In early 2020, I was asked to be part of collaborative art show called Fem-Fusion: Visual Art + the Written Word that would pair female writers with female artists for a collection of call-and-response creativity. The pandemic put our project on hold for a year, but this month the art show finally had a two-week run at a local gallery, and now other gallery spaces will be showing it in the future. For our first collaboration, my artist partner, the lovely Wendy Snetsinger, showed me this piece of hers. My task was to write something inspired by it. At first glance, I assumed I’d pen an essay based on one of my recent hikes. But when I sat down to write, what came out was the reason I return to the woods again and again.

Stream of Consciousness

Mature trees whose canopies have reached the sun do not try to look like the shaded
saplings they once were.

The stream never longs for its curves to be different, lovelier in imaginary ways. It
does not move through the woods embarrassed that its water doesn’t run fast
enough, or babble more pleasantly.

Does mood moss objectify itself? Does it fret about whether the squirrel that just
scampered over it judged the moss to be sufficiently soft? Inviting? Impressive?

In nature, no single shade of green is prized above the others. That would be
madness.

The black birch grows tall along the stream’s fertile banks, without justification or
fear.

Does a wild geranium ever yearn to be more like a Christmas fern?
Are the pines self-conscious about the sap dripping out of them?

The black walnuts and red maples do not seek to hide their knotty bulges, scars
borne of their adaptive ways to fend off injury and disease. The rounded burls
protrude for all to witness.

The forest floor, teeming with nutrients and microscopic life, doesn’t need self-help
books to believe in the value of its detritus and dirt.

Insects do not question their importance or likability.

Does red trillium blush with guilt for being so showy next to bloodroot’s
understated white petals? Does bloodroot live in anguish because it does not look or
feel like what it is called?

The animals don’t tell the stream that it is too big. Too small. Too forceful. They do
not sip and say, “The stream I drank from yesterday was better.”

The water never apologizes for taking up space.

The oldest oaks are unabashed by the deep fissures in their bark. Those dark
grooves in sturdy trunks are telltale signs of their advanced age. Yet mature oaks are
majestic, not invisible.

These are the trees I step off the trail to touch. I place both palms flat against the
trunk, whispering, Thank you.

Whispering, Teach me.

Please!

Then I stand in reverence and wonder: Does the air feel so rich with oxygen here
because of the abundance of plants? Or because of the absence of shame.