The Music in the Woods

I followed a particular strain of music in the woods today to return to a site I’d marked in memory five years ago.

Some goals that may seem to others peripheral are nonetheless important to the goalkeeper for more reasons than seem apparent.

I found this little waterfall in the woods today, five years after the last time I’d seen it. It’s unimpressive at best, and difficult to access from the angle I wanted to photograph it. But five years ago in October I was charmed by its music among the autumn trees, sparkling like the autumn sunshine lighting the canopy of yellow and red and orange, and reaching down to touch the forest floor in places it hadn’t seen since spring.

That day I vowed I’d return and find it again, and follow a circuitous path I could see down the walls of the ravine to its little valley, and walk up the stream where it flowed. Much has happened each year in this brief stretch of October when the autumn leaves color the trees and the sun is at the perfect angle, and even at other times of the year. As each year has passed I’ve determined to just get in my car and drive out to the park where it flows, and each year I’ve met a barrier, sometimes only my own will.

Five years later, this year of renewal for me, I put this on my list because I wanted to reaffirm what I’d seen and heard that day, see if I could actually find this unmarked site. Following my visual and spatial memory and my instincts in the time before GPS and other wayfinding methods we have today was something I’d always enjoyed and I needed to prove that I could still do that. Today the light was right and the weather was good, and I decided I’d just get in my car and go.

I didn’t have the time today to walk all the way around and find the path up the stream to the little waterfall, and I knew that when I left the house, but retracing my steps to a marker I’d left in my memory was challenge enough, and satisfying to know I could still do it.

My frequent traveling companions, a clouded sulfur butterfly pointed the way, and a common whitetail dragonfly met me at my destination.

I will be following up with many, many autumn photos.

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