Minnows from another Stream

We chose to do a paddle hike on Saturday while the leaves were still on the trees and the air was cool. Paddle a canoe, hike a trail. It was difficult to get out of bed, out of the fleece blankets. But it was harder not to get out and enjoy the day, so by mid morning we got our acts together, put the big red canoe on the car and headed down the hill to the river. The Eno recently overfilled its banks with the help of tropical storm Hannah. It had been several years since the last big flooding; since the last time the lowlands got soaked.

On this morning, things looked mostly back to normal. We put in under the bridge at the base of Occoneeche Mountain. The water was tan with some remaining silty particulate. A breeze descended occasionally; felt like fall when we were in the shade. If you looked close, you could see the dusty line on the low foliage marking the flood height. Grasses were still bent downstream. Smooth, muddy banks edged the water, where driftwood hung from limbs or balanced mid-air on branches.

We cruised up the intimate river, not knowing if our way was passable. We scooted under fallen trees, through thickets of dusty branches, and around newly sculpted sand bars. The small turtles were out, perched on fresh snags, testing out new habitat. Plop, plop as we passed. The minnows were out too. We had wondered if the flood would wash them all away. Were these local minnows or minnows from another stream? A giant shadow of a fish, long and lean neared the boat, seemingly unaware before wrenching away from us into the depths. It looked out of place. We had never seen one like that before. Not here. Maybe things were not back to normal.

Near the northern terminus of this section sat a dam and a steady waterfall. During the flood, it had become a dangerous and amazing milk chocolate colored churning machine, with hydraulic undertows swallowing whole trees before spitting them into the air with ease. This was our turnaround. We rested in the shallows. From where we sat under the shade of Dimmocks Mill Bridge we would have been 10 feet under water just 2 weeks ago.

We headed back downstream with sights set on the low banks near Occoneeche State Park. There, we could catch the foot path at its lowest spot, before heading up to the high lookout. We tied big red to an overhanging trunk, and delicately skirted up the mudbank. We know the trails here well. But every season is a discovery. Now in the early, pre-fall coolness, we worked our way up the North side, along a wet, dense cliffside where laurel and galax hung with dripping, musky aroma. Into and out of the clearings the trail wound. We stopped below the quarry, listened to youths playing and discovering amidst the boulders. At the top of this quarry, the overlook allowed us to catch our breath. We looked down on green Hillsborough. When I’m above the trees, I understand why the birds sing. They always know something we don’t. But I’ll bet the minnows had the better story this time...of a flood who had visited the Eno Valley.

Side by Side

Four of two and two of four. These were the numbers and configurations of feet on the trail in our group Sunday morning. Heather and I walked with friends who walked with dogs. Collectively we plodded, panted, stumbled, talked, sniffed and marked our way along Sal’s Branch Trail through the density of leaf-darkened Piedmont parkland.

Umstead Park buffers Raleigh NC from the daily thunder of airport traffic. It is not wilderness. But it has its wild sides. We explored the north side, the side which descends to a paddle-worthy lake by way of a smooth-pebbled creek. The creek held clear water, not muddy, despite the locally muddy runoff. This creekbed contained small rocks in grainy profusion: a snaking, sunken sandbar with, tan, oversized granules. Further down, the rocks turned to quartz, more white than sandy. The upper trail surface was woody: not mulchy, but sinewy, with crisscrossing, water-searching, elevated speed bump roots. Step on this one, step over that one. We took turns leading and following.

Dampness, from leftover rains, settled into the leaf pits and rotting logs. Fungus families sprouted in their favorite regions, recognizably distinct and purposeful. Mysterious subterranean networks arose forbiddingly into quaint villages. From orange and red to white and brown, flat saucer tops; some spindly, some round.
Unaware at times, we squished those few who surfaced mid-trail. Unfortunate fungi.

But what stood out today, to me, were those former trees who no longer stood. X marked many a spot along the trailside where straight wooden trunks lay in quiet repose, amidst fern and vine. Many had flat and smooth ends cut by saw. Were they blown by fierce storms, and then cleaned by kind hands? Or were they cut by fierce hands, and left to be cleaned by kind storms? In everything there are elements of nature and nurture. In Umstead too, side by side.

These Frail Theatres of Life

There, in the dense shadow of a giant poplar, was a life grander than the myths of memory, upon a small stage containing a vast cast of players more passioned than the seasoned ensembles; assembled not by the hands of man but by the hands of time. Selfish in every act; alive with the seflblood determination of a dying relic, growing deliberately upon the lives of others, a hushed progeny of fecund, infarcical reality.

Sure, “the play’s the thing,” but the things played, pale in comparison to the real things. Remember the things, and, if you can’t remember, revisit the things.

I’ll tramp the ruins of a forest for the first run of a replicated rhapsody.
I’ll stand and applaud, in unmatched sincerity, not to the humans, this time, but to the intrepid and timeless, humus-dwelling fruitings hidden from today’s common senses, though beckoned by the calming senses. To breathe the air of dramatic inspiration and to view the heir of brooding perspiration, I go to the shadows; to these frail theatres of life.