Into the woods
Our favourite woods function also as a quagmire after even a small amount of rain. For better or worse, though, there has been very little rain this summer. In the spring these woods are well-known for their bluebells. Otherwise they are mostly known for being a quagmire.
Even though, here and other times, I am mostly referring to a singular wood I say "woods". A natural plural. We have been there every week in September and would like to continue this as long as possible. Dodging the falling acorns, watching the leaves change colour, smelling the leafmould.
Things to talk about in the woods:
- how long you could live there undetected
- strategies for living there undetected
- its suitability as a home base in various post-apocalyptic scenarios
- its suitability for prehistoric living
- animals that are not in fact native to the UK
- the difference between a wood and a forest
- anything recalled from The Hidden Life of Trees
- the history and meaning of surnames
- young people nowadays
- old people nowadays
- what it would be like to be a squirrel
One of my favourite books about writing is Into the Woods by John Yorke. There are many books called this, or about this. Going into the woods is a primal thing.
the shape of all stories: the enduring pattern of how someone is found by being lost. All tales, then, are at some level a journey into the woods to find the missing part of us, to retrieve it and make ourselves whole.