Anti-depressant earth
I took the lower path, hoping to avoid the park part timers, the social distancers, the escapees, interlopers and their dogs. The path was poorly drained and sloppy wet, slippery under the thick cover of last year’s leaves.
When I thought I had the path to myself I found a sturdy stick, squatted down on creaky knees, and scratched away through layers of rust-colored oak leaves. The soil beneath was damp and mulchy, and gave in easily to my scraping. Before long I was a few inches down into dark, moist, crumbly soil. I knelt down and lowered my nose into the shallow hole and breathed in the rich, damp humus.
In my back pocket I had a small chunk of turquoise slag glass, originally picked up on the beach at Bay Furnace in the Upper Peninsula a few years ago, which had been kicking around in the car. I laid it in the hole, took another deep breath of dank earth and covered it over.
When I reached the boardwalk next to the buttonbush swamp, a ream of ice still clinging to the surface, I could hear someone hollering to their off-leash dog (could it really be called Elton?). So I paused at an overlook, watched the swamp and listened to the chickadees and other birds I couldn’t identify.
A man came loping up behind me, hunter-orange beanie, dark sunglasses. We nodded the customary social-distance greeting, I returned to my view, then he started to do push ups on the boardwalk behind me.
Unsure what to do, whether this was some kind of cruising etiquette that I wasn’t familiar with, I opted for waiting him out. But then he started doing calisthenic stretching exercises.
“This is my daily routine, I live just over there.”
He gestured back towards the road.
“Ah, I bet you’re not used to seeing so many people in here, huh?”
He nodded.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in here before!”
He started some star jumps, so I headed back the way I had come.
I climbed back up the hill, past my hidden hole, and stood awhile next to a vernal pond that had flooded a stand of tall trees.
I closed my eyes and listened to an early peeper, singing slow, deep, and lethargically in the spring cold.
Opening my eyes I saw in the distance the man’s orange head bobbing through the trees up on the ridge.
At the Raymond F Goodrich Preserve, Sunday March 22, 2020