Wind hums a hollow song in my ears. I notice a low rustle, too. It’s the sound of tissue and paper and crackle. I look in its direction and see rust-orange leaves quaking with equal measures of terror and determination. I know that movement. I can feel it in my upper body. It’s the same quiver of my arms bent in a right angle, hanging from the pull-up bar in the Northfield Middle School gym. My seventh grade biceps thin, taut, shivering with fatigue. Ms. Steffen keeps a slow, growling tempo, “fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…” and I hear my Reeboks smack the vinyl mat beneath the bar. It’s the sound of defeat and relief.
The landing sensation brings me back to my surroundings. I’m glad to be here alone. No Presidential Fitness Exam. No competition at all. I’m lying on the summit of Arab Mountain, a 2,500 foot peak in the northwest pocket of the Adirondack Park in northern New York. The open, rocky clearing is hemmed in by mountain ash, whose exposed branches look tatty on this late October day. A few red spruce cluster together, obscuring a bare naked birch. I prop myself up with one elbow. My other hand acts as a visor to block the afternoon sun and bring focus to what’s below. I’m facing southwest. Mount Arab Lake and Eagle Crag Lake lick the valleys, leaving bright, irregular slurps on the landscape.
The sun is sinking slowly and I notice the shadows have shifted on the gray rock face all around me. They’re just a bit longer, darker.
I stand, stretch upward and take one last gaze at the smoky foothills and High Peaks in the distance. With my back to the setting sun I bound down the mountain. I cross rocky outcroppings, lichen-covered branches and a slurry of mudslides and muck. I’m following a gold snake. We’re both skirting the trail in an attempt to stay dry along the ledge.
My nose catches the dark smell of earth and rot. I spot a cascade of ruffled mushrooms on a fallen tree and note the ovate leaves nestled around it. “Yellow birch,” I guess out loud. The fungus looks like Hen of the Woods, but these edibles usually grow up around oak and maple. Gently tearing a few from the soft trunk, I cup a handful of the cool mushrooms. Their undersides are honey colored and spongy.
As I cross the paved road heading toward my car, four female pheasants edge quietly into the woods not far from the trailhead parking lot. When I start the engine the radio engages. North Country Public Radio’s fall fund drive pushes on and the hosts keep me company as I backtrack 62 to 3, 68 to 56. These strangers’ voices, like the bridges through Colton, the sharp curves in the highway and the houses that line Pierrepont’s only artery, are beginning to feel familiar.
