Relics
There are some days where we get the chance to experience other worlds. Ripples in the fabric of spacetime. Moments that make you feel as if something is different. This for me happens as I start walking along a newly paved road. I keep walking until a gradient forms from cracks, depressions, blooming asters and leaves, freshly broken, leak their milky sap from severed veins. Ultimately coming to the threshold. Ending up where the last of the asphalt is eroded away into peppercorns on the compact soil. It is only then when the dirt softly patters underfoot that you notice. You feel distant. The verdant canopy swaying above is devoid of the usual summer chorus save for the whisper of wind through shimmering beech leaves.
At first the sensation is overwhelming. There’s a presence from behind the looming red oaks and I can’t help but glance over my shoulder as I continue to walk wondering if I should turn back. However, this feeling lasts only the first few times after crossing over. Once the feeling of the watcher flees you begin to truly see. I mean literal sight. Ferns are greener, softer. Oak leaves are defined, birch bark pulls itself from the trunk, lusting for freedom, and monarchs perch atop sagging goldenrod laden with inflorescences.
For this occurrence I found myself on an old farm road through the woods beneath Mt. Webster. We were doing trail work for the Ridge race, when we kind of got lost by taking one of the many meandering paths through the woods. We came to an old road that ran beside a softly churning stream coming down the mountainside. Puffball mushrooms wheezed beneath our feet as we unknowingly wandered further. It was starting to seem that we had come to a dead-end when tangles of hornbeam, jewelweed, and ground pine retook the road. Only then did we notice a loud rush of water coming from within the trees. Jack and I made our way through the young sugar maples until we came to an abandoned structure. The wooden building was mossy, rotting away, and had rust colored fungi sprouting from within the walls. The floor inside bent with my weight as I brushed my hand along the round electrical panels, their doors rusted shut. Large pipes were connected on the rotten wood, the once red valves lay dormant. Outside a large concrete cistern, now covered in moss and lichen, slept by the stream. On its southwestern corner was a well-like opening. Inside was dark and damp, but coming out was cool moist air and the sound of churning groundwater. I couldn’t help but wonder who all used this pumping station when it was fully serviceable. The memories made there, the time it took to run the electrical wire to the 15 foot tall telephone pole leaning against the northern wall. The commute the employees took everyday to monitor the facility. All these things relics of times past. I am grateful to maintain these areas for public benefit through the SLA. Without that, I fear that pieces of history and crossing over to different worlds would be but a fantasy.
Moses is a returning winter half timer who couldn’t get enough of Squam after one season. If you see him around campus, ask him about his pollinator garden project! You can learn more about Moses here.