Seventeen years old and troubled, I took walks in the woods to sort out my mind. There were miles of it behind the old neighborhood.
I could meditate on thoughts and walk down paths, off paths, for miles if I wished. My forest grew in semi-rural suburbia of my hometown, just a thirty minute drive east from Atlanta.
I'd like to believe that it grows there still...
One could walk a mile or two through untamed, mostly coniferous, forest but suddenly step out onto a clearing of uninterrupted rock, desolate and pocked like the surface of the moon. A moonscape bounded by trees. An anomalous break in the journey of green. A massive plane of granite lies, apparently, beneath much of our state. The woods in my area had this unique feature... Patches where the granite was exposed to the surface. Some were the size of a small city park. Others were the size of multiple football fields. Those accessible by bicycle were especially fun. They would be explored thoroughly as I jostled and bounced my mountain-bike over the irregular surfaces. Others lay deep in the woods. I would walk as much as I could or just lie on the solidness of that ground and look at clouds.
As pressures in my heart and mind increased, I would come to these woods angry and frustrated. Pent-up emotions had few outlets. Poetry was there, a kind of constant companion of the day, but sometimes I just needed to run.
Something felt primal and therapeutic about it. One day, in a lot of frustration and anger, I made up this stupid game. It was simple.
1: Run. Immediately. North.
2: Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop. Unless stopped involuntarily.
I leapt off the trail and ran. Though I felt despairing, the freedom was undeniably liberating. Constantly, there were split-second decisions to make... Over or under? Left or right? More often than not, it just had to be "through" and, in my determination and stupid teen nihilism, I plowed through lots of tangles and thorns, scratching up my ankles in the process. I didn't care and, stupidly, welcomed the blood until a stronger patch of thorns held fast to my ankle. My running speed slammed me to the ground. I think I laughed, then, like a ******* crazy person. I saw myself and felt foolish. I laughed at the sad sight of this broody kid, breathless and bleeding on the forest floor, who had an otherwise unremarkable and privileged life. My troubles aren't even worth recalling. They were that trivial, even in the moment. I picked myself up. It felt as if I were, happily, helping a friend. I was feeling good as I helped him walk, carefully, back south again.
This is a memory piece about an odd time. ******* ADOLESCENCE. Ha.