wee starts wigging in the woods
omigawd. Okay. Yesterday, I was performing my fledgling and yet strangely comforting daily routine which consists of sharing exactly four little saltine cracker sandwiches (either cheese or peanut butter) with the the wolf, consuming a glass of tangerine and grapefruit flavoured Crystal Lite (or occasionally a glass of tomato juice) plus a whole dill pickle at exactly 5:30 whilst (whilst!) watching the last half of the Gilmore Girls and I had this astounding realization about myself. Outta the blue. Just outta nowhere.
And frankly, this realization? It's totally wigging me out.
I am becoming something I never ever imagined I would become. I am becoming a crazy log lady. Yeah. You heard right. A crazy log lady. Like in Twin Peaks? Yeah, I know! I know! That's so Omigawd SCARY, right?!! You get how freaky that is, right?! Come. Join me in my little wigfest here.
Okay. So right off the top, I have to tell you that the scariest part about realizing I'm becoming the Crazy Log Lady is the fact that I'm just recognizing this now... and the process has been going on for almost a year. Really. That long. And the fact that i'm just noticing this is almost more frightening than the fact that it's not a log I've been toting about... it's a bone. Yeah. A bone. A real live actual skeleton-making bone. At least I think it's a bone. It might an antler. I'm not entirely sure.
It all started innocently enough, as these things do. Finn and I were out on our usual wolf walk late last October and were exploring a new little pocket of the park. I was crouched down, trying to take a picture of some pretty frost etched leaves and was scooching back a bit to get a better shot when I literally stumbled over it, this flat, paddle-shaped bleached object. I thought at first that it was a piece of wood and then i realized no, it was a bone. It was a big ol' flat bone. Or possibly an antler. No, I really think it's a bone.
Initially I was all like, "EWWW! A bone! I'm holding a bone! A real-live-once-in-a-body-bone! Ewwww! "
But it's not like there was bits of gore hanging off of it or anything. It was all dried and smooth and weathering to a silvery grey. There was a teeny tiny snail shell stuck to its underside, like a barnacle on the bow of a boat. Lacy lichen was just beginning to traverse its length. Curious, I started looking around for other bones, something that might give me a clue to its origin. I searched the whole area, but found nothing unusual. So I propped it up against a nearby birch tree and went on my merry way.
But I started to be consumed by thoughts of this bone. Where did it come from? How old was it? What kind of bone was it? Was it a hip bone? A shoulder bone? Was it actually, in fact, a bone? 'cuz you know, maybe it was an antler. Did it once belong to a deer? a dinosaur? a dog? a human? I realized I couldn't remember it all that clearly and another trip to visit the bone was in order. We returned the next day, and the day following that.
And so it went for a couple of weeks. The wolf and I would be walking along admiring the day and then the bone would start pulsing out there in the woods, whispering my name, and I would be pulled back to it as if by a tractor beam.
I started telling myself little stories about the bone and how it came to be there.
On the days where the clouds were heavy and filled with foreboding and the wind was chill and damp, the bone told me a sinister tale. It was the bone of a murder victim, the killer still at large. It summoned visions of him, burly, slack featured, ham-fisted, with eyes so fierce and black they were pupil-less, pushed deep into his head like raisins into pudding. It was an angry tale, dark and full of blood.
My visits on those days rarely lasted more than minutes. I would shudder, drop the bone, and calling Finn to come, would hurry to find a more inviting path.
But mostly, they were serene little stories about how it had once been a part of an elegant, glossy-eyed doe who after a long life of unmitigated bliss, died in her sleep, passing gently under the full moon while her nearest and dearest slumbered in the soft grasses around her. For years afterward, and even sometimes today, just after midnight, you can see her silvery form gliding silently through the moonlight and the birches.
Other times, it was a more poignant tale the bone told me. It was the bone of a great and tremendously faithful dog whose human companion had been felled by a heart attack in that very spot, years and years and years ago. The dog returned, of course, to the heart of his family, but eventually his time came. The next big adventure beckoned, calling his name softly on the October wind, barely heard above the rustle of leaves and the industrious ruckus of the squirrels. Old Rex made his way to the very same spot where he had laid that day as his master sighed his last breath into the indigo void of the autumn sky. He closed his eyes. He felt the air stir and shift around him. Leaves fell in gentle eddies, covering him. When he opened his eyes again, his long lost master was kneeling next to him, stroking his great shaggy head, vital and full of breath. Reunited again, never to be separated.
I became oddly attached to the bone. I would pat it in an almost maternal, "there, there" fashion. I moved it around, trying to find the perfect resting place for it.
Finn clearly thought I was nuts, but patiently followed me about, wagging her tail amicably.
Weeks later, snow started to fall and eventually, the secret place where the bone lived became too much of a trudge. I hung the bone in a tree to wait out the winter.
And I forgot about it.
Until last Thursday, that is. Finn and I were trekking about as usual, once again in search of the perfect fall photo, when I heard its thin and reedy call on the wind. I found it again under the tree. It had fallen over the course of the winter, maybe during a furious gale, maybe in the careless thaw of spring.
I dusted it off and hung it back in the tree. I snapped a few quick photos, gave it a gentle pat, and turned my back on it. Maybe I'll visit it again later this month. Maybe I won't.
You see, I've sort of become attached to another found object. This time an odd, gnarled piece of wood shaped exactly like a stag's head. It's heavy, gently whorled. Its name is Beckett.
and my log does not judge.
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