MARCH RAINS
This is the first overcast day of the past week. Maybe even a little longer. With the dull gray canopy of cloud will soon come the forecasted deluge, to wash away the surviving mantle of compromised, dirty snow. Walking along the trail with a light rain falling, isn’t a hardship to any one with a passion for the out of doors. It is a most quiet and soothing place at this time of the year, as most folks are either at their professions, or still huddled by the crackling hearth, leaving this place a splendid solitude for daydreamers like me.
The shallow mist over the Bog, and the gentle rainfall gives an old world, primeval aura, quite removed from the hustling of urbanity at its door. This is a most isolating time of year, and those who suffer from depression would undoubtedly choose to bypass it altogether, as they might wish away the often gloomy month of November. It’s impossible for me to be disenchanted whatsoever, at this conclusion of one season and rebirth of another. To see these ridges of open, muddy ground, is entirely uplifting, and it won’t be long now until the shoots of plant life burst through the soil, to meet the warmer, more promising days of April.
All around me now are the sounds of transition. A few weeks ago I stood on this same spot and listened for some time, to the heavy, water-logged snow hitting these evergreens, and feeling as if spring was a long way off. Now this solitude is of a different character. A landscape emerging from its entombment over the past months, ready to absorb the life-restoring March rains. What a beautiful respite this is, not just in the more inviting day-glow and the warm temperature but in the midst of a wonderful solitude, to see first hand the spring melt in its final hours. Now a barren, lonely place upon casual glance, it is so full of life sounds as to be deafening to the sensitive ear. The veil of mist protects the feeding deer, clustered on the ridge to my left, and several wild turkeys are ruffling up the snow a short distance to the right, and they show no interest in the watcher’s morning vigil.
We moved to Muskoka in the spring of 1966. It was my first spring in the hinterland. It was the time of year that was always most profound to me as a child, as it meant I could spend more time outside, and being free to wander about always translated into such amazing adventures. My adventures are more tame these days, and I confess to being more of an observer than a participant. Wandering this short path into the bogland contents me quite effectively, after a long stint at this keyboard for example. Each time I’m out here, I see something else that begs a closer look and lengthy study.....all excuses to stay out longer and shirk work as a matter of responsibility. I don’t want to miss anything about this emerging spring upon a retiring, weary old winter. The fact that water has now found a weakness in the soul of my boots, is less relevant than the brush with spirit, that wafts hauntingly with the mist, over this modest pinery of South Muskoka.
In springs of yore, my childhood rambles up the creeks and spring ponds, kept the skin of my feet wrinkled for two months, and my mother in heartache......she knew every one of the diseases I would get by having wet feet. She warned me that if my feet stayed wet, I’d actually begin to take root, and then I’d be in big trouble.
As I’ve wondered before, out here amidst this splendid scene, what would be so wrong should I suddenly take root today, and latch onto The Bog in a more profound way as a truly legitimate Watcher in the Woods.