Day, the Thirteenth

There are More Things in Heaven and Earth

Recently, my good friend and explorer Don Soule asked me, as he does often, about my book “Where There’s Smoke: On the Trail to New Hampshire’s Fire Towers.” More specifically, he wanted to know where it was. I wish I had a better answer.

In 2019, the book had a publisher, was a third written and even had a cover. Then two things happened, the pandemic and rocks.

The pandemic closed, well, everything and for a long time sunk any opportunities I had to tour and give presentations once the book came out. The publisher wisely put in on the back burner. Then, during the pandemic, Little Bean and I set off on our “NH Rocks That Rock” project, a perfect pandemic thing to do which resulted in a field guide (with three more on the way) a rock patch and large social media community.

Things happen. Stuff gets pushed back.

Since then, excerpts from the yet-to-be published book have appeared in NH Magazine, The Hippo and a variety of other journals and magazines. And today, I’ll offer up for your enjoyment another unpublished excerpt.

With luck, the book will still come out, maybe next year, as a field guide. Until then, walk hard, keep a lookout and may your connection with nature always stay strong.

EARTH EMOTIONS

South Pawtuckaway Mountain, Nottingham

We are deep into our hike up South Pawtuckaway Mountain – no longer summer and not yet quite fall – when Uma pauses in mid stride, bends over and rummages through a pile of leaves, branches and stones. I stop, as I always do when she gets some notion into her head, and watch her work.

          Though she’s not yet five, I’ve begun to witness hints of her potential strength, moments of curiosity and fearlessness that feel well beyond her years. Being here with her, legs growing stronger, steps becoming more certain, reminds of the time I spent in these same woods with my other “daughter,” Janelle; watching her grow and connect with the natural world.

          I’ve also had to relearn a lesson from my time hiking with Janelle. Slow down. Everything here seems to fascinate Uma. Every tiny stone, flower, bent branch, mud, footstep, frog; every other hiker, every dog, the clouds themselves, the sound of wind. She asks question after question, some of such depth that it never even occurred to me there would be a question.

          “Why is the moon and the sun in the same sky?”

          “How much water does a frog drink?”

          “How many trees are there?”

          I don’t know, baby, jeez! I make a list as we go and we look these things up later. As I usually do when in nature with a child, I feel woefully, deeply clueless. But the day is mild, my pack is thick with snacks and I don’t have to have all the answers right this moment.

          “Look daddy!” she squeals.

          The treasure she found turns out to be a thin strip of birch bark, nearly a perfect U shape and she’s placed it on the top of her head like a hair band. My first reaction, I’m embarrassed to say, is to grab it off the top of her head. “Ugh, no that’s dirty!”

          Two things happen then. First, she begins to tear up, her mean dumb father having deprived her of her moment of Earth connection. Second, the ghost of Thoreau shows up and punches me in the arm.

          But ticks! But mold! ‘Nope, nope,’ says ghost Thoreau, ‘give her back her tree bark before the moment passes.’

          So, I do. “I’m sorry, honey, I just got worried that there might be bugs or something. Just check for bugs, ok?”

          She stares at me.

          “Just, look, make sure it’s clean because…”

          More stares…

          I sigh. “Here’s your bark hat, baby, it looks beautiful.”

          And it does. She tucks the ends behind her ears and flakes of bark and dirt scatter deep into her hair and it’s filthy, but she smiles and the forest seems to bend toward her in approval. Uma wears that thing for an hour.

          The environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht developed a language by which to approach natural connection, and a specific word for what Uma is doing. He calls it Eutierria, meaning feelings of good and positive connection to the Earth and its life force. The word is assembled from the Greek prefix Good and the root Earth.

          And I’m here to tell you, Uma’s Eutierria is strong

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