A Walk in the Woods

"Oye como va, mi ritmo. Bueno po'gozar, mulata..." --- a Tito Puente song rendered eternal by Carlos Santana

As usual i am borrowing here again. Perhaps its in DNA even though the desire to fashion something original let alone give back a portion of all that joy purloined, sequestered over the years, lingers in background, a motive whether of generosity or modest trail-blazing of one’s own modest soul is yet to be fully determined. For that matter who knows if it must ever be. Right?

Dean turned me on to a film he liked when i first got back down South a few weeks ago and i searched it with the smart tv in the evening after yet another day of unchallenging physical activity which complemented the sedentary nature of the packing, the driving and then acclimating of myself and the dog back into a more luxurious mode of living far from the off-grid life of last spring and summer when the challenges and goals were more firmly set, one of making and bonding with a home i had fairly imagined, created out of my own needs, desires, i guess you could say dreams but that might be over dramatic. hmmmm in DNA as well?

The wide screen responds with lightening speed unlike all my nefarious devices in Michigan which clung to cell tower signals as precariously as a rodeo clown atop a bucking steer, or the grasping toe-nails of a young dog seeking purchase up a slippery steep bramble choked incline above a tannic but clear river that appears after a few miles of silence and not even a bird noise or breeze to quiver leaves even as pine prevail mostly, or cypress, alders, water oak.

I watched the film and it took me a week or so before my own desire to re-visit a local trail askirt Eglin Air Force land where the long leaf and oak and other trees are blazed with faded orange markers every 30 yards if you are lucky but within sight- line and its easy to follow a deer track away from the blazes for awhile but easy enough to rediscover where you went astray. Oh yes the movie! It was a 2015 film called “A Walk in the Woods” with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte an un-likely pair in my own estimation but intriguing and especially for someone my age born in 1956 for whom they both represented a certain high water mark of masculine aspiration along with Steve McQueen, Paul Neumann, maybe Harrison Ford (and do not even THINK of watching the “Dial of Destiny” which should cap the Indy Jones thing as it is so repulsive to its great beginnings as to be near ‘war crime” status if that was applicable to our uniquely masturbatory diversions of moving picture content). God i had alot to say here but i can see some must be saved for next week and ohhh jesus the weeks to follow…bear with me.

Anyways this film i devoured as a celebration of these 2 men at a certain age embarking on a rather Quixotic quest to traverse the Appalachian trail. Its great for many reasons best of which the screenwriting (adapting from a true story actually) avoids the pitfall of dissembling with “Grumpy Old Men” franchise which reflected for its time a more Marx brothers sensibility ie before the Fall of America, 911, Iraq quicksand, the re-emergence of racial inequality and global pandemic paranoia accompanying the rise of Stupidity and with Trump a dangerous one indeed.

Redford in the full focus of his weathered depth of charisma is given lines and women which make him even more adorable and leave open the possibility of his own sainthood to temptation. Emma Thompson and Mary Steenbergun, well, any man might do a whole lot worse with them as companions for the long dirt nap as these two encounter various challenges along the way, not least the excavating of their past experience together as much younger men and quite different in temperament. Nolte’s character in particular here is mesmerising, a battered but self-deprecating survivor of his solitary addictions and his carnality is a joy to see and is not necessarily played for the grotesqueness polite society may have demanded rather he embraces the idea that hmmmmm we may only go this way once and that to deny lust is to lie to ourselves. The point is i embarked on this walk mostly as a treat to the animal who needs, deserves wearying exercise but also as a wake up call as even an easy sloped 5 mile jaunt sent a variety of signals to my hip joints that this little lazy sojourn must be coming to an end and soon or i’ll end up like a calcified spider in my shed where palmettos and vines threaten to entomb past the the rotting tulip polar boards i built it with 20 years ago.

They built a bridge over Alaqua creek here a few years ago and its not easily accessible as you must walk to it on this vague trail where there are no sounds like in town, of roads or sirens, where you can imagine John Muir when he set out from Indianapolis as a botanist in 1867 the Civil War only recently settled with all its horror and turmoil and his discovery of beloved Sierras still a few years away to walk 1000 miles to the Gulf of Mexico and stopping in over night with all sorts of anonymous yet resourceful people: Americans all. He crossed from Georgia over by Savannah and made it to Cedar Key above Tampa which i have visited before but in my truck, my legs spared. This is the natural world of the South and while i am reading Imani Perry’s fascinating book about how the South’s history has always been resonant of our national soul, and yes tormented yet still viable, even as i parse thru Heather Cox Richardson’s summary of how we have come to the very precipice of the end of Democracy, i need the woods, the solace and comfort, the reminder that re-sets are possible and the world cannot always claim its dominion. There is history in the doings of men for sure but perspective in their interaction with the sublime.

The early morning ache in calves on walk to bathroom in dark is proof of life as is t the sprawled profile across cool tiles of an animal temporarily sated but not for long. We thread the beads of our lives together a day at a time and sometimes its better niot to apprehend but just stay concentrated in the moment. Water from a well is a constant bracing temperature but in a town it is a product of the environment, when you splash it on your face which is my sole exfoliant (i don’t regret my gender) you sense what temperature it is outside. You go from there.

oh and btw i updated to include my butchering of the song which sorta guided this missive in last week……hey i ain’t afraid of mistakes, or listening to them. Maybe i’ll get better but its all about giving over to the flow…..