"The Magical Place"
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
June 22, 1983
Dear Folks,
The Mount Washington Forest was one of the quietest and most poetically beautiful areas I'd seen to date on the walk. I therefore decided to "hide away" in the depths of its maples, oaks, beeches, white birches, pines, and hemlocks for a few days to catch up on my journal writing.
As always, I continue to fall behind on my daily notes and must play catch-up. In a place like this, however, it is actually a welcome burden.
I'd probably gone no more than two miles from where I'd slept the night before, when I decided to hike into the forest. I cut through a small meadow on the east side of the road, and I walked deep into the thick forest until I found a secluded knoll that overlooked a clear and fast-moving little stream.
With the only sounds being the songs of birds and the spilling of the brook's waters over several small falls, I was able to concentrate deeply on my memories of the past few weeks. I might have stayed longer in my secret paradise of fleeting sunrays and coolness, but for the fact that I ran out of cookies to nibble on.
So, it was with much regret that at still not being caught up on my notes I ventured back onto the open road. When I left the woods, it was late this evening, and although night was quickly coming, I could not help but take my time, for there was so much beauty and peace to be absorbed--especially when I considered that Boston and the unfamiliarity of Europe were now, at most, but a handful of weeks away.
In a sense, this was the quiet before the storm.
On this enchanting mountain I'd found a peace that I had not really seen in any other region I'd crossed, except for maybe in northern Virginia, in the Upperville area.
I felt frustrated at having to leave all this behind, and like some kid who is mezmorized by the strangeness of a fair, I didn't want to return to the "ordinary" world, so to speak.
Adding to all the splendor of the evening were clusters of mountain laural bushes covered with delicate white blossoms, often accented by feathery ferns growing profusely from the moist forest floor.
At one wide bend in the two-lane road, where the road cut through a thick stand of pine trees, I came upon several white-tailed deer who let me get within fifty feet before they bounded off into the trees.
When had I walked, whistling, through the bend, one of the deer had snorted at me from the trees in a manner that had seemed to say, "How dare you disturb us!"
The only signs of man I saw were an occasional small home or vacation cabin set back into well-cared-for yards. Oh, yes, and the white unceasing flags of the No Tresspassing signs, too.
As the individual leaves turned into shadowy clumps, and finally into dark, black walls topped by a ceiling of stars, the air became even more scented with a transcendental atmosphere.
It seemed that life here was so rich, so high in quality, that I could live forever just by breathing the air and its aromas of wildflowers and ripe leaves.
Surely nothing ever died in this area of the world. Surely I had stumbled upon a secret of which only a few people were aware--and were not about to share with any other mortals!
So this was the fairyland called "New England" that I'd heard so much about all my life and that I'd seen in so many colorful photos?
Well, one thing was sure--even after so few miles...I loved it! And obviously by the look of things, so did the gods.
Magic, magic everywhere. I could see it, smell it, taste it, hear it with every step. Even with the pack, I felt as if I could just take a deep breath and float away, away, away...right to the stars.
Surely I was bewitched. For why the crazy laughter--the tears in my eyes--the goosebumps--the sensation of being a leaf caught in a gentle breeze?
In my many years of living in the West as a young man, I'd seen mountains that were awesome, others that were evil, and others that commanded respect. But none that had poured forth such gentle love as this little one.
I just knew that if I could ever live here, I'd never again have to labor for the inspiration needed to create.
Near the bottom of the mountain, I gazed in a bewitched way at a broad, grassy meadow the texture and color of black velvet. Sprinkled over its sensuous cloth were many glowing fireflies, and above that, like diamonds on yet another cloth of even finer black velvet, were countless twinkling stars.
I imagined that if I were to just simply step off the asphalt into that black void of embers and diamonds, I would become weightless and be able to fly about from one glowing jewel to another with but a twitch of a finger or a toe.
And yet...a bit of sadness was in my heart at the same time. For, looking at the fireflies, it occured to me that I'd not thought of the little insects as "magical" since I'd been a boy of perhaps six or seven. How terrible to think that that I'd forgotten that magic could be in something as common as an insect.
To think I'd ever found anything to complain about, when so much wonderment was right at my very fingertips every second of every day.
Call it a spell, call it foolishness, call it what you want, but I just had to go out into that panorama of black and light, to try and capture one of those fireflies. It was something I'd spent countless hours doing as a pajama-clad boy long, long ago. And I thought that perhaps--just perhaps--I could recapture a little of that fun now, if I could just wrap my fingers around one of those glows.
I set my pack against a telephone pole and waded off into the universe, my eyes darting quickly from one tiny exploding pinlight to another.
The first one I lunged for eluded my grasp as easily as if it'd never been there in the first place. But then another flashed inches from my left shoulder, and he was instantly mine.
Funny, I thought as I stared at it breathing light across my open palm, but I could have sworn it was so much harder to catch them. This had been too easy, too quick. Not at all the same as when, as a boy, I'd chased after some for what seemed miles, my one hand holding up my pajama bottoms, the other hand trying not to shake too violently the Mason jar of fireflies I'd already captured.
Ah, but of course. That was the secret of the fireflies...the chase! Then, as now, the fun had been the pursuit of something, not the capture itself. Only I'd been too young then to realize this. All I'd known then was that when I crawled into bed with my jar of glowing tiny lanterns, I'd felt so content, so alive.
It was not the fireflies, or the light itself, but the vigorous pursuit of that light, that had been the cause of all the energies rushing through my limbs.
I blew on the insect, and it rejoined the stars.
Standing there with the entire universe revolving around me, I thought of the profusion of life I'd seen so far on my walk across the eastern United States. From every inch of space not artificially covered by man, I'd seen so much life showing itself to the heavens.
Even where man had spread his liquid stone and sticky tar, there had still been plants daring enough to try a life in the cracks that had appeared.
More and more, I was convinced man could never wipe life off this planet. He may kill himself, but there will always be something taking birth somewhere.
I put the pack back on and continued to the main highway north of the park. It suddenly occurred to me I was hungry. I'd fed the mind, now it was the body's turn.
In Great Barrington I barely made it to a little supermarket before it closed. There I purchased some bread, peanut butter, jelly, and milk. I ate dinner at around eleven-thirty, on the steps of a big church across the street. I was back in civilization, like it or not.
Steven