd never seen before. These hills were all once cultivated; useless, old fences crisscross them. But this fence - it seemed new, still tightly strung, still steady on locust posts. At first I thought I'd wandered off our land. Then I opened my eyes wider and saw where I was. I followed the fence row home, sure-footed and clear-eyed.
Because I'd remembered something. I'd remembered how, when we were kids, we walked in the woods with Mama and Papa. We followed Papa's sense of direction and the ups-and-downs of the ridges, even through woods we'd never been in before. With Mama and Papa leading us, we grew steady, built-in compasses, and we never got lost.
I knew exactly where I was when I spotted the fence. I'd known where I was all along. I just needed to stop and remember. Perfect woods will change with time; so will imperfect women. But a good compass will stay true.
by CNB