In Pursuit of Wonder

March 9, 2025

Once again, I headed for the woods to recharge, heal, and to celebrate. A few days earlier, I completed my second draft of my major book! I emailed it to my Mom for her to read through once before she begins editing. So this late afternoon walk was well earned. The completion of this draft has given me a bit of a high, but it still doesn’t do anything for missing my family, wishing I didn’t milk cows so much and didn’t live in a basement. Taking on one more milking a week has been a struggle, emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Sometimes I wonder how I am going to be able to keep going. My emotional highs are fabulous, but even something as wonderful as completing my second draft does not stop me from plummeting to extremely dark emotional lows with just one bad milking. (Again, it’s not that milking is awful, it’s just not for me, certainly not at this scale since I prefer a micro dairy, and not so often in one week — anywhere from 35 to 40 hours a week depending on the mood of the cows. Milking is stressful for me, and part of that may be working for my in-laws and having a different idea of how it should be done, and feeling like my ideas and opinions aren’t being heard. I’d rather be gardening; milking even 30 hours per week is more exhausting (for me) than 60 – 70 hours of gardening per week — and I know this because I have done it. I can weed for twelve hours in a day and feel a good tired. Even four hours of milking in one day totally wipes me out; it’s because it wipes me out emotionally too. I could work somewhere else, and I have thought about it. But as much as I don’t like milking, there isn’t anything I can think of that I’d rather do. I want to be working outside, I want to be market gardening, and I want to earn my main income from my books.) Another thing about milking so much, it makes it challenging to get the writing done that I’d like to do — I have so many book ideas — and nearly impossible to promote my books. As a result, book sales are quite slow which doesn’t help my anxiety and depression. Walking in the woods helps. 

Upon entering the woods, I feel lighter, more at ease. Sometimes my thoughts still stray to negative feelings — wondering why God isn’t helping me out more. I feel like he’s telling me to write and he’ll help with the sales. I’m doing my best to keep writing, but it doesn’t feel like he’s keeping up his end of the deal. And I don’t just worry and about me; I desire things to be better for Mom and my brother who farms with her too, and for my husband, Jesse, particularly that his dad would finally transition the farm over to us, and that his parents would be done farming and we could afford to hire help to run the farm. I desire the world to be a better place; to not only stop global warming, but to bring the temperature back down (which is possible) and bring stability back to global weather patterns. I desire social justice. I pray and wrestle with God over these things; sometimes wondering what is the point of my existence, and why do I have to keep living? And sometimes the pain of the past creeps up on me again, threatening to overtake me, knocking me out flat, especially as it mingles with the pain of the present, and the dreams of the future. The pressure slowly begins to ease when I am in the woods. Although, even here, I often cry. 

Today, there were more hints of spring, which aided in lifting my emotions once again. I paused to take in the complexity of the moss-like plant. Its eccentric leaf clusters and its hopeful greenness cheered me. I took note of the longer daylight we were experiencing now that it was March. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the naked, spidery branches filling the eastern hillside, casting long shadows of the trees. I followed the path I had taken the last few weeks, brushing past brambles that clacked against my insulated pants. Ducking under branches, walking on top of and over logs, down and up the shallow dips of gullies, I observed the heart-shaped deer tracks that led me onward, inviting me to come further in and further up. I deviated a bit from my previous path, staying in the valley between the bluffs longer, following the meandering of the seasonal waterway. Below, a rocky parapet, I veered toward the eastern bluff, and scrambled upward, deciding to approach this outcropping from below rather than the side. My design in doing so was to take a photo of the tree eating the rock. A flap of bark, perhaps a wing, has reached out and grown into the rock. I have never seen anything quite like it, though I have observed many trees growing into and around objects that were too close, which I find fascinating. Trees are amazing creatures! Continuing onward, I skirt around the rock outcrop rather than climb it. 

Crossing a few gullies over the tree bridges, climbing up and down the grooves of the bluff, carefully stepping over the mushroom logs. (The slithering ice sheets had given way to liquid water.) Pausing now and then, absorbing nature. A mourning dove coos, the sound of a pinning lover calling for its mate. Squirrels scamper in the trees, their claws scraping against bark. A cardinal whistles. A deer, somewhere unseen frisks down into the valley. I keep moving, pulled forward by an invisible, unknown, and urgent force. My camera goes unused as I traverse the spine of the bluff. I cautiously step down from the birch escarpment onto a boulder and then upon slippery muddy, black soil. I bounding down the bluff, I pull up at the large tree split, part still standing with a gaping hole, the other part resting across an ephemeral stream. Awe swells within me, and with it elation. Thoughts of despair shrink, and disappear into the background. Water rushing over stones of various shapes and sizes is the music my heart most longed to hear, boosting my mood as it washes over me. Memories of playing in the spring snowmelt rushing through the fugacious creek of my childhood, which only had water in the spring. My brothers and I had great fun playing in and around it, finding fun and slightly challenging ways to cross it. I have always been drawn to water. And of the three farms I have lived on, a year-round creek is the one thing they were all missing. I love the power of the water. How can something so necessary to life be so gentle and times but has the potential for death and destruction? I climb onto the log and take a moment to “be”, watching the water swirl and bubble around rocks. My camera is no longer an inactive ornament around my neck, as I try to capture the flowing water. How I wish this was a natural creek and year-round. I traverse the tree bridge to the other side of the stream and leap down, and stroll along the water’s edge. A tree’s roots reach into the waterway, drinking the refreshing elixir. Its moss skirt is grateful for the extra moisture of snowmelt. But I wonder, where is the water coming from? We’ve hardly had any snow this winter. Indeed, we are quite behind on moisture. 

Heart racing with joy, I amble along the damp, cascading rocks, pausing often to take photos. This is the best kind of therapy. I long to play in the water like a child. If only it was a bit warmer, I would slip off my shoes and socks and step in the flowing water, embracing its icy caress. It’s so tempting, but I content myself with dipping my fingers in — I’m a tactile person, I must know what something feels like. Water, rocks, and trees have always been my preferred medicine. Moments of solitude. I crouch on the saturated rocks, reach out a hand to the transparent, gushing water. Chills travel up my fingers and into my arm. I’m glad I hadn’t braved a foot. I have to be careful with childhood memories; sometimes nostalgia and pain wrap their bittersweet tentacles around me, threatening to smother me. Many times, I cannot figure out what exactly I am nostalgic for — perhaps it’s not actually for childhood itself but a wish that things were different, less busy, easier, that people still lived in community, that we could return to the more predictable and more mild weather patterns I remember as a child. There’s no mystery where the pain comes from. I wish my innocence hadn’t been striped away from me at age four, that all the following decade of sexual abuse had never happened, that I had made different choices in that decade which only added to the pain, guilt, shame and trauma. I have often contemplated how my life may have been different if I hadn’t been abused and from such an early and impressionable age. Would I be a different person? Would I have less self doubt? Be more assertive? Would I have gone into a world of conservation biology that I had dreamed of doing before calculus and chemistry courses scared me out of it? Or would I have ended up here anyway? I am slowly coming to realize these ponderings do not serve me well, they certainly do not help me let go of the pain and trauma. I have never wanted it to be a part of my identity, but I wonder, in my inability to let go and allow for complete healing and holding onto these questions, I have unwittingly. Sometimes, the pain becomes so great and unbearable I have to talk about it with someone. Thank God, I have a few safe people I can open up to — though I always feel bad that I do, apologetic that I burdened their time at again with the same thing. At least here in the woods, I can release the torrent of pain without judgment or the feeling of being a burden. Being ripped away from my mom when I was fifteen, enduring nine painful months where access to her was through a wall of social workers, that dark time, has compounded the feelings of loneliness and isolation the past two months with only seeing her once a week. The one good thing to have come from not spending time working on the two farms, I have been able to put more time into writing. 

I shake away the dark cloud of thoughts, threatening an emotional storm. Instead, I tune more fully into the peace of the woods. I am safe, I am secure, I am healing. And, I have turned out rather well. Clinging to gratitude, changes the internal weather for the better. I am thankful for these woods, for the farms, for a childhood exploring freely, for books, my camera, my four published books — a first step in a dream come true. I am thankful for my family. Thankful that even in a diminished world there is so much diversity and beauty. I continue my trek down the rocks, photographing the makeshift stream, reveling in the tinkling water. A whirlpool spins at the bottom of a waterfall. I wonder how deep it is. Here, the water isn’t very clear but murky. Spring is such a wonderful time to be outside exploring the changing, waking landscape. The rocks halt as another ravine joins it. Sandy loam, textured with waves speaks of higher water levels. Again, I wonder, where did the water come from? My feet sink into the beyond saturated soil. Perhaps I should have taken a slightly different route to avoid getting muddy. Oh well. 

Damp earth slows my progress climbing the steep hill, I step onto a fallen tree to serve as a ladder. Tucked among the brown leaves, a cap mushroom, with a honeyed golden brown top braves the early spring to reproduce. My lungs burn, my heart rate accelerates, breathing becomes difficult as I continue to trudge up the bluff. I deem the effort worth it when I greet the stand of trees that include a handful of white pine — a childhood solace. The maple, oak, and paper birch are old friends too. The exertion elevates my mood as the flowing water has. The damp smell of spring further lifts my spirits. I caress a couple of trees as I walk by, loving their steadfast presence. My feet slip and slide, taking me down into a ravine, and back up the other side. The faint sound of rushing water reaches my ears and pulls me onward. I amble through a plush carpet of leaves on an old logging trail, wondering at the audacity to log such a steep bluff. I pause to study the white scale mushrooms growing on the maple tree that has fallen over the trail, while doing so, I noticed the charred bark. This tree must have been hit by lightning. Although its life has ended, it still hosts life. Nature uses death to continue life. The sound of spirited water grows louder. I rush onward toward it, my homing beacon. 

Standing above another, deeper, wider ravine, I observe the running water far below. Laughter erupts from me. Pain and sorrow fade, replaced by pure joy. Mindfully, I consider a route down the bluff to the roar of cascading water. It sounds as if these woods host a proper waterfall. A muddy deer trail runs across and down the bluff. I take it, gripping trees as the slope becomes vertiginous; pausing now and then to take photos. Nearing the rocks of the ravine bottom, I tell myself I won’t climb on them. I sit on a stone and soak in the healing power of the beat of falling water. Yes! Yes! This is what my soul needed! If only my niece Leah was with me now! I captured a video of it to send to her and my mom, knowing they would appreciate the sight and sound of my waterfall. My spirit of adventure and love for climbing rocks got the best of me; I couldn’t stay put. I had to scramble down the wet boulders, following the snaking water. Patches of snow white foam capped some of the rocks. At each terrace I descended, I tried to content myself with going no farther, given the risk with them being slippery. But I couldn’t resist the siren call; my soul needed the challenge, adventure and communing. A silly smile spread across my face. I chose my footing carefully as I maneuvered from one boulder to another, stepping down the ravine. I followed the belly-chuckling water downward until I was nearly at the bottom. Constantly pausing to snap pictures. Then, I had the delightful task of scrambling back up the cascading boulder field. Enjoying the reach in arms and legs to cross from one boulder terrace to the next. The solid, immovable rocks giving comfort just as the flowing water did. 

Sometimes I stay with the ravine, following its meandering climb up between the bluffs. But it’s the slower way out of the woods. The sun had begun its descent. So I decided on the faster, less distracting way out of the woods. I trudged uphill, ascending the same bluff I had come down. The back of my legs burned. Regaining the logging trail, I step over and duck under fallen trees as I approach the pasture gate. Turkey tracks cross the pasture, males going out to strut. Pausing by the big pond, I watch the water spilling from it flow down and through the woods, the source of today’s delight. The pond is frosted with an opaque crust of ice. Although my walk is still twenty minutes from over, the adventure is done.

Don’t forget to purchase a copy of each of my books on Amazon – Dandelions https://a.co/d/96sAFHU, Raking Leaves https://a.co/d/fnbusTI, Making Applesauce https://a.co/d/bVbQ7Hw, and Pruning Apple Trees https://a.co/d/3qUIcoV