THE CHANGING SCENE AT BIRCH HOLLOW
The tiny creek that snakes black and silver through this snow-covered lowland, is flooding over its banks due to the recent early thaw. A substantial snowfall in predicted for our area within the next 24 hours but it could just as easily be rain. This would cause substantial flooding, of our area of the hollow, and rapidly decline the two feet of snow that has covered this part of Muskoka since December. It has been a gentle winter and it makes me suspicious, and at the same time validates that there is something ominous lurking out over the Great Lakes, to make up for the shortfalls of a traditional Canadian winter. It is nice here now, to look out and see open patches of earth, where the sun has melted ice away over the past four days of warm afternoons. I make it a personal philosophy not to wish away time, as it is precious, yet it is hard to quell the inner spirit when the first signs of spring begin, most often, by the middle of March to the first of April. I’m pretty sure though, winter will make a raging return, as she always does, just when we get the urge to down-dress from bulky coats, toques and mitts. Premature mild weather in the midst of a Muskoka winter, can herald cruel punishment when bitter winds and drifting snow, show up before and after, the festive Easter Parade.
There is a great deal of movement around the Bog this afternoon. Deer have been parading along the embankment on the other side of the basin, and there are at least three or more cataracts audible, from my vantage point on the early part of the path. Crows are calling one another about something or other and squirrels are leaping overhead in pairs, a high-wire race to a food source I suppose. I can imagine we might soon even hear the gulls over open water on the lakes, and the honks of geese flying over the Bog in point formation, and it might also be possible to get down the slope, in the next several days, to my creekside portal, to see more clearly the tiny waterfalls as they tumble through the mounds of sodden field grass, and flow silently under the limbs of fallen birches covered in wraps of old vines. It is a most pleasant place in the spring. A perfect hide-away for the writer to wander and analyze; lazily I will remind, as one must be patient and take it all in, experiencing the subtle nuances of regeneration..... new life on top of the old. I ponder if I might also experience a spring resurgence, cleansing through these old bones and veins, even sprout new hair on my balding crown., just by standing in the current of this all-consuming life-force energy, merging of nature’s earth and sky. The spirit, however, has most definitely been reborn hastily, prematurely, and it refuses to wait a moment longer......demanding quite aggressively to be whisked away on those adventures, so well suited to ambitious vapors of the netherworld. I fear this detachment, much as Peter Pan felt uncomfortably alone when he lost his shadow.
Soon these tree-tops will be filled with birds on their way to and from places unknown, and I’ve entered these woods many times, to find the environs quite busy and sound-filled,....... especially on sunny spring afternoons, when the golden light so cheerfully illuminates that which has been dark and cold for the past four months. It is a din, a hub of activity that I thoroughly adore, and the sun beams on these gnarled old writer’s hands, takes the pain away for a contenting while. The damp and cold inspire aches constantly, yet I would rather suffer the pain than give up writing. My wife caught me one day, sound asleep, in a half leaning, semi-sitting position against a sun-drenched trunk of a towering evergreen. I don’t think I’d been there for hours because there wasn’t much pain in my back and legs from such a compromised position...... but what time I had been slumbering was wonderfully restoring to the body none the less. I won’t brag to my wife that I come here to daydream, because she might then offer me a well intentioned, helpful list of progressive chores to keep me at task. I’d sooner keep my hiatus here at the Bog far from detection......because no matter how sincere my explanation that writers need to be inspired (and that this wonderful moor inspires me), it is interpreted rather to the opposite degree......that this writer/husband is simply lazy, and full of folly at the household economy’s disservice. It’s just better to wander away when the tasks are complete, and keep it a private matter between watcher and woods.
There is a powerful aura settling over this landscape today, and it is almost impossible to pull oneself away from being engaged by a late season transition, apparently quite desirous of benefactors like me. It has felt like late March for weeks now, and it makes me wonder what it will be like a month from now, seeing as we have been privileged to such warm and calm now. The watcher today doesn’t experience much fear and trembling, as the beams of sunlight evaporate ice into a wafting mist over the hollow. I can remember standing in this same spot earlier in the winter, and hearing the most unsettling roar of twisting down wind, smashing against the forest like a huge hammer, knocking venerable old trees, three times my age, into an oblivion of splintered wood. There were snow drifts up to my waist and the cold was intense, dangerous, threatening to life and limb. And it was driven by a thundering, cutting wind-force that brought an unbridled revenge, to those who wondered if winter had forgotten the time.
I suppose I feel a little guilty here now, taking advantage of winter’s weaknesses. It’s much more difficult to find profound events in this forest.....without the rage of winter. There’s a subtle resignation today that the writer should wax poetic instead, and like Robert Frost, write about leaning birches instead of the tumultuousness of weather yet to come.
How pleasant for the plaintive heart, the bleeding soul, to feel the soothing accommodation of this tranquil place on earth, and to settle into a sunny patch, against a supportive pine, and feel the strains of anticipation, decline like melt-water into a strong current of deep irrelevance. I will allow myself this lapse in preparation, and think happy thoughts about enchanted places......and give not one stray reservation that it all might soon end, with an arctic-inspired blizzard. I would hate to ruin this harmonious, ethereal vigil with ugly anticipation, about the next bout of winter which might, on a whim, clench down hard upon us with her icy grasp once more......with nary a warning. I dare say to freeze over paradise, just to show she can!