The White is not a kind, benevolent teacher. It is a trickster, a shape-changer -- beautiful, but terrible. Many people believe these mountains are home to fairies and ghosts. This photo of a twisted bittersweet vine looks to me like a long creature with legs ending in giant bird- claws, ready to fling back its hoary head in laughter once no one is watching.
Last time I went into the White, about ten days and a four-day thaw ago, I climbed a steep rise to sit on a fallen tree trunk and observe the
I was too far from the house to be heard by my husband if I hollered for help. The steady drumming of my heart as I climbed higher turned into the need to open my mouth and pant.
Breath and breath and breath.
Afraid. Afraid, but not turning back, my legs stubborn and willful, I kept on till I passed through the narrow opening we call intention, choice, or risk. Any of those words that mean doing something you’re scared to do. What was the alternative? Slinking back to the house, knowing that I’d abandoned a goal (albeit a tiny goal) out of fear, or laughing about it over the phone with a girlfriend, sipping a cup of cocoa, covering my failure with wit, making it a funny story? Lame.
Stray Plenifora branches, with wicked red thorns, insinuated themselves under my coat and sweater, scratched my belly. They dove into the top of my rubber boots, caused bright welts on my right leg, wounds I only discovered later, in the bath that night. I wondered if the marks were some kind of rash, until I recalled the woods and recognized the shorthand of the wild upon my flesh: the consequence of my intrusion, the sharp price of admission to the White.
