While walking in Thurston Woods this morning, just before the turn that would take us home, Rascal and I suddenly found our way blocked by a fallen tree. It was a whopper, big enough that it blocked the path in two places. The trunk lay across the path in one spot, and a major limb still attached to the trunk lay across it in another. Further impediments to progress took the form of broken bits: branches, twigs, thick chunks of bark blasted off when the tree came down, and general debris.
Children walk through these woods on the way to and from elementary school. The larger and/or more adventurous among them would, no doubt, embrace the challenges the tree posed. Smaller children would get help from the larger ones or from parents. I figured I could navigate the forest giant, sacrificing dignity as necessary. But Rascal was flummoxed.
He couldn’t get over the monster and wasn’t much interested in wriggling his way underneath. For one thing, there wasn’t much of an underneath. The tree, for the most part, fit snugly to the ground. For another thing, what leeway there was was largely blocked by debris. I couldn’t just lift him over, as I needed both hands to make my way up and over and to steady myself en route.
I dropped Rascal’s leash, crossed the Rubicon, and encouraged him to make his way via the spots with the greatest ground clearance. He looked at me with a thought bubble that said, “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I’m not joking,” I thought-bubbled back at him. I really didn’t want to clamber back over to his side and backtrack till we could take an alternate route. We were, after all, almost home after what had already been a nice, long walk.
Rascal’s thought bubble remained unchanged. So, having already sacrificed the seat of my pants and the backs of the legs to scramble over the tree, I further sacrificed the knees and the fronts of the legs to kneel down on the damp forest floor so I could reach under the tree for the dog’s leash. Having retrieved it, I was able to exert enough gentle encouragement that Rascal decided to join me after all. Hurray!
Brushing duff and miscellaneous tree bits off both of us and removing a few more leaves from Rascal’s fur than he felt was reasonable, I conducted us up the hill and out of the woods. All was well.
Until an hour or so later, when I realized I didn’t have my phone. It wasn’t in any of the approved locations, and when we called it, we couldn’t hear it ring. I thought back on my activities since I last knew for sure that I had it. And stopped when I remembered The Tree. That had to be where I’d lost it, probably when I was crawling around on the ground.
I had enough time before my shift at the Thrift Shop to hustle back to the woods and look for it. A quick scan of the debris layers around the tree revealed nothing. With a sigh over needing to mess up by pants again, I knelt down again for a careful search. Alas, no phone. I was contemplating scrambling to the far side of the tree again, when a voice said, “Are you looking for something?”
Approaching along the path from that far side was a man with manners, who knew that it didn’t do to sneak up on lone women, or to seem to.
After he heard my tale of woe, he asked, “Would you like me to help you look?” Definitely a man with manners.
I accepted the offer gratefully, and he came closer, saying, “Finding things is my job at home. My wife says I’m really good at it. It’s my one skill.”
Then he said, “That’s not it, right there?” And there it was. Someone had already found it and, helpfully, set it in plain sight on top of the tree trunk.
“That’s it!” I responded. “Right where I wasn’t looking. I would have left and not seen it. Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “It’s good to have a skill.”
“And you surely do. Be sure to tell your wife you put it to good use today.”
“I will,” he said. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” I answered. “Thanks again.”
My phone and I aren’t that close. It doesn’t go with me wherever I go. But I surely was happy to have it back today, after losing it. Like the woman in the Bible, I rejoiced and told my friends. We all love a happy-ending story.
December 2023