Alexandersmap

    Tag: Lichen

    • Stepping Out of the Fog

      It’s a cool, damp and foggy morning in New Hampshire. The biting cold of the last few days now but a memory. Surely, the seasons are upside down nowadays, for all the reasons we already know. The lichen seem to appreciate the continuation of our soggy 2023 into December. It’s been a nonstop party for them. And what are we to do but dress appropriately and get out into it ourselves?

      Appropriate dress this time of year includes bright orange clothing. December 3rd is the last day of hunting season for those using firearms, and December 15th for those with crossbows. I don’t know these dates because I’m a hunter myself, but because I like to exit the forests as intact as I was when I entered them. One must be aware of the risk of wandering in the woods and dress appropriately to mitigate that risk. Or simply wait until hunting season is over—but what’s the fun in that? That’s like waiting for the rain to stop, which is exactly why my summit hiking has stalled indefinitely.

      The thing is, I was going to write about determinism and indeterminism today, but the woods seemed a better place to carry my mind. The world is either set in motion already or we have a chance to change the game by the choices we make. Most people believe the latter but how many actually take the leap? We aren’t just souls lost in the fog, rooted where we landed once upon a time. We have a real chance at changing the game. Is there luck in that landing? Of course there is, and perhaps that’s determinism set in motion, but it ignores the motion itself. We aren’t trees rooted in a foggy forest, we’re each walking through the wilderness in search of something more. Eventually the fog lifts and we might just find our way out.

    • Time Travel on the Rail Trail

      I took a walk on a local rail trail during a lunch break.  The trail brought solitude occasionally interrupted by fellow walkers, joggers and cyclists. But not really solitude.  There were glimpses of frogs warily looking back at me, chirps of chipmunks announcing “here’s another one.” as I walked by, and a distant hum of traffic in the distance.  But I was alone with my thoughts.  After cutting way back on listening to podcasts and music on most walks and rows, I’ve realized a net benefit in improved creativity.  Everyone has their thing, mine is quiet.

      An acorn stood in the middle of the path, shed of its cap and firmly on its fat end seeking perhaps a bare foot.  But likely hoping for a kick to the grass where it might take root. Asphalt is no place for an acorn with aspirations.  The remains of hundreds of its kin lay massacred on the trail, victims of bicycle tires and shoes alike.  Looking back, I regret not kicking that acorn into the grass.  It might have stood a fighting chance.

      I paused at a wall, built of granite by hand. Dimpled from the stone cutter, lichen and moss-covered from a long watch under a canopy of oak and maple trees.  The wall has stood here for at least 170 years, and aside from a crack or two looks like it could stand for three times that.  If a generation is 30 years, the man that built this wall could well have been my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.  I wonder if he thought of that when placing these stones?  Turning back the way I came, I thought the wall could easily stand for another ten generations if left to itself.  Perhaps they’ll stand where I stood today, thinking as I do of those who came before and those who belong to the future.  My moment with the wall was just a glimpse of a time machine passing from then to there, with a brief visit with me along the way.

      That acorn is a time machine as well, waiting to find the right landing place to take root and grow.  It too could outlive all of us.  And a part of me hopes that it does.