Lovely, dark and deep - Isolation led us into the woods

Here we are in the time of Covid.
And here we stay.

On this plot of land, in these woods and wetlands of rural Ontario, where for three months all of our time has been spent. 
(Nearly.) 
Up until March 13 2020, we had been fairly Peterborough-centric, being twenty minutes away.
And car dependant.

All that has changed.
And so, instead of heading out, for a newspaper, for a bottle of wine, for the odd stint of semi-retired-person's work, instead of that we've been heading in. 
Into the woods. 

At first, a few walks along the well beaten paths and defined trails. 
This, we are used to. 
The woods in early Spring - bare treetops, soft light, pale blue skies.
March birds twitter cheerfully, the grey branches sway. 
We walk a loop through the woods each morning. 
Follow our usual markers. 
All is well.

But soon, we begin to heed Robert Frost, and diverge onto the road less travelled. 
March turns to April. 
We follow trails less defined, thick and tangled. 
Not as easy underfoot, we're forced to stop in order to look around,
in order to see more clearly. 
We find wild leek patches and majestic trees we somehow hadn't noticed before.
We see more, hear more.
The woods have come to life.

At the top of a poplar a massive owl.
Two unhurried porcupines nosh on tree bark.
Chickadees, cheeky red squirrels, lead us onward. 

April to May, May to June.
The woods turn from grey to moss, to lime, to dark leafy green. 
Bird song changes, now white-throated sparrows and warblers.
Our rambles turn wet - marsh, creek, pond, oozing muddy trails. 
Carrying a big stick, we feel our way through the undergrowth, stepping into the unfamiliar. 
Strange, broken, uneven.
We follow small animal trails through the dogwood and willow and into the pond's fringes, the wetland, where we inevitably end up immersed in the murky clay-bottomed weediness. We stand still in eight inches of water, still enough for the reflections to become as clear as the wafting weedy grasses themselves, reaching for the light.

The road less travelled,
masked by tangled branches.
A bird sings "I am alive".

It is not a time, this time of Covid, for tranquil walks with easy outcomes.
We are off the straight and narrow now.
There is an element of strangeness. 
Here, all is not direct, (like the traffic on Highway 7 or our once predictable routines), but bent, stunted, rough and uprooted.
The underbelly.

Here is evidence of the upward struggle.
Where a heartbeat can be heard, and courage found in buzzing insects, 
and pond scum, in broken tree limbs.

Each stick and rock and root on these crooked paths reminds us.

Poked by wayward branches, we are prodded into remembering, (as the bird says), that we are alive. 
Vulnerable, but alive.

The struggle toward the light in this lovely, dark and deep place.
The road less travelled, in the time of Covid.