Walking in February: Of Woods and Water

February 2023 brought the opportunity for a weekend getaway to Lake Quinault Lodge in Olympic National Park to celebrate a friend's birthday. Some of the group drove to Montesano with their tandem and solo bicycles and rode the 50 miles from there to the lodge. Others, like those of us healing from a broken wrist who can't cover that much ground by bike right now, drove to the lodge.

As I drove out Friday afternoon, accompanied by the Eagles Live double album, the rain came and went and came again, reminding me with the watery blur and the slapping of my windshield wipers that I was heading into a temperate rain forest. (And, not incidentally, reminding me that I wasn't totally sorry I had to miss the bike ride in the cold grey wetness—cold makes my wrist ache even more.)

Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast meant pleasant socializing with some new acquaintances. We were going to gather again for Saturday dinner, and meanwhile the agenda was wide open for whatever activities appealed. For me, this meant a walk in the woods.

I headed first up the narrow, shoulderless road past the lodge to visit the World's Biggest Sitka Spruce. At 191 feet it's a neck-craning forest giant standing in a spot that felt sad, surrounded by the encroachment of spaces designed for tourists exactly like me. 

I tried to imagine it standing as one among many in a lush, unbroken tree canopy, birds and animals rustling in the brush that no longer grows around its feet, no signage prompting us to go visit other giant trees in the park, no people posing for a picture to put on Facebook.

From there, following the simple paper map available at the lodge, I headed back to the road and across, following the trail to Gatton Creek Falls.

I walked alone on the soft paths, surrounded by so much green! Mosses, mosses everywhere, reminding me of listening to the audiobook of Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer with its rich description of their complex lives, structures, and functions.

Every so often I passed a gigantic stump, quite possibly a mother tree cut down to build the lodge I had slept in the night before. I could not help but say softly, "I'm sorry, Mother." Saplings sprang from each stump to fill the space left behind, fed by their mother's body and watered by the rain falling all around.

I heard a creek chuckling off to one side. A small wooden footbridge provided a place to stop and listen to the water rushing downhill before continuing cautiously across on the slippery wet wood, then on up the hill.

This wasn't a hike to cover lots of ground quickly or get somewhere by a certain time. This was a walk simply to be in the woods. I gazed up, down, around and along the trail. Every minute gave me something to look at.

The very small: Delicate traceries of mosses and baby ferns. 

The very big: Those mother trees, downed logs, and tall trees soaring up, draped in long grey-green beards of Spanish moss. 

The pale: The underside of a patch of lichen, fallen from a trunk or limb above. Perhaps all that sogginess was too much to hold onto? It's so moist, like walking on thick sponges. Weblike masses of another moss shrouding a tree as if I were in Shelob's lair.

The bright: Rusty red maple leaves decaying into the soil, the contrast of a log's interior below the dark bark, pale orange dead ferns.

Life, life everywhere. The full circle, with green springing up from brown, climbing, growing, falling back to become soil again. Walking in woods and water reminding me that this world doesn't require me, or humans, to be whole and beautiful.

The Rocker

Easy answer: Grandma's rocking chair.

The question: "...as I arranged for a few beloved furniture items to be put into (climate controlled!) storage this week, it made me want to know about pieces of furniture that you’ve loved through the years. They don’t have to be fancy, or “beautiful,” or even, necessarily, useful. They just have to be beloved. Tell us about them, and why you cherished it or it looms large in your memory, with as much detail as you’re able to recall or reproduce."

This prompt in the subscribers-only space of Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study publication led me straight to the rocking chair that sits in our living room, covered with a deep crimson velour blanket to hide the worst of the peeling dark brown paint.

When I was born at St. Joseph Medical Center in Lewiston, Idaho, my Grandma Humphrey rocked me in this chair. She worked there many years as a licensed practical nurse and when she retired they gave her the rocker. Then it went to my parents' house, and at some point it became mine because of that story.

Grandma becoming a nurse is a big piece of what makes the rocker special. She married at 18 to a man 20 years her senior (which was so scandalous they each fudged their birth years a bit on the marriage certificate to shrink the gap). She was the youngest of 13 children and knew nothing about how to live in the world; he had to teach her to cook, clean, run the household. She had three children, my mom being the oldest and only girl. 

When Grandpa H. dropped dead of a heart attack in his 70s she was in her mid 50s. Grandma had never driven a car, held a job, or signed a check—he handled all of that for the household. She was all set to move straight into "old age" and rely on my mom for everything. Mom had four kids at the time (I'm one of the last two "late in life" babies she hadn't had yet) and really didn't have time to drive Grandma everywhere or have Grandma relying on her for all emotional support. 

So Mom gave her a fierce pep talk along the lines of "you can be an old woman now, or you can have a life and be an old woman many years from now. Which is it going to be?" 

Grandma went to school, became a licensed practical nurse, learned to drive, made friends, joined two bridge clubs and a bowling group. She became the woman who taught me to knit and tat and bowl, and always had the store-bought waffle cookies in vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry that we called "Grandma cookies".

Mom telling me this story was part of her raising me to be a feminist; she told me to be sure I could take care of myself and never to rely on a man for everything.

Fast forward to 2021. I was planning to sand the rocker down, paint it, and put it out on my deck so I posted a pic on Facebook to ask for advice. In the serendipitous world of social media I got all kinds of strongly worded good advice about how bad that would be for the rocker. It turned out a long-ago acquaintance has another friend who is a rocking chair FANATIC (has a collection of he's-not-sure-how-many). He told me it's an army knuckle arm Windsor rocking chair with saddle joints where the legs meet the rockers, and I had to look all that up to have any design context. He also offered to buy it from me. It is not for sale.

I now need to find a professional to do a really good job of the refinishing, hence the blanket hiding its shabbiness. (This is not shabby chic; it's just shabby.) 

It represents both my beloved grandma and how my also beloved stay-at-home mom raised me not to repeat the dependent parts of Grandma's life trajectory but to make my own way. Sitting in a refurbished rocker will represent my gratitude to both of them for the lessons. Rock on, ladies.