Blessed to Be Lost in the Woods

I haven’t been able to write. There has been an explosion, and I find myself in a landscape that makes no sense, surrounded by fragments that feel familiar yet I can’t see how to fit them back together.

World-building needs words: words that connect ideas and define boundaries, words that shape spaces to be lived in and traveled through. Words I seem to have lost access to.

I am thankful to be alone, house-sitting deep in the forest. Here, the world is defined by the rising and setting of the sun—daylight shapes the spaces I move through.

I call the dogs and wrap myself in the kind of wax jacket worn by people who drive Land Rovers. Scotland’s high streets are lined with charity shops which, as the cost of living crisis has dragged on post-Covid, have become popular for bargain shopping by the middle class as well as for their donations. I found my new dog-walking jacket in one of the posher ones that supports a hospice, but it’s a supermarket knock-off.

I check my pockets for treats, clip leads onto collars, and then we step out into the woods.

There are miles upon miles of trails and, on our early morning walks, we never see anyone else. The forest lies along the Moray Coast near Inverness, a patchwork of arable farmland to the south and east, and along its northern margin, white sand beaches and the tidal flats of a bird sanctuary.

At the first gate beyond the car park, I let the two Labs off their leashes. The husky is a flight risk, so he trots alongside me, tethered but happy to be out in the fresh, cold air.

I try to find my pace, unsteady on my feet, still reeling from the percussions of the explosion, remote yet unbearably close, and the answering implosion inside me.

Here in Europe, I am offered appalled condolences. Non-Americans are incredulous. They gape at me, searching for questions that might help them understand; as if I might know the secret of how their American cousins can look at a donkey and believe they see an eagle. But the only answers I can think of fill me with shame.

Around me, regal trunks of Scots pine rise above a thick scrub of heather, a tinge of noble purple seems to hover in the air above the spent flowers. From beyond the trees comes a faint roar, and I remind myself that what I hear isn’t a busy highway but waves tumbling, relentless, against the seashore.

LeBron tenderly releases a rubber ball and drops it at my feet. He is our lanky youngster—all legs and game face. The ball is an invitation, his eyes are like the undersides of field mushrooms sauteed in butter.

The ball has a thick rope, but I won’t engage in tug-of-war games. I’m not interested in the tussle mindset or digging in my heels. Instead, I lob the ball, straight along the track so I don’t risk having to wade into thorns or swamp to retrieve it if LeBron loses sight of it. But he is a star athlete; he knows that the place to be is where the ball will be, not where it was, and he dashes off as soon as I raise my hand to throw.

Sometimes, I surprise him with a feint or a turn so he can practice his footwork or cover new ground. Variety doesn’t seem to matter to him, though; it’s the anticipation of the game and the thrill of the chase.

His jet-black coat is stunning beside the mossy bank of a stream, and I feel for my phone to take a photo. No phone. It doesn’t matter—I have enough photos of the dogs and the forest by now.

It feels good to be ‘off-grid’, unable to connect with the world and its alarm calls even if I wanted to. I hadn’t realized how heavily the phone in my pocket weighed on me. Now, I feel properly alone.

And immediately, the question arises: Am I safe? Any female with a pulse knows this question, though a surprising number of men claimed it for the debate: ‘Would you rather meet a bear or a man in the woods?’

It depends on how much faith you put in humanity, I suppose. The bear is a straightforward proposition—don’t threaten it or its young, and it will probably amble off and leave you to your business. A man, though—who knows what psycho-social issues are going on in his mind; what agenda that will disrupt your life for his own nefarious purposes. Or maybe he is just a nice bloke enjoying a walk in the woods and I’m being a jerk.

A friend of mine once met a man who was later discovered to be a serial killer, but that was in a dive bar in New Mexico. The biggest threat from a male human in this Scottish forest this November afternoon is that he’ll want to chat, and that will lead to him decrying the state of things and ‘those people’ who are to blame.

Kindness is a currency in short supply in such declarations, and I frequently find that I and people I love are on the wrong side of the exchange rate.

Teddy, the older, chocolate brown Lab, has stopped to take a poop, and I wait near a stand of white birch. Delicate arms reach up into a robin’s egg sky as clouds race past the bare, outstretched fingertips—only a sprinkle of gold leaves like confetti in their crowns.

The roll of poop bags stays in my pocket as I kick Teddy’s turds away from the footpath. I am a dutiful poop-picker-upper around parks and pavements and the arid stretches of beach, but the forest floor is a palette of decay. It is teaming with agents of regeneration, cycling organic waste into nutrients and new growth. What the dogs leave behind isn’t much different from what the foxes excrete, so it won’t upset the forest’s digestive system any more than the core of an apple might. I wouldn’t throw anything exotic in here, though; the ecosystem isn’t set up to work with orange peelings so those are effectively trash.

I’m heading for the pond area where beavers have been reintroduced. Except that now I realize I’m not sure of where we are. The forest trails are laid out on an irregular grid, but there is little to distinguish the intersections. I find a post with a number and reach for my phone to check the photo I took of the map at the trailhead. No phone, no map.

Sunset is at 3:45 pm—how long do I have to get us out of here? No phone, no clock, but we must have been walking for more than an hour and we left home at 2.

I was heading north—no phone, no compass—but if I turn so that the sun is on my right cheek…

Teddy looks at me doubtfully, but I fling LeBron’s ball, and set off along a track bordered with viciously spiked gorse.

The sun is expiring behind a low cloud bank; dusk isn’t far off now. Whether to light my way or signal for help, my flashlight is on my phone. That thin slab of metal and glass that I forget is a tool for navigating the world, not negotiating with it.

For two weeks now, I’ve been trying to avoid the media apps: the news stories, the commentary, and even the comedy. ‘Laughter is the best medicine’; physiologically, it’s the median between smiling and crying. But even the cleverest of the memes are too bitter to be funny and they leave me feeling depressed.

I understand the overflowing emotions pouring through the media—the grief, the anger, and fear. But the feeling that is gutting me is the betrayal of human decency. A majority of Americans heard the most hate-fueled rhetoric in decades and voted Yes to it. They didn’t all revel in it and run to fetch their pitchforks, though some did. Others waved it off as over-blown or performative, and some had to hold their noses, but neighbors and friends cast votes that mean that, now, we all have to live in a society where cruel intentions don’t need to be restrained, and toxic behavior has been given a mandate.

Society is all of us, and I feel ashamed of who we are right now. I repeatedly remind myself that individuals haven’t changed; that whatever it says on their hats, the first instinct of most Americans would still be to help, not hurt someone they happened across alone in a cold, dark forest—regardless of their race, gender, or immigration status.

The sun has sunk below the treetops now, and the sky is streaked with pale pink. There is nothing for me to do but keep going. Beyond the whispery pines, there is a sudden stillness of thick grey trunks, a copse of beeches, sacred as an elephant graveyard. The dogs’ ears prick as if they hear the stirrings of night-time noises among the coppery leaves.

At the next intersection, I choose the path that seems to have the most light at the end, hoping that I can reach the edge—any edge—of the forest. It will be easier to navigate in the open when it’s fully dark.

My guess pans out, and we find ourselves walking up a hill to a small group of houses. There is no answer at the first door, but after I smile at an unexpected doorbell cam on the next one, an elderly woman wearing a woolen shawl and fancy fresh sneakers opens her door to see what I’m about.

The three dogs weave around my legs tying their leads in knots as the woman gives me directions.

“Take the middle road along the bank to the farm. It’s a bit claggy here and there,” she looks down at my feet, “O, but ye’ve got yer boots on”. She sizes me up, “I think it’ll be best if you go all the way up to the main road, follow it to the right, and go back down from there.”

I follow her directions towards the main road, but just past the farm, there’s a path back into the forest on the right. It looks like the path we explored yesterday—should we chance it? I know the house is a half mile so from the main road—if this is a shortcut—it will save us a good mile of walking. The husky is tired, but the daylight has almost gone—we can’t get lost in the trees again. Do I trust myself, should I follow my instincts?

We reach home as a faint Orion is setting out across the heavens above the old apple tree. I light the woodstove and pour food into bowls, then we pile onto the sofa. We survived the woods and found our way home.

The head of a Labrador, black as the night outside, lies warm and heavy on my leg, slobber drying on a forgotten ball as he dream-twitches. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

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