That's only the half of it
On the joy and sadness of being halfway there
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’m a terrible procrastinator — have been all my life. You name it, from cleaning the car to answering emails, if I’m not excited about doing it, there’s a good chance it won’t get done.1
In fact, even the things I’m excited about doing don’t always get done because at some point in the process they cease being exciting, and then something else comes along — something I can’t ignore, like having to prepare supper or the buzz of a notification on my phone — and before long the previously exciting thing turns into a judgmental lump that hunkers down where I left it, in much the same way high school students slouch in their seats, and follows me, silently, with its eyes any time I pass by (which, I start to avoid doing, obviously).
Of course, some things are easier to ignore than others. The Tupperware cupboard from hell? Just close the doors. The basket of laundry to be folded and put away? Meh, leave it downstairs on the dryer. Other things, like the half-eaten lunch I left in a cheap plastic container on the floor of my car for a week, are not so easy to ignore. But ignore, I do.2
I admit: I sometimes struggle to finish what I start.34
Lately, because the walk to my forest is a bit of a schlepp, I’ve been musing about driving there to make the return trip easier. (This is one of those thoughts that will remain nothing more than a well-thumbed idea.)
The first half of the path is rutted and sandy, backfilled with old bricks, and home to deep, mysterious growing puddles of water.5 My lumbering “bougie” car wouldn’t appreciate the drive. Biking, although picturesque, would be more trouble than it’s worth and would only grind sand into the chain and derailleur. Husband’s van might manage it, but why put it through the abuse? So, I continue to walk. And in all honesty, I do still enjoy the walk — the breeze, the clouds, the sun, the deer — yes, perhaps especially the feeling of purposefully heading somewhere under my own power.
Once upon a time, the walk to the forest was the whole point. I would enter only a short distance into the forest — tentatively, as if just getting my toes wet, only as far as the T — and then turn back. But soon, the walk there became only half the goal. In short order, the other half became looking for mushrooms — preferably edible ones.
Now, I go at least as far as “the crossroads” (aka brittlegill corner) and the oyster stump or, if the conditions are particularly promising, as far as the reishi tree before turning back. It’s about 15 minutes to the forest, 2-3 hours poking around in it, and 20 minutes back. But these are just guesses. I don’t pay any attention to the time or the distance on my treks.6 In the forest, time ceases to exist.
What I do know is that I leave the house at a certain point in the morning (in the summer, as early as possible to avoid the heat) and, somehow, when I return tired and sweaty and covered in muck, it is already three or more hours later. If I could get to the forest faster, I would have more time and for the mushrooms. Most especially, I would rather do without the long, hot, heavy walk back. But, such is life.
When the conditions are right, the walk doesn’t feel terribly long. But, when it’s miserably hot, or I’ve lucked out with a heavy mushroom haul, or the dogs are pulling hard on the leashes, coping mechanisms are needed, and I break the trek into legs — stretches between landmarks where I say to myself, “Oh, I am already here!” and “Ah! Not far now!” And, not unlike Pooh, I might add in the occasional “tiddly-pom” as I stop here and there to set down the bags, take a deep breath, and turn my face to the sun.
If I have the dogs with me, the first thing to do before heading out is to check if Csaba’s gate is open, and if it is, to close it so that Rumcajsz and Csaba’s German Shepherd, Topi, don’t come to blows (bites).
If the gate is closed, all is good, and there is just a lot of barking and pulling on the leash, sniffing and strategic peeing, and then pooing in the grass just past Topi’s gate. (Sometimes the anticipation is so great that we have to do a thing called pooing in motion, which is undignified, and we all try to ignore that it’s happening.)
As we approach the bunker, also known as Deer Crossing, the dogs are freed from their shackles (leashes), and Rumcajsz takes off like a rocket. Rupert tries to keep up, trotting along behind him, and sometimes they circle the bunker, around and around, noses to the ground. The deer, of course, are long gone.
I just keep walking. There’s still a ways to go.
After that, we reach the first hunting blind, beyond which the electric fencing ends and a rough track heads off to the right between the fields down the hill towards a copse of trees.
This is more or less the half-way point of the walk, or at least it feels that way. It is the end of known territory, the dividing line between land owned by people I know and land owned by people I don’t. From there, the slight rise of ground still obscures the forest entrance, but we’re heading into the long straight. All around are undulating green or brown fields. If I look back, squinting, Topi’s gate is already not visible.
And then there’s the second hunting blind (it was blown over in a particularly violent wind storm last year and, though it has been rebuilt, is still missing a roof) and I know we’re getting closer. From here, the terrain flattens and the path becomes less sandy and more overgrown. Not so many vehicles come this far, and the higher ground is less eroded by the rain run-off. Ahead, the raspberry tangle rears ahead of the forest wall.
The end and the beginning are in sight.
The trees do talk, you know. Their wind song is incredible, and the swaying canopy dance welcomes me to the mouth of the forest.
I slip sideways, squeezing between the pile of logs and the gate, and step inside.
And breathe.
This is where the real walk starts.
In a few short weeks, I will be 50. What an unthinkable age. Nothing about it resembles me. But objectively, reasonably, despite whatever age I feel myself to be, I must acknowledge that I have made it to (or past) the half-way point of my life. And that is a sobering thought.
When I look back — it was only yesterday I was turning 21! — it seems that very little of my past is in sharp focus. I need reading glasses in the form of family photos and other people’s memories to visualize where I came from. That elusive sense of home, once lost, cannot be regained. I don’t mean that I’ve forgotten everything, but perhaps that what I remember are only the high-lights and low-lights. And that even these extend only as far back as my small memory, which is already inseparable from the “memories” I’ve integrated from photographs.
How far back can you look before perspective and vision blur into haze?
There’s the apartment and the stackable bins, and the trip back to the hardware store, and somehow I am to blame.
There’s my room in the new house and the terrible, annoying intruder, my little brother.
There’s the backyard trees with their scary shadows and my dad carrying me around in the backyard before bed in my nightie, introducing them to me, so I would not be afraid.
There’s the awful metal mask hanging in the basement closet, watching me play with Lego and read.
There’s the warmth of sunlight in the morning on the living room floor.
There’s tomato sandwiches from the garden, and ice cream and watermelon eaten under tents made from the sheets drying on the line.
There’s a lot more. This is not even the half of it.
I’ve reached that dividing line, where the electric fence protecting the known land ends, where the less travelled path becomes greener and easier to walk. The sides of the road are laden with flowers and mushrooms and mole holes — all manner of things deserving closer, slower contemplation. The vegetation grows thick and unkempt, and a wild detour beckons down the hill to one side.
I’ve come this far, but I’m not there yet. Look what’s still ahead! Look how much has happened! What more might be in store? (Deer? Mushrooms?)
My grandmother, if she’s any indication of anything, lived to just shy of her 100th birthday. Mentally, she was not all there by the time she passed away — far from it — but she sure had a wild staying power, grit and determination.
When she departed this earthly realm, she left behind haphazard, nonsensical autobiographical stories scrawled on reams of loose leaf and in stacks of notebooks, rolled up in tubes and tucked in drawers along with hair clippings — which I dutifully dug out, collected and preserved.
Lately, I wonder: How deep into the forest had she wandered? Am I on the same path? How far behind her am I?
These half-baked, half-way ideas have been brewing in the back of my mind for a while, percolating — as things tend to do.
I had truly intended this post to be a joyful celebration of journey — of any journey! I imagined, during my drives to and from the nearby town, that I would write something to convey the elation of being at that midway point, where the scenery is beautiful, the sunshine and the air are fresh and uplifting, the car accelerates and corners well, and you are happy not being at your destination, not yet — being neither here nor there, being simply on your way. The road, like a ribbon, skirts the edge of the forest on one side, the field on the other, and everything is vast promise and potential.
But somehow, as with all things, I’ve managed to come only part way in the execution.
Somewhere, I took a not wholly unpleasant detour, and I’ve ended up in a place I never planned to go. And now, as I head into this last half, I find myself on a different path than the one I started on. My original destination — or at least, where I thought I was headed — is obscured and farther away. I couldn’t possibly navigate there, nor do I think I would I want to, not now. I seek a new goal, a new destination.
It’s disorienting, but I perhaps this is how it’s meant to be.
There is joy and fear in equal measure in not knowing what comes next. There is wonder in stopping a moment to breathe and to quiet your mind and open your soul to the place you are in, to entertain thoughts about the places you might go and to look back on where you came from, that tiny place receding into the perspective of horizon — if you can still see it in your mind’s eye.
You are surely never more than half way there, never closer to your destination than the next waypoint marker, where anything can happen. And that is both scary and comforting.
And here’s the thing: The load doesn’t get lighter. You go into the forest with empty pockets and spare bags, and you come out laden with harvest, some of it usable, some not; some known, some not.
You are allowed to set it down if you wish, however briefly, to shift it from one shoulder to the other, or to leave it on the edges of your path, to be consumed by the vegetation, so you can keep going unburdened.
You are allowed to carry as much as you can, or desire to, to walk as quickly or as slowly as is comfortable for you.
You get to decide. But keep going, you must.
If not, why else are you here?
And where is here?
Halfway there.
I’m almost sure of it.
There’s nothing quite like taxes and tire changes to bring on whole-body paralysis.
This is the height of embarrassment and I can’t believe I’m telling you about it. I actually wrapped the container in a plastic grocery bag (acquired back when those were legal), and drove to the parking lot of a drive-through fast food restaurant on my way home one evening, and dumped the whole thing. You see, I had forgotten it in the back of the fridge at work for a week before then forgetting about it in my car. It was ripe, and I wasn’t about to let my husband see me dispose of it at home. But if he reads this, it will all have been for naught. I might have to answer to some questions. We’ll see what happens next.
This might more kindly be rephrased as “I tend to bite off more than I can chew.”
And it drives my husband and son nuts, I’m sure. But when I do complete something, you know that its completion was the product of not just a flash of enthusiasm but of superhuman willpower and determination. A labor of love, a hero’s journey.
This is truly shifting terrain brought on by the elements, unlike that previous job I had, where my supervisor kept emphasizing the need to pivot with “shifting priorities” as if the situation was caused by something other than the indecisiveness of a bunch of overpaid idiots. There’s no arguing with the rain.
In fact, I only take out my my phone to photograph mushrooms, and I put it in airplane mode and turn off the Wi-Fi because I’m a good conspiracy theorist. Time flies when you’re having fun and stop focusing on its passing.
Here's an idea: I'll clean and organize your Tupperware cupboard, and fold your laundry, and even clean your car. All so that you can continue writing. Deal?
After living in Hungary with you for a month, and exploring your woods more than once - was it three times? - I can so easily follow you on your trek. How great it is to do it virtually again with you.
Thank you for this lovey trip down both forest and memory lane.
From your Momma who loves you.
Beautiful writing on the joy and sadness of our way through life!