A few steps on the trail reveals the all-encompassing silence. You glance around and see trees, rocks, dirt. The forest stretches in all directions and the mountains grasp the hillside. These are things with which you are familiar but something is different.
The silence. Where are all the sounds? You stop a moment and you soon realize that this silence is not an absence of life. It is an absence of all the humming motors and electronic buzzes that fill your life. The refrigerators, climate control, computers, cars, airplanes, and powerlines. None of those things are found here. Even your cell phone is quiet as it learns to cope with a new sense of disconnection.
Instead you are surrounded by rocks and trees and peaks and the sharp intake of breath of an unseen host that is waiting to see what you will do. Unseen host? Remember how nature has its own heartbeat? Its own cacophony of life? This silence is unnatural. If you are patient, if you are quiet, soon the sounds of the world will reveal themselves to you. The wind will blow through the pines, the birds will resume their chatter and the squirrels will scrap past bark. A frog calls in the distance.
At first these sounds seem strange, as any unidentified sound does. You search for the bear in every rustling leaf and find only the wind. With time you get used to it. The novel becomes familiar. Maybe a bit more than familiar for these are sounds that echo deep in your memory.
After all, escaping into nature isn’t really about leaving home. It’s about coming home.
Well said. and I love the tiny frog.