Out Of My Head, Into The Forest

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Today I noticed my walk while walking because the imaginary person I usually talk to kept dropping to the side of the trail. Instead of talking to her, I paid attention to the scene around me — which caused her to flop on the ground. My apologies.

I’m not a mindfulness guru. Rather, I’m a subject matter expert at traversing a trail in the beautiful woods for hours without noticing the beautiful woods. Instead, I chat with all the imaginary people or myself.

Today I tried to see the woods.

I’ll do this from time to time — try to pay attention on my walk and not ruminate in my head or converse out loud with made-up listeners. Am I that nutty lady walking and talking to herself? For sure, but there are worse things. Like walking and using a lot of dramatic hand motions while talking to myself. I would never do that. Dancing with fully extended, wavy arms while walking — that’s a different story.

As soon as I arrived at the trail, I reminded myself, “Steph, it’s so green and intricate out here. Enjoy it. After this, you’ll be staring at a computer screen all day.”

So, I did. For two minutes. Then a rumination leaked into my head.

Seriously, I should have just kept my mouth shut the other day. Why do I feel like my two cents are worth a dollar? Everybody else sits there and waits their turn, while I interject with a joke. Jokes aren’t for every moment!

And there I was, oblivious to the forest like a pro.

“Whoa, girl. Get back to the beauty.”

So, I did. This time for a lot longer than two minutes — 50% longer.

Then — 

[Aloud to my imaginary person]: The fact that any of us exists is such a mathematical mind-blow that it probably shocks the Universe dumbfounded. I’m sure it says, “There’s a calculation that large?? A number that small??”

Was my imaginary person amazed that I know what the Universe says? Hard to say. She wasn’t real — not like the glorious, verdant Virginia woods on both sides of me. All that flora was as real as you can get, so I steered myself back.

Then I got a new idea. Each sense has its own channel of reality flowing through it. Sound is a particularly easy thing for me to pay attention to, so I switched my game plan and started to listen.

Suddenly, I heard not only the forest speak, but the multi-level voice of time and space, too. I’ve heard the forest sounds many times, but because of the regular buzz of my inattention, I hadn’t heard the larger interwoven voice out there.

I’ve heard wrens squeak and titter, and listen for a moment, but soon my mind curls back into itself. I’ve heard crows complaining as if they own the planet, tree leaves whispering, and small human voices far away communing. But I never listen for long. Why should I? My internal world is too brilliant a preoccupation.

Today I listened closely to all of it, and it unfolded like a matter-of-fact musical score to the movie of life out there. It was as if a surprise guest showed up at my party to tell me I was the guest at its party.

The musical composition opened with cicadas. They were loud and I’d say insistent, but in truth, their voices were simply stuck in the “on” position. They filled the canopy with a buzzing whir that came in waves. Their presence here is an annual summerlong constant and their sound marks time.

This loud buzz would have been irksome if the robins hadn’t busted into the soundscape. These ubiquitous birds flew threw and shot their song like an arrow, piercing the cicada drone in a straight line from beak to forest. The sound measured distance and it shook my mind awake.

But is it an act of mindfulness if it’s also a complete capture?

I guess it depends on how you experience it. The robin song was a momentary feature of the wood’s intricate voice, and I didn’t so much swerve toward it as I heard it in the context of the whole — cicadas droning, footsteps crunching, dog barking, robin song shooting, and back to cicadas. Sound had become rhythm — one leading to the other to the next.

Then to my right, the sound of hammers on the roof of a house in the distance whacked into the composition, pointing to a present endeavor. Suddenly, for those listening, we were right here, right now.

This is when I would have started my next rumination, because it was overdue, but the miracle of a woodpecker banging on a hollow-tree bongo rang out. If I had been in a deep reverie, that sound would have been wasted on me, but I was fully with this forest symphony and the bongo beat was rich, deep, reverberating — a sound that was an epiphany.

The world has one voice, though you can’t hear the whole thing from anywhere. It has varied pitch depending on where you stand to listen. Today, around here, the jets above the trail brought the whole thing together conceptually. The song is from cloud to ground, ocean to interior. What lives outside of my imaginary conversations are the intentions of all creatures, the wind, the plants, and my own footsteps plodding along.

We’re all here doing our thing inside the same song, and if we never notice this, the world can seem unknowable, a separate entity — maybe even a place where rumination seems at home.

Stepping outside my circle-thoughts isn’t about running away. It’s about moving towards everything that is real.

Today I heard crows cackle to each other across the creek. I heard the wheels of a plane screech open for a landing. I heard some kids laughing. Not one of them knew I could hear them, and I almost didn’t. I’m grateful I wanted to listen to something other than my own repetitive, grumbling voice. Tomorrow I want to listen again.

Hope you're well, friends.