Where Have the Wild Things Gone?

The world could have been flat, but Beatrice could neither confirm or deny this from where she dwelt buried deep within her enclosed woodland vantage point. As in Dante’s 14^th century Divine Comedy, this Beatrice was also lost in a dark wood, a dark redwood forest, to be precise. If you have stood at the base of a redwood tree (sempervirens) you know that these are the pillars that hold up the sky, at least Beatrice believed this was true as a small child. And she thought for a time that a few of the tallest of these sharp treetops had successfully pierced through the sky which had caused all the stars to shine over her little patch of forest. With these mossy giant trees towering up into the heavens at over 200 feet, only the birds could really confirm or deny if the trees had anything to do with the stars.

It was the wild west. Beatrice lived as far west as one can go in America, and her mountainous westernmost little town had not changed much since it was first populated by loggers. To this day, the population remains at around four-thousand and preservation of the lush redwood forest via a moratorium on development is the secret to this tiny Californian mountain town remaining a tiny mountain town in California. Any changes that do manage to occur, do so at the same top speed of the local yellow banana slug. There are still no traffic lights, no chain stores or drive-thru’s, there is very little cement on the dirt ground, there is an intoxicating amount of freshly made air and you can still drink the water from the tap. Wild.

Cropping up initially as the furthest and final logging station in the western region, the little town called Big Creek timbered the ancient totems all the way toward the ocean. Big Creek was made officially a town of seven and a half acres total. This includes a Post Office, erected in the 1870’s, a bar and drugstore, hardware store, and market likely moved in around the same time. Home to the very first State Park in California, the surrounding Big Basin Redwood Forest is and has remained, fossilized in time since 1902. The forest consists of mostly ‘old growth’ redwood trees, but sprinkled throughout the ridge-lines you can also find Pacific madrone, tanoak, and coastal douglas fir, plenty of poison oak, moss, ferns, mushrooms, spiders, stellar blue jays and hare sized squirrels. Gazes of raccoon, too plenty lurking opossum and skunk, slinking foxes, dance troops of deer and the ever-present sabre toothed pumas lurked comfortably within the blanket of ‘preserved’ forest lands. Each of these wild creatures knew no difference between the wild west of then and what had been considered tamed now. The spring water tasted the same.

Beatrice walked. Beatrice walked everywhere. And because of this pace, she was more aware of things that change through the soles of her feet; in the dirt shifting after the rains, new moss creeping out of cracks, strewn fallen limbs degrading themselves back into the soil and the crumbling edges of roadway making new pebbles along the way. She had walked this same winding path to the 3 block town from her mountain cabin and back, day in and day out for years. On most days, more than twice. Big Creek Road, its curves, like one's own hips, had become muscle memory more than a reflection in a mirror. It was her road. The way the light shone through the trees, these tress-her drapes, the way the steam rose from the mossy trunks and rose up from frosted morning dirt was done on her behalf.

Beatrice was the only human on this windy country road most of the time.

Without streetlamps she walked in the dark, her eyes were comfortable with just the subtle power of starlight or the glaring influence of the spotlight white moon. Forest darkness is a coat, it is a deep purple that a body wears, one feels naked underneath.

Is it possible to feel trapped in the wild?
Her walking had no destination most of the time, it was a restless movement. Beatrice often thought about the ends and what lies beyond; the end of the forest, the end of land, the end of sky, the end of being wild. It made her feel like screaming, howling or gasping for more air. She felt locked in this wooden chest, enveloped in her shaded world consisting only of blood red bark, night shadows and constantly watched over by the pillared trees who mocked her as if she were a dumb mouse wandering in a maze. There was never enough sky for her to gain her bearings or find escape, she felt squashed among the giant prehistoric trees. The taller she grew, the harder it became to breathe and the more she yearned for her own light. Beatrice longed to take in the whole lazy horizon with her two tiny crystal eyes, she was desperate to find out if there was a curve at the last edge- or if there was a sharp corner where only darkness lie. Despite being told about circularity, the believed in ends. She longed to see an angle she had never seen before, a sign that eternity does exist.

When Beatrice finally made her way out of the redwood forest and found herself standing on the veil of the Pacific ocean whose white cool lace lay at her feet, cleansing more than her red dirt toes, it was then that she knew she could no longer live in the forest. She had stepped into the light, Beatrice had tasted freedom, it was salty. She finally found herself feeling calm, a reflection of the Pacific, tame. She was now free unto eternity, as far as the eye could see. She would always be the same wild child looking for more heavenly sky, the edge of the world, new pungent air to breathe and most of all, new lands for her hungry soles to devour with every step.

And Beatrice still makes certain she is the first to leave a footprint in the sand, not for others to find her, nor return to from wherever they came, but to follow her delicious trails all the way to the untamable wild sea. And see...

Image credit: By Owen Lloyd, Redwood forest, Prairie Creek 2008 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.