Sherlock Hemlock trail, the boys giggle, the same boys who will probably sit wailing in the middle of the trail, refusing to go forward, refusing also to go backward, refusing all manner of bribes, intimidations, and consolations. When I am being a good and mindful parent, I can look at a tiny body on the ground and bring my gaze up, up, past the height of an adult human, past the lowest branches of the surrounding trees which are already a good ten feet in the air, past the mad swirl of limbs and leaves, and into the canopy that parts to reveal etches of sky. In that canopy I can see a reflection of these tiny people, nearly always powerless in the face of grownup agendas and grownup plans and grownup vision for how to enjoy a day. When you are the smallest sentient creature in the midst of a world teeming with life, sometimes the only action that reverberates is participatory refusal.
How enormous our backyard must seem to them! said my husband one night, and he is right. Each corner and cranny – the climbing tree, the garden boxes, the “lawn” dotted with thriving crab grass oases, the digging place, the shady place, the chicken coop, and the flower bed – must seem like regions of a land only recently charted. My boys stand and stare at a map of it: now let’s see, we haven’t been here in a while, let’s explore this today. I happen to think the place looks like a small urban farm has smashed headfirst into a junkyard and then flowers and chickens managed to grow out of the wreckage.
The night of your refusal to go any farther on the Hemlock Trail we get home and I’m cleaning up from a hurried dinner in a kitchen that looks like – well, it looks like the ceiling fell into the sink right before we rushed out for three nights and then we came back and vomited an entire camping trip onto the floor: all these things are true – anyway I’m standing near the open back door and a chorus of cicadas is singing in the wet yard. These are the same cicadas that sang to me this past weekend as I lay in a tent and watched the silhouettes of 80 foot tall trees sway and darken to black above my head. These are the same cicadas that are now singing over the fabled Hemlock Trail, the apex of which will remain a mystery to me and to my exhausted two year old who is now sleeping peacefully, chin upturned like the woodland sprite that he is. I experience a moment of transport – the cool breeze through the door on a damp night brings me along with it to the tall woods, the beautifully sculpted rocks and thick carpets of moss embedded deep into my experiential memory. It softens my bitterness, tempers my frustration. The Hemlock Trail will be there tonight, and tomorrow, and as long as it takes for me to return.
Photo by Sean Carroll, whose children permitted him full ascension of the Laurel Hill State Park Hemlock Trail
