Lost in the Woods

Have you ever been lost in the woods? I mean well and truly lost. As in, I don’t know where the hell I am and I can’t navigate my way out of here even if my life depends on it, which it might, lost.

I have.

Been lost in the woods. At night, before moonrise, when it’s so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Pitch-freaking-black.

Never mind how I got there (that part’s not exciting anyway, just foolish), and it’s unimportant how I found my way out/got rescued (a bit of my own ingenuity and a lot of help from friends). The resultant hypothermia and numerous tick bites are of little consequence so many years after the fact.

What matters is the experience.

Now, I’m not an adrenaline junkie, though I can certainly understand the appeal. But I do have a knack for getting into. . . interesting situations. Maybe it’s because I like to try new things, and love to get off the beaten path. An open trail is an invitation to explore, right? To see what’s over the next rise, around the bend, on the other side of that big rock.

And each time I’ve found myself in a situation that should have scared the shit out of me, I’m pretty much unafraid. (Until later, of course, when all the “what-ifs” circle through my mind. But neither is that the point). Instead, there’s this sense of being on the outside looking in, like I’m an observer, almost, or an actor, like this crazy thing can’t be happening to little old me.

Surreal. That’s the word.

Years have passed since that incident, yet it remains one of the peak experiences of my life.

I remember, in the deep darkness of those first hours when I couldn’t see anything, my other senses coming alive. My hearing grew more acute, my sense of smell sharper. And it seemed to me my intuition woke up as well. We’re taught that if you’re lost, you need to stay put so your rescuers can find you. But I didn’t. At first, it was because I figured I couldn’t be that lost. How hard could it be to find my way back to camp?

So I started hiking.

Sometime later, the moon came up, casting the landscape in a ghostly light. Surely now I could find my way!

Dense forest lay to my left. Sound traveled, played tricks on my ears, and occasionally I heard…people. I made my way toward what must surely be…someone.

After a time, I felt a growing certainty that something was watching me from the shadows, perhaps stalking me. A mountain lion? Bear? There had been sightings of these predators here. Then I recalled my husband relating a story of people in these deep woods, similar to the old moonshiners, but these men made something worse than moonshine in their hidden glens, and they defended it the old-fashioned way.

Fighting the urge to run, I followed the path of the moon, making for the high ground.

And I still wasn’t really afraid. No. I might fear for my family, my loved ones, of something bad happening to them, but for myself?

I’d manage. Somehow, I’d manage.

And I did. I’m here to tell the tale, to relive it, to cherish the feeling of being just another creature in the nighttime forest. Of making my way through the dense conifers until the pines gave way to oaks and coming to the top of a hill and gazing up at the moon finally riding high in the sky, its orb framed by the autumn-bare branches of oak trees, my hair whipping across my face in the wind.

There’s no moral to this story, no lesson. Just a little snapshot of my internal life, my particular brand of crazy. And maybe an explanation of why I’m always trying to slip away from civilization and find the hidden way, the secret path.

That’s where the magic is.