Spending the day traipsing through the woods, looking under fallen oak leaves and whitened pine cones for darkened earth. In the gravel, among the red dust, I find nothing more than hardened soil. I am searching for the blossoms, the fruiting bodies, the mushroom network growing in the understory. The reciprocal being connecting roots to food, to life, both above and below the ground.
Cold in the shadows of the trees, wandering through the underbrush while avoiding the red leaves and their naked limbs, I stick my hands in my vest pockets, sucking back the cold from the inside of my nostrils. I look up and notice the vast landscape. It’s the furthest I’ve seen in a long time: out across the saddled back of the Santa Cruz mountain range, dividing the ocean from the arid landscape of San Jose, the sprawling urban center of the new normal. I have been sitting behind the computer blue screen for so long that my shoulders are now turned inward, by fingers growing stronger and more agile while I type my words out in shapes and syllables, tapping backwards and then typing again.
Appearing before me, the block letters like ants, stack and consolidate themselves into shapes and patterns: the prose of a world being built for few people ever to see. Paths created, I am finding my own way among the many layers of earth, stringing my words together to make sense of the small colony of a life that I have constructed. Hiding my thoughts in new places while a few of them run rampant, potentially poisoning the whole system. I could have stayed in that created ecosystem, the digital space of my mind, but I was drawn out to the sunlight. I want to explore the intricacies of the world that’s not mine.
The pine and oak trees roll like waves through the hills. Out in the valley below, large pools of water glitter in the light blue sky, dry cut agricultural plots in hues of light and dark green, of brown and black, shiny plastic reflecting the sun’s rays. From up on the ridge the expanse of the bay can be felt and I no longer think. From the thinner air, I turn toward the north searching for my own home, the square block I traverse, the thoughts cutting along the corners, hemmed in by the life my mind has created in a maze. Far to the left, I crane my neck, turning around me as the breeze comes up warm from Los Gatos. There is so much more out here, pulling myself away from the lifestyle I have gotten so used to carrying.
Where do I begin now that I have moved up to this new height, looking down and out at the world far beneath me? Could I give myself the space to pull up from time to time to see the greater unfolding, the seeping of green into blue, of wild into domesticated, of life into death? These are my own hands, my own words, the tendrils of my life searching for something new to hold onto. There is a chance to reposition these words, to choose some over others, and to begin once more, descending into the shadows again, watching light flicker through the overstory.