A WALK IN THE FOREST

On Saturday, July 24, my friend and fellow poet Rhona McAdam (see her wonderful blog at: http://iambiccafe.blogspot.com/) collected me from my Aunt’s and took me for a walk in John Dean Park (http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/john_dean/). Like every day in Victoria for the time I was there it was sunny and clear, the sun hot, its heat offset by breeze and by the shade of the enormous trees we walked under.

We passed a lily pond (bullhead lilies, I think) where there were few flowers, but the leaves stood high out of the water on long stems, reminding me of the lotus ponds we’d seen in Korea, also without blooms. We noticed several different fungi, most growing on trees. My favourite was a series of three white ones that looked like small gargoyles set into a massive trunk.

That hike (some three hours or so) was my re-entry to the non-urban, and lovely it was to find myself walking on earth and duff, even if it meant an occasional stumble over tree roots or stones. (I was wearing borrowed shoes and blame them, rather than any clumsiness on my part.)

Winding along various trails, we more or less followed a route suggested by an enthusiastic walker we met in the parking lot. Being directionally challenged and a little dazed at being out in the woods, I quietly left the navigation to Rhona. She managed a fine trick, leading us on trails for nearly the whole walk that led down slopes rather than laboriously up them. Except when we took the advice of a trio of enthusiastic walkers at a fork in the path—the tine they recommended led down a steep and rough trail into a small canyon and then veered steeply up again. But it did culminate in a lovely view.

When we closed our circuit back at the parking lot I was tired but felt like I’d moved properly for the first time in weeks. And I wasn’t stiff the next day.