The Geese we Never Hear

Darkness fell long before I reached the summit. I paused to pull out a headlamp and microspikes.

The air was wet, thick with moisture from melted snow. The temperature hovered several degrees above freezing, unseasonably warm for this time of year.

My feet stuck in the few inches of white as I continued to climb. With the sun gone the temperature dropped, and damp air settled around me. I took relief in the warmth of movement. Blood ran hot in my fingers and cheeks.

I got lost in the rhythm of thoughts and motion. Then just motion. Focus on the steps, digging into the ice, checking for markers. 

I had been here before, but never at night. I was looking for a certain rock, it was there I would go off trail. 

The woods are different after sunset, bigger. I found the rock and hesitated, eying the dark spruce. I wasn’t going far, I took a step and checked to be sure I’d leave footprints. 

In fewer than twenty paces the spruce dropped away in front of me. Black silhouettes of mountains filled the horizon, and stars poked through a veil of clouds. Lights twinkled from a town in the distance, and mist clung to the dark valleys, rising from trees and partially frozen lakes. 

More careful now, aware of the cliff in front of me and the slippery lichen and ice under a thin layer of snow, I pulled on more warm clothing, switched off my light, and sat down. 

It’s hard to describe the feeling, the one that makes us go to the woods. That little voice that tugs and pulls, that yearns to be there, again. The one that made me grab my pack and start up a mountain even after a long day of work. It’s not as much of a feeling as it is a need, a need for something that refuses to be defined. 

This was it.

I smiled to myself, and hugged my knees close to my chest. I was completely alone, just me in the woods. A different reality of shadows and mist, far above the problems that are so pressing when we’re under those lights.

The trees dripped around me, still warm from the afternoon sun. With limited sight, the sounds, smells and touch were amplified. The rustle of beech leaves, a snow-muffled step, distant motors, and then – geese. 

It started with one flock, their honks cutting through the wet air, their silhouettes barely visible in the mist. And just as the sounds of one group faded, more materialized from a new direction. The start of a long fly through the night, away from the ice-locked lakes and snowy mountains. 

The calls filled the valley, flock after flock, and lingered longer in the damp air. I wondered if I was above or below them, completely struck in awe.

It was intoxicating, the sound, the mist and the darkness. I gazed at the little dots of cars, people driving back from work, caught up in their own narratives of life. A hundred stories, where everyone is their own main character, and a side character to everyone else.

I wondered how many heard the geese. 

We are all so convinced of our own realities, that we forget most of it isn’t true.

Reality is compiled experience, it’s different for everyone.

In a way that’s beautiful, we have so much to learn from each other. It can also be harmful, if we neglect to listen. 

We all live in a slightly different world, our own stories with our own narration. Yet we all feel the same things. It’s biological, it’s human. Even across languages and cultures the human experience is fundamentally the same. We want to connect, we want to belong, and we want to be loved. 

That’s part of what is so magnetic about being in the woods. It’s real. It’s the basic human needs of food, water and shelter, the basic rhythms of life. Geese flying south, mist in the valleys, sunset and sunrise. 

It’s the things we forget behind closed doors and twinkling lights. All the geese we never hear.

I don’t know how long I stayed, but the cold told me it was time to go. Shivering, I followed my steps back to the trail. I kept every layer on as I started to hike, and didn’t take them off until I felt the hot blood in my fingers again. 

When I stopped to shove several jackets back in my pack, I switched off my light. 

Despite the clouds and mist, the ground glowed. 

I hiked out in the shadows, in a world that felt more real.