Greetings From the Woods
Hey! I don’t know if you knew this but it’s time for the pandemic blast from the past hello. It’s like A Christmas Carol except I’m the ghost from Christmas nightmare. Because this is all just a nightmare right? RIGHT?! I’ll wake up soon??
Photo by Andy Ong
That’s the very excellent opening paragraph to the email I attempted to write to three kind-of-a-big-deal fellas from my past. One was a 6-year boyfriend, one was a long distance lifeline, and one was a college torch I carried for way, way too long.
I wrote and deleted these emails in the dark with my husband and puppy sleeping next to me in the house we just bought in the woods. The only sound I can hear is their measured breath and the heat switching on. The woods in my backyard is entirely still—the raccoons, deer, and escaped convicts I’m convinced lurk there after dark are all cozied up in their dens and murdery lairs.
We left Brooklyn after Covid cancelled our wedding. We were able to get a majority of our deposits back and decided that our one-day party budget would probably be better spent on a permanent dwelling since our rent stabilized apartment was about to get sold. So away we went.
We’d wanted either the woods or the ocean and since New York oceans are either filled with pigeon shit or Hamptonites, we settled for a 1970s house on a wooded hill an hour north of the city. I hate the woods. I hate bugs, I hate hikes, I’m terrified of ticks. The woods is the first place a murderer would hide because who would ever go looking for him when Lyme disease is running absolutely rampant? The woods, however, also has trees. And the canopy that leans over my deck, letting in speckles of green and gold tinted sunlight makes me feel a whole lot better about the blood-soaked man that could definitely, probably be biding his time behind that log over there. There are even more trees on the mountain in front of us—thousands of oak trees and pines to lean against while composing a strongly-worded ransom note. I love studying that mountain while I watch my born-and-raised Brooklynite husband chop wood in joggers and a Cyclones hat.
I spent a lot of time being scared of much more than murderers snapping twigs in the night—goats, commitment, long-haired horses, letting go, being quiet, my own curly hair. One of them still stands and I’ll give you a few legitimate reasons: their pupils are rectangular, they have people teeth and they’re prone to head butts. Absolutely not, I do not fuck with goats. But the rest of them were there one minute and seemingly gone the next. I grew into the space they took up. I can feel the same thing happening as I venture further into our wooded backyard with my dog, his collar jangling happily as he looks for the perfect stick to give him diarrhea later.
The realization that you’ve changed comes in so slowly, you don’t notice it until you’re driving past a farm with your husband exclaiming, “that horse has such beautiful long hair [that isn’t creepy to me at all anymore]!” The same husband you said yes to without a moment of hesitation or doubt, even though you know there’s no such thing as fate or guarantees. Commitment, check. Letting go, check. Voluminous equine locks, check check check.
Growth is something especially precious when time has been forced to stand still. We sit here in our beds, on our couches, masked up at our jobs, sharing variations of the same traumatic experience, but not really being able to truly share it over a glass of wine, a hug, a shared joint on the couch.
Every single person I have ever known, that you’ve ever known, is standing still in this incredibly formative moment. What a strange thing. We are all experiencing the same fear, growing into that same dark place. And that’s what led me down that road tonight, drafting emails to three former boogeymen lurking in the woods. Knowing we were once again, and hopefully for the last time, sharing something. I wanted them to know I was no longer scared of all the things I used to be, that I’m actually okay, pandemic aside. And a part of me wanted to make sure they were too, just in case they weren’t and needed a reminder to keep growing.
