The Larches
I’m treading on a soft trail that winds through a carpet of crisp green kinnikinnick leaves filled with bright red berries and traipsing behind a group of women as we make our way through a forest of larch, pine, and spruce trees.
ADVENTURE ART CLUB | DAY 19 | 9.19
INTERPRETIVE TRAIL
SEELEY LAKE, MT
I usually don’t hike in a group. I know lots of people like to, prizing the conversation and connections made over any particular setting. As for me, I prefer to immerse myself in a practice of noticing, which I find hard to do in group settings. My pace is often a bit slower, and I’m known to drift off to look closer or stop to take pictures. Then I scurry and run to catch up again. I can’t help but feel like my constant stopping is a bother, so I just break away, do my thing, then run back to the group, sweaty and breathless. That’s not as much fun as my slow solo forest meanders…
Having grown up so isolated, I often wonder if the alienation I feel in group settings is somehow intrinsic… I so want to belong to a group of people but typically find myself standing alone in life. Yet, despite how I grew up continues to influence me, on this hike I realize that the individual choices I make consistently set me apart. I’m often alone by my choosing, despite wanting connection. I set off on a divergent pathway from others, without even noticing. This path tends to be quieter and is made of slow noticing, artistic creation, and a consistent practice of appreciating nuance building to metaphor.
A possible reframe of this pervasive feeling of disconnection may be: “I am gloriously differentiated in this setting” (though I have yet to accept or believe that).
Today, I choose to drop back and record my friends by taking photos of their pathway through the forest. I’m playing “recordkeeper”, as always, and stop to take detail shots as well. One shot I love is of a distinctive fallen burned out log that frames the sky above us.
I try to chat and catch up too, but I’m distracted by the sound of birds… just over there. My eyes are scanning branches for dark lines to record in my heart. My mind is buzzing to make connections between the textures all around me and how they make me feel. I’m reaching for that sense of peace that only visits me in silence on the trail. It eludes me in a gathering, even of just two, but that doesn’t stop me from reaching for it.
Can you consistently stay grounded in self in a group setting?
Can you be present in nature without silence?
I don’t know how to answer these questions.
I find it difficult.
My attention here seems split between presence in conversation with another person and presence within my surroundings. I’m torn between two equally acceptable goals, so there’s tension within. I’m excelling at neither. When given a choice, I’m pulled to the notice of nature, only to look up and find myself alone again.
Perhaps I want to find a group that will pause with me to consider. Perhaps I want to find a group that will lapse into comfortable silence with me. Perhaps I want to find some people who appreciate my need to aimlessly wander, people who simply shrug and say “That’s our Christina….” with a wry smile. I love these women, but they are more interested in conversation than our setting, so we are at cross-purposes in this context.
Our hike today brings us through lush forests with just the start of Fall colors peeking out around us - yellow aspen leaves, orange shrubs, red rosehips and berries to be harvested. We travel past the largest larch in America, “Gus”, and stop to appreciate the immensity of this sight. How amazing! This ancient being has lived hundreds of years right in this spot, and we approach it with reverence, placing our hands on its textured trunk to look up. The sky is a cool blue above us, which becomes all the more dramatic as we eventually exit the woods to pause for a time at a bridge stretching across the Clearwater River at the Southern end of Seeley Lake.
All of us stand on the concrete set in the air above water and look out at the mountains rising sharply above us. Reaching pines frame the scene from the shoreline. Lily pads, gold and green, layer the water beneath us. Grey cloud reflections shimmer among their soft petals. In the marsh by the shore, two ducks bob their heads under the surface of the water, causing ripples to radiate out from their presence.
This sight is idyllic, so I rush to pull out my sketchbook and record for a bit. I know this group won’t stay long, so I know I’ll have to fill in the fine details later.
Making my peace with this and thinking to myself “I have to come back here and savor this fully!”, I turn to head back, the last to set foot on the trail again. I’ve fallen behind, where I stay for the rest of the return trip. If I’m honest, the fact of this weighs on me. I feel disconnected. I miss Scout, my hiking partner, who always stays near me, pausing when I do, no matter what. I feel grateful for him as I rejoin the group at the trailhead, phone full of photos that tell the story of their journey, wishing, as always, that I were in them as well. Storytellers don’t get recorded.
On reflection, while lagging behind today, I realized that my disconnection may be a result of my choices. I chose to take photos (nobody asked). I chose to stop here and there on the way. I chose to make art. I could be more connected, I guess, if I made different choices. But… I wouldn’t trade the eye that I have nor the desire to make things for anything. I love…who I am. I’m an Artist, always.
Maybe in the future, I’ll build capacity around having different priorities which require me to take journeys like these on my own. Maybe somewhere down the road I’ll find settings with people whose pace matches mine. I don’t know…
For now, I reconcile myself to my differences and remember that: even in difficult moments, I love all adventures.
Love & Gratitude,
- Christina
