There is a troll and fairy forest in the Ann Arbor Arboretum, with a small sign at its entrance welcoming those who pass to come inside the tree-lined village, and if we’d like, build a house for a fairy or a troll from leaves, acorns, and sticks. Whatever has fallen can be used.
One November, my husband’s family paid a visit to us for Harper’s eighth birthday, and we hiked around the arboretum on a crisp, bright blue day. I was hollow that day, my body displaying what I wouldn’t yet admit — for fear of what would happen if I did admit it — that teaching as I understood it was no longer a good fit for me. Or that I was no longer a good fit for it.
That day my sister-in-law, also a former teacher, walked alongside me as I spoke quietly but roughly in angry, confused, and desperate fragments. “I know, I know,” she said encouragingly, even though I’m sure I didn’t make much sense. But she kept walking and listening, and the leaves that we stepped on crunched and the wind blew and the river beside us gurgled, and it felt good to be hidden in the forest with my secrets that made no sense but wouldn’t leave me alone.
Another time a friend invited me to run around the arboretum with her. “I’ll pick you up at 5 a.m.” she told me after I’d already said, “Sure, sounds fun.” We ran on muddy, uneven, windy trails as the morning broke. We talked about work and family while the forest began to wake up. We finished running up and down a set of about 80 stairs, and each time I made it to the top the sun was a tad bit higher, and I couldn’t tell whether I was breathless from the climb or from the great orange ball rising above the trees, letting the world know it was a new day.
During the furlough this year Jesse and I ran around the arboretum on our 20th anniversary. He’s always been faster than me, and normally I prefer that he go ahead. I hate slowing people down, and I’ve also always liked to do things on my own time, in my own way. This time, though, he refused, and together we ran up and down hills, past the fairy and troll forest, while we discussed what it is we are doing with this one wild and precious life of ours.
I have not lived in Ann Arbor long, but this place has imprinted itself on me — a place of magic, and secrets, a place of wonder and uncertainty, a place where I believe whatever has been broken can be built up again.
Try It
Take a walk in your neighborhood forest, if you have one. Maybe it’s a local greenhouse or a patch of trees beyond a baseball and soccer field. What do you notice? What do you observe? What ideas spring up? Write about your experience in a poem.
Photo by SMCD22 Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.
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Maureen says
Fashioned from your prose, Callie:
The Hidden
Among the fallen
that day we find
leaves, acorns,
broken sticks—fit
enough to build
a secret village, maybe
ours, in a magic forest
in an arboretum
with uneven, windy
trails to walk running
roughly alongside
the river we fear
is slowing on its own
time, in its own way,
but always welcoming
us to experience this
place of uncertainty,
and wonder, of the hidden
we know to leave alone.
Bethany R. says
Thank you for sharing this beautiful post, Callie. I love how you have these wonderful people to share and process with in the life-giving atmosphere of the forest and fairy houses.
And what a lovely poem you’ve built out of it, Maureen.
Maureen says
Thank you, Bethany.
Richard Maxson says
Walking the Dog in October
There is a river in the air, she says.
The leash tightens toward a glade,
junipers and live-oak tangled
in a canopy, soft needles, pokes
of deer muzzle. The day
slants gray in the limbs, a puzzle
of angles, like Escher doorways.
She turns, her eyes urging
an observation into the space
between us, two deer watching,
completing the event, then
vanishing into waning twilight.
The year is on the move, faint
sound of months and days,
hooves sounding in a forest of time
from January when the puppy was new,
and our joy swept along, like lambent
dances of sunlight on the Guadalupe.
She teaches us with her nose,
seeing every lay and nudge here,
magnifying the small clearing,
as if what has walked nights
and days before us has yet
a presence to be considered
before we turn and head for home.
Bethany R. says
What a beauty this is. Love the sound of the words and that ending. And the start.
Richard Maxson says
Thank you, Bethany.
Katie says
A park like setting
said the real estate agent
basking ever since
When we bought our current home 16 years ago, I wasn’t that enamored of the dwelling itself, but ever since I have thought of the agent’s comment again and again when I step out into the shade of the trees that surround our house:)