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Woodland solace

© Van Waffle

New Year's Day, 2001, 5 p.m.

I pull my car into a snow-filled parking space alongside a road through maple and hemlock forest. Ahead of me lies a 20 minute hike up a winding track to the cottage. With one bag over my shoulder and one in hand, I set out.

Excited about seeing my daughters, but dreading the reunion of extended family, I savour the brief precursor of solitude. My ears still ring from three hours of highway driving and the hum of the car engine. The forest encloses me in precious stillness.

The sun has set, and a wash of deep vermilion barely stains the westward sky. The close-set trees mob around like naked statues, their gaunt silhouettes stretching toward the muted dome of dusk.

This holiday gathering has brought me growing anxiety for the past few weeks. For several hours now I've been brooding at the wheel, trying to forget, trying to drown old familial resentments to the CD Christmas strains of Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade, but to little avail. An attitude is easier to acknowledge than to change.

Now at last, surrounded by the veil of nightfall in the winter woods, I experience some relief from the convolutions of my own mind. The crunch of my boots measures steadily across the serene background of eternity.

Nature is nurture and healing. This is not the first time I have gone to the woods to still my soul, and it will not be the last.

By the time I glimpse those lamplit cabin windows, perhaps I shall taste a hint of the welcome they offer. The rooms will warm me with their glow and wholesome smells.

But in a few days when I return home, it will be the memory of these quiet evening moments alone that I remember best and most dearly.

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