jumpingfish

It was night. It was late. The forest was dark. 

The ground was marvelously soft from the rains the week before. Yet even though the man knew the path well, whenever he took his eyes (and his headlamp) off the ground at his feet, he found himself wandering into the softer softness of leaves and pine needles to either side, sinking sometimes well above his ankles. Often when he did this, his bare feet would step on a concealed bough fallen long ago and buried under the litter but still pokey enough to make him hobble. In this way he made his way to the outhouse. 

When he reached his destination, he went around the corner and stepped inside. The small space exploded in the brightness of his headlamp. Then he heard footsteps in the dark outside.

He turned quickly. His headlamp shined out the open door, lighting the forest floor and tree trunks standing in the dark and other trunks fallen rotting on the ground. Three feet away from him was a porcupine. It stood next to a log and had just turned its back. Its black and white spines stood erect. 

The man stomped his feet. He slapped his hand on the outhouse wall. The porcupine held its ground and shifted defensively. The man began to reach toward a stick to poke the porcupine so to scare it away. But at the last moment, he decided otherwise. There is no visit to an outhouse worth that risk. 

Instead, he tucked his head, stepped back out onto the soft, leaf-strewn path and walked back whence he had come. He would take his business elsewhere.

It gets a bit wonky around Baldwin Lake. The Flat River Trail map shows that the trail doesn’t officially go around the lake but rather ends at a narrow road by the water’s edge. But that road follows the shore, wraps around the northern arm, cuts across a tiny strip to Manoka Lake, and from there rejoins the official trail.

Thing is, I didn’t know about all this wrapping and following and cutting across. Undoubtedly the fair and industrious Trudy would have explained it. She had researched the Greenville trails and even ridden this one with Jenny last week. But I had done no research other than to learn that if you followed that road you’d eventually find yourself back on the trail. So I followed it.

There came a point where the bike lane diverged, and both paths looked equally travelled. So I took the left one, because it climbed a hill into a White Pine woods. I was optimistic that I really couldn’t choose incorrectly. Greenville, Michigan is not a big place, after all. Any of us dropped anywhere in the town could find our way back to the trailhead.

The climbing, winding path passed cutouts where benches might eventually go and turned in sharp switchbacks and passed a playground until finally at the top it emptied out onto a parking lot. Not far away, a guy was trying to start a weed eater. This was The Greenville Optimist Camp. My optimism thereby rewarded, I turned onto a street that Trudy and I had driven on just the other day, and from there, the true trail what just several heartbeats away.

1. Waiting for Wildlife

Northeast out of Greenville on the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail. It’s a flat, dedicated trail with only one stretch along Peck where you have to share the road from narrow bike lanes painted on either side. The vehicles go by fast, but they go by only once in a while and leave plenty of room. (At least they did today.)

Not long after the route becomes a true “trail” again, there’s a bridge over a small creek. It seemed a good place to view the land. The water was brownish-clear, just like the Flat River into which it eventually flows if you follow maps south to near Belding. 

So I leaned against the rail and watched the water run, waiting for something to happen down there. A snake. Or a turtle. Or a fish, perhaps. Waiting for some kind of wildlife event.

A water bug skates across the smooth surface of the water, leaving a tiny V-shaped wake behind. Ok, I guess that’s it. Then snap! a bird swoops out from under the bridge and snaps and misses and snaps again, grabbing the unsuspecting bug.  It swoops back under the bridge and out other side into the woods. Circle of life.

I put my feet on the petals and resume riding.

2. Lunchtime

There was an octagonal table in the shade of some Maple trees on the other side of Derby Road. It had been about an hour, and it was time for a little something. So I pulled a ham sandwich out of my pack and a can of fizzy water. I devoured them.

There were Aspens with quaking leaves mixed in with the Maples. The air in the shade was cool. There was a garbage can with a new trash bag liner beside the table and a portapotty on the other side of the trail. 

A guy on a recumbent tricycle came from the other direction. He stopped for a break in the portapotty and smiled when he saw me.

“How far did you go?” I asked.

In halting words, he said he had ridden from Greenville to Alma. My eyes widened. (That’s the full 42 mile trail.)

“Wow,” I said. “That’s a long ride.”

His eyes widened and he puffed up his cheeks and blew air out his mouth as if to say that he was bushed. But he didn’t say anything.

“Right,” I said. As he began to turn back to the trail, I said, “You want a protein bar?”

He shook his head and then strained to push a couple more words out. “Burger,” he said. “Burger. King.” It took quite a bit of effort for him to get those words out, and even then, they were a bit garbled. But the point he was making was obvious — he had devoured his lunch, too. We both laughed.

He turned to the trail again, but then he stopped and looked back. 

“Baandt pottock,” 

I cocked my head. “What?”

He squinted and pushed the two words out again. “Bland pottik.” 

I still didn’t understand.

He shook his head and pushed a different word out. “Stroke,” he said, pointing to himself. 

“That’s ok,” I said. “But what were you saying?” I walked a little closer.

“Baandt. Bland. Blandt. Plant,” he said.

“Plant product!” I said laughing. “You had a veggie burger?”

He laughed and nodded.

“I had a ham sandwich,” I said.

He smiled, nodded and waved as he drove back towards Greenville.

“Have a good ride back,” I said.

He pushed out words of thanks and was gone.

1. On The Western Shore

The camp on the western shore of the lake gets direct sun until noon and shade after that. So they swim in the morning. 

Today after the swimmers swam and some kayaks returned from a trip perhaps into the next lake, a mass of campers embarked in canoes. (How it is possible to make such cacophony with paddle against canoe?)

They move in the quasi-direction of the next lake, zigzagging and spiraling and meandering until social forces pull them into spirals and tight circles. They glom together like magnetized iron shavings.

But look! There are two campers who have their heads on straight. They have gone in the other direction and are sitting still, paddles in their laps, heads turned in wonder at their noisy compatriots.

These two have it right. Sit silently in the noonday sun, don’t paddle because you don’t have to. Summer breeze makes me feel fine. Every thing’s alright.

Alas, the social field lines reach even this distant pair, the law of attraction allures them. The camper in the back begins to paddle. They join the drifting glom.

2. On The Eastern Shore

Nothing going on over here, folks, except…

How to share it with you, that sunlight on the water? How to describe it, the brilliance of its golden glittering? I cannot. Even the camera cannot. But wait. Perhaps the camera can.

There you have it.