When the Woods Whisper Your Name: An Essay and Three Photographs
by Donna Bucher
Expectant
WHEN THE WOODS WHISPER YOUR NAME
Sharp as broken glass, the dried, thick stems tortured my bare feet, as I tread down the brush crossing to the smooth dirt path I remembered. Yet, then again, nothing was truly as I remembered it.
The years were as unkind to this little stretch of woods as they were to my life. Majestic oaks, the namesake of the valley, bore the ravages of storms and disease. Many of the stern white pines lay rotting and abandoned right where they fell long ago.
My own carved initials stared blindly back at me from a log at my feet. Is it possible this fallen friend still wore the scars of a lonely little girl fifty-five years later?
Though not much to capture your attention, this wooded area was all that remained after developers carved out the Oak Valley and Pine Acres residential communities back in the early sixties. When my parents chose the lot where their modest cookie cutter split level would be built, my dad chose one of the unwanted lots whose backyard bordered what became known simply as “the woods.”
Though reluctant to speak of his painful childhood, my dad often told us of his love for the woods which began when he was a little boy. He shared how he found comfort and felt at home in the woods, as if his very soul was there somehow.
The few family vacations we could afford were spent tent camping at state parks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and later in Canada’s Thousand Island region. For my dad, camping took place in the wild, never in a “campground.” Driving deep into the parks, we hiked to a secluded spot and set up camp.
My dad had a reverence for the woods, which intoxicated me, too. Before it was popular, we left no trace of our presence wherever we camped.
Despite never seeing people during camping trips, we saw plenty of wildlife and learned much about the trees, plants, and insects. I took all that knowledge into our woods right out my backdoor when I got home.
While many kids in the neighborhood feared the woods, I felt most at home there. Although we spent so much time in the woods as a family, my mom and brother never felt at home. But like my dad, I felt as if my very soul was there somehow. It became a refuge from a harsh and lonely homelife.
The woods not only sheltered me; it also revealed me. But it would take me over forty years to find my way back.
The coolness of the smooth, hard dirt soothed my stinging feet as I stood still on the other side of the field of nettles. On a whim I went back, and I am so glad I did. My brother makes his home not far from where we grew up. On a recent visit to his home after the death of his wife, I determined to go by the old house.
My feet had not stood there for more than four decades, and I wanted to stand there as I had when a child—barefoot and in wonder.
My brother warned me the old house was not in good shape. Having endured several owners since my parents sold it back in 1979 and a foreclosure, the neglect was palpable. Almost everything had changed. Of all the houses on the block, it was the most neglected; the things I loved most about it were gone.
Standing there, it was as if the house mirrored my time long ago. The neglect, rejection, and years spent changing everything to become what others wanted of me.
Yet, in one eerie moment, I glimpsed the original numbers nailed to the front of the house, still hanging there declaring “662 Montclair Avenue.” Then I glanced to the side of the house and was astonished to observe the old white asbestos shingles placed in 1958 still hanging there. This was the side of the house where my bedroom window had been located.
Everything about the house was different, except those numbers and that one side.
Emboldened by the scant familiarity, I ventured into the woods directly behind the house, as if drawn by a mysterious voice.
Taking my shoes off, I headed down the familiar path and across the field of nettles. I wandered the old paths which to my astonishment remained after all those years, straight down to the old creek. Watching the water swirling and caressing the rocks, the years flowed by—liquid in my mind.
It was as if no time passed, and yet as if my whole life trickled past. In those moments, as time stood still, the woods once again spoke the language of my soul. I saw how the wild things knew me—how the harsh stinging nettles knew my hidden pain. The way the creaking low groans of the tall pines in the wind, gave voice to my despair and loneliness. The remembered comfort of the fluffy, fragrant pine branches, which covered and caressed me in my little primitive forts and hiding places. How the wind seemed to whisper my name in the trees inviting me in, instead of sending me away like they did at home.
Even the creek’s laughing waters spilled over with memories of times when I thought its magical waters could wash my shame away. And maybe it did in its own mysterious way because I never left there the same way I came.
Yes, my soul lived among the wild things, truly lived despite my pain, rejection, and loneliness.
It scampered over the rocks like the orange salamanders, swam with delight like the blue-gray carp, and nestled into a bed of pine needles with fairy teacup acorns.
The woods always welcomed me, and, in its welcoming, showed me it knew me and my pain. It showed me I belonged somewhere. I knew the day of my return visit what my dad learned all those years ago.
God embodied His creation and through it drew me into intimacy, belonging and the peace of healing.
After all these years, I saw what my dad had seen in his own troubled life; God gifted me with belonging through the woods speaking the language of my tortured soul, surrounding me with the peace of being known and loved.
And in the openness of the simplicity of its being, the woods set me free.
On Photography: My photography shares moments of God revealing both Himself and my own heart through our times together in His magnificent creation.
Timid
His Voice Is as Many Waters
DONNA BUCHER
Donna is a passionate creative, writer, poet, speaker, retired missionary, CASA volunteer, experienced counselor and hospice and palliative care support personnel. She is the founder of Serenity in Suffering blog and author of the Serenity in Suffering newsletter on Substack, where she shares articles, resources, and counseling designed to help readers grow personally and find spiritual intimacy with Christ. Her hope is they ultimately finding purpose in the trials they face. Her writing has appeared in various online sites, literary journals, digital and print magazines, and devotional journals.