Walk in the park
This fall has been a whirlwind of schedule juggling, job hunting and tying up loose ends. So today I took the day to take a walk in the park and spend some time in a misty forest.
This park is close to my house and I go visit often. Today I brought by camera with the intention of creating art. I wanted to capture what it feels like to go on a walk in the woods. The seclusion of being alone with a heavy fog drip- in the shadow of the canopy- crawling through the leaf litter. It has always been my favorite time to go to the woods during national holidays. It feels like the world is too busy to get away in nature, people have too many family obligations and are too stressed. I take these days to go to the forest alone and just listen.
On today’s walk I saw some interesting fall mushrooms. Our season was late this year because the rains did not come till late October. So now in late November, and we are seeing some of the classic fall mushrooms even though it is getting below freezing most nights. Every morning when I leave for work at 6:45am my car is covered in frost and ice. I could see remnants of that frost in the forest today. There were melted mushrooms from a large fruiting body that had grown and then froze, only to thaw and turn to mush.
Some were protected in the leaf litter under a thick canopy of mixed forest including some Clitocybe, Mycena, and Hygrophoropsis. These terrestrial fungi don’t seem to mind the frozen nights surrounded in decomposing leaves and huddled against fallen logs.
Today I wanted to try and look for things that I usually ignore. I looked for the beauty in the dead tree stands, abandoned dew dropped spider webs, spotted translucent leaves, and the reflections in the puddles. Misty mornings are great for that moody display. The light is diffused and makes a natural vignette to focus on the mundane. In the summer when the trees are full with leaves and the sun is bright, the light is dappled like and impressionistic painting, that contrast makes it difficult to see what is in the shadows. Our eyes only want to see what is in the light.
Photography is my medium of choice. It is this play in light that has always intrigued me. In the world of greens and browns there is a rainbow of colors that need just the right light to showcase their nature. Fungi, plants, and bugs all have something interesting to share if we will just take the time to be curious.
I walked down some trails I have not beed down in years. Though I knew where I was going, the forest had changed. I was not able to see the landmarks I had burned into my mind. The standing tree with the giant Ganoderma was now a sleeping giant on the ground.
A new trail was forged through the obstacle but the saw dust still marked the missing section. I walked around the log and began to notice the succession of life. Fungi had already started working on the next 200 years of decomposition. Long after the future grandchildren are gone this log will still be here with a new succession of fungi working hard to give the nutrients back to the plants. That future looks too uncertain to predict that this land will stay on a trajectory to let that happen though. Our biodiversity is in danger right now.
Time spent in the forest is always magical. It is a sanctuary of life and death in flux forever.
