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"Sacrifice was the code of the road," - Bob Dylan
When I heard the car door shut behind me, I knew I was on the other side of the line - that is, the line between here and out there.
I think this has always been one of my favorite sounds. When I was a kid, if I wasn't outside, I spent a lot of my inside time thinking about being outside, wanting to be fishing or running or riding or playing.
Greater freedom to explore came first when I learned how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle and then later when I learned to drive a car. The possibilities of places I could visit, beyond those I could walk to, was incredible.
But just because I had the freedom to travel, didn't mean we had the knowledge to do so. I recall one time when me, my younger brother and a neighborhood friend of mine decided to ride our bikes out to a place that was about eight or 10 miles from home to go brook trout fishing.
We didn't check the weather forecast and we rode home in an early, wet autumn snowfall. If I ever develop arthritis, I think it will be from that frozen trip.
Once I learned to drive a car, my brother and I had gone out fishing, again about 10 miles from home, when the brakes went out on the car.
I was too afraid to tell my dad the car had crapped out without my having tried to do something to fix the situation. So, I drove the car with no brakes back to the top of the hill a block from our house.
Driving up the back side of that hill slowed the car down considerably, as I'd hoped. My brother jumped out the passenger-side door to try to get ahead of the car to stop it from rolling.
Fortunately, he didn't try more than once or twice to get that idea working. I turned the front wheels into the curb and the old four-door came to rest, only a couple of feet from the old mine fence.
It's strange how those mishaps somehow seem like good times now, probably because we survived.
Today, the trail I am walking on is muddy. I'm heading down along the course of a waterway, past the doll's eyes and the elderberries to a waterfall situated about a half mile downstream from a wooden deck bridge.
The leaves in this hardwood forest have barely begun to turn. In a few weeks, this place will be a whole lot busier with hikers, hunters, photographers and leaf peepers walking the trail and driving the road over the old bridge.
The trees form an overhead canopy for several miles of this dirt road, giving shade and shelter to scarlet tanagers and broad-winged hawks in the summertime and spectacular fall color viewing to people in the autumn.
This stream has a unique character to it, perhaps exemplified by the washes of gravels sorted to varying sizes along the banks and lying at the bottom of its clear, cold waters. The deposition of rocks and gravels here size from mighty boulders down to grains of granite that help form the sand.
There are mighty tree relics here too, toppled, crashed and washed downstream in mighty storms or the winter run-off that dazzles with its icy and raging floodwaters.
So many of the birdsongs are missing from this place as I walk today. The tunes of the warblers, vireos and thrushes have been hushed with the breeding season passed and fall migration underway.
I think the loons have gone, along with the monarch butterflies, the swifts and the nighthawks and the two, possibly three, bats that flapped around our yard on summer evenings catching mosquitoes and other bugs.
What hasn't left this place is the enchanting sound of the water, flowing over the rocks and sand, twisting and gliding, running smooth and slow and then fast and choppy, turning white and bubbly, tumbling and rolling.
I can sense there would be a great loneliness here for some on a walk like this. But not for me. I am at home among the trees and the flowers, the bears and the wolves and the deer. I feel a kinship with them. I do not feel alone.
Here I am on the other side of that line - out here instead of back there. For me, this is where real life exists. It's like a wellspring of healing and replenishment that I need to seek out often.
Without stating the obvious, it seems more natural to be here. By that I mean it seems like the world I am at home, where I am supposed to be. In the craziness of society and the world gone mad - again - I feel trapped, boxed in.
Back there, fear, anger, desperation and mindlessness often rein. Most things are given to loudness and shouting and clanking, buzzing and banging noise. Here, the sounds are soft and soothing, washing over me like a gentle breeze or cool water.
The best part about that is it allows space to think and to truly relax and breathe in the fresh air. Time seems to move slower here too, though it doesn't, of course.
The animals, birds, plants and other forest features all seem to know their parts in this wonderful play. They do what they are supposed to do, seemingly all in proper alignment, always on cue and mark though a word between them is never spoken.
I feel as though I am a stranger here, but an accepted one. I am a visitor that is announced by the blue jays, the crows and the robins. The quieter I remain, the more accepted I am.
When I encounter the denizens of this magical land, I often stop to observe, but nothing more, beyond perhaps a photograph or a memory snap. If I speak to them, it is in soft tones appropriate to these honored surroundings.
I would never presume to impose myself on this wondrous world by leaving my garbage or carving my initials in the bark of a birch. There is a respect I sense in the woods that I can feel, something it seems all those who live here know and accept.
It's an intangible thing to try to get a hold on, but it's there as clear and strong as the winds or the waters. My footprints in the dirt will wash away, eventually leaving no trace of my being here.
I understand that code intrinsically. It might be engrained from my childhood exploration of these places with the help of my parents who couldn't always seem to love each other, but they both loved nature and spending time out in it.
That was something they wanted for us kids too. Just like I want it for my kids and my grandkids. It's an impressive and magnificent thing to inherit - other than life itself, it's likely the greatest gift my parents could have ever given me.
I can come to nature's world with burdens and troubles, problems and concerns. By merely being present, I can feel shifts taking place inside me, almost a re-ordering of things out of place or a straightening of things bent and misaligned.
Here, each time of the day has its own character, its own presence and its own colors. The sunlight contributes to this as it moves across the sky, hitting only certain things at certain times, leaving the rest for other days or other seasons.
In the rush of a typical day, the ticking of a clock bothers me. It always seems to be pushing and shoving, demanding more and more. Out here, I could listen to my watch, a metronome or other clicking time-keeping device and it would seem in sync with the surroundings.
It doesn't push, but merely presents itself as another presence here.
So, the sound of the car door behind me, and the scraping noise of my boot heels dragging across the dirt road toward the trail, are significant for me. These sounds tell me that I am leaving the madding world behind me at the car door.
I am stepping beyond, into the fascinating and all enveloping wonder of things taking place "out there."
Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan's world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.