Part 2

      The woods look bigger from the inside than they do from the outside, I always forget that. If I go too far, I'm totally going to get lost. Dad always trained us kids to bring a compass with us when we went off wandering, but I never really went that far by myself. The woods back home scarcely qualified as woods, you were never more than five, ten minutes' walk from seeing where they ended. It seemed so much bigger to me as a kid... But here, I'm on unfamiliar ground. I've lived in this apartment since I graduated college five years ago (five years, already??), but never really explored the area around it much. Campus, I covered every inch of ground, but somehow working leaves you less time for walks than classes ever did. Or maybe it's just that I had to hunt for quiet, private places on campus, and here I have the whole apartment (small as it is) to myself. I have to be at work in two hours, I really shouldn't walk out of sight of the edge of the trees anyway, not today. There's a creek maybe thirty feet to the right, if I just follow that, I'll have my path back to the edge. I'm sure my old compass is in one of the piles of boxes back in the apartment. Maybe I'll come back on my next day off... if it's not so gloomy out. The damp feels even more oppressive under the trees, it's almost cold here where the sun only barely gets in, even with the trees still nearly leafless. In another week or two, those leaves will fill in all the thousands of little gaps between the knuckled branches up there...
      I spend a few moments studying that interlacing of branches. It's something I've seen a thousand times, drawn a few times too, but every tree is different, and each time I look at the lacy combination of branches there are new patterns, different ratios of light and dark, so many shapes caught in the spaces between...
      I walk slowly toward the creek, skipping through a few songs on my iPod – I don't want anything too loud and energetic today, but I don't want to start sleepwalking either. The ground starts getting soggy and more green, as little water-loving plants are already breaking through the moldering leaves of the old year. I study the area between where I'm standing and the creek bed, and see that it just gets lower and more wet the closer to the bank... which is barely even a bank here, the creek just spreads into this whole large area. I am not at all equipped for slogging through a swamp today. I'll have to come back some other time...
      But I walk a little ways farther anyway, parallel to the creek instead of toward it, seeing if the ground dries up any. And it does seem to, though I still can't get anywhere near the slowly moving water. Does it only flood like this in the spring, or is this whole area that marshy? Looking around, I realize that if I knew more about plants, I'd know the answer... but I don't. There's lots of dry brush, and vague bits of neon green sprouting all over, but I have no idea what's what, and even if I did... I know all plants like water, but I have no clue which ones need to be perpetually drowning in it.
      Looking at my watch, I sigh and shift the bag on my shoulders. I should head back... it feels like such a pointless little walk, but I'll need to change my jeans and shoes at least before work now. And I need to fight my way back through the scrub at the edge of the woods... I feel tired just thinking about it. I try to focus on the fact that at least I snared some inspiration from the colors in the dead leaves, in the tangle of branches overhead... but that's really not enough to lift my mood.
      I skip through a few more songs, and land on something or another by Morrisey or The Smiths, I never know which is his solo stuff and which with the group. I don't recognize the song, but it's gloomy, so I let it play as I trek back to my apartment.

      It's a good two weeks before I get out to the woods again. I just haven't had time, or I've been so tired, or it's rained or... I shake my head to clear out the thoughts. I am going to have today. I am not going to think about work or any other looming responsibility. I have my camera, my little sketchbook and a favorite pencil (oh Pentallic woodless graphite pencils, you are the greatest invention ever), fresh playlists on my iPod of upbeat music and artsy music and all the stuff that inspires me, a bottle of water and a sandwich and an apple in my bag, and no work today. And there's sunlight! I set off toward the woods actually smiling, just gazing up at the brightness of the blue in the sky above and grinning for sheer joy at the sunlight. One of Coldplay's newer songs comes on... “Square One”, that's it, off “X & Y”. They totally turned into U2 on that album, and then having Brian Eno produce “Viva La Vida”? Totally sealed it. But somehow I can't bring myself to really mind, their sound is just fantastic, it's gotten so epic and grandiose and expansive, while still keeping some amazing textures running through everything... They're one of those bands that I always wanted to like, I knew I should, but it wasn't until “X & Y” that I really did – though despite growing up on U2, I have a few moments of indecision now trying to decide if I'm hearing Jonny Buckland's guitar or The Edge's. The tempo picks up and so does my pace, and I feel the urge to just start running through the grass, sprinting, like a child racing the wind... but I don't, I'm too old and dignified for that. Ha. Instead I let my hips sashay a bit, setting my strides in time to the music, singing softly along. “It doesn't matter who you are...”
      I walk along the edge of the woods a bit until I find the entry point I used last time. It isn't great, but at least I can get through it, and manage a few less scratches this time anyway. Today, I have on waterproof hiking boots. And I have a compass. I am invincible. I check the compass once I'm under the trees, and look around to find some other marker of the location... There, there's a fallen log with neon orange fungus on it. That's pretty good. And I want to follow the creek anyway... something about running water is always fascinating. I remember when my sister was little, she was obsessive about it, always demanding to look at the fountains in the mall when we went shopping, or have me take her to the creek in the woods back home. I played in the creek a lot myself, though I never was big on swimming. Hate getting things in my eyes.
      Again, I walk parallel to the water a little ways, not quite sure just how much water my boots will repel. Anyway my boots are just hiking boots, not the knee-high monstrosities I had as a kid. At the time, they were amazing, but I'm pretty sure my artistic nature would puke if I tried wearing anything like that now. The hiking boots are bad enough. But the ground seems to get a little higher, or maybe the creek bed is just lower, as I go farther into the woods. Anyway, I can get closer without being sucked into squishy mud. The creek isn't all that deep, maybe two feet, but it's still pretty wide here – it doesn't really go very far beyond the edge of the woods, just fades into swampiness and then vaguely wet fields. I wonder if there's a spring back in here somewhere, or if this is just an offshoot of a bigger stream?
      I grin as The Monkees' “Listen to the Band” comes up. It's completely absurd that I should like this song so much. It has one verse. Sung several times. The chorus consists of one line. It has twangy steel guitar, and a completely arbitrary brass section. By The Monkees, in their declining years of the late '60s. But somehow, it all works, and it makes me happy.
      I creep gingerly toward the edge of the bank, trying not to stumble into a pit of mud. Squatting down, I can see bits of plants trying to grow under the water beside the bank – I wonder if it's seaweed, or like cattails or something? Stones are starting to appear here and there in the creek bed, mostly small ones, but a few larger here and there, making the water bend and twist to get past them. I adjust my footing and lean as close as I can, trying to take a few pictures, I know I don't have the right setup for good water pictures, but the lines of the water as it moves are so fascinating. Water's so hard to draw well, you can't really draw the water itself, all you can do is show the effects it has on the things it touches... and that's different with every passing millisecond. I must have a hundred reference shots, and I still struggle every time I need to draw it. Non-draw it. Whatever. There's a rock large enough for me to stand on in the middle of the bed, I wonder if it's stable?
      Tentatively, I stretch out my leg, straining to reach the rock... but it's too far, just a few inches out of reach. The water's a good six inches deep at the bank here, which is about four inches deeper than I trust my boots. But looking up the creek farther, I can see there are more rocks ahead, there'll be a spot somewhere I can walk in it and maybe get some good shots. Already I'm trying different compositions in my head, I'd love to capture just a scrap of the fluid curves of the lines in the water, coiling itself around a stone and meeting itself again on the other side... There's a hundred shades of clear between the air and the ground below...