One of my personal maxims is “Begin as you mean to continue,” and in keeping with this intention, I proposed to Craig that we start off the New Year with our favorite local hike in Chabot Regional Park, up in the Oakland Hills. Craig has been hiking the Goldenrod and Buckeye Creek Trails for many years; I have been hiking them for as long as I’ve known Craig — now about five years. It’s just a “little” hike, he often comments (under three miles), offering no dramatic scenery or spectacular vistas. And yet.

Visiting this ecosystem, season in – season out, has attuned us to the minute changes that take place through its annual cycle. Before each hike we wonder about water: Has the creek begun to run? Will water be flowing at the bridge? At the meadow? Will we actually hear the creek — a trickle? a torrent? — or will we have to squint to see it moving? When will it stop running and merely sit in idling pools — and when will it disappear for good, sinking into some underground fastness until the next rainy season? These questions prime our perceptions.

On Christmas morning, after a steady Christmas Eve downpour, the creek sounded like this:

 

A week later, on New Year’s Day, we had to listen hard to hear it trickle.

Minor miracles

Does this all seem rather mundane? Well, so it is, in a way — but perhaps in the best possible way. Following these tiny changes, hike after hike, connects us to a larger sense of time, to a rhythm beyond our own routines. Gardeners understand this, I know.

Besides the ebb and flow of the creek, other small marvels reward our regular visits and careful attention: tiny shoots that gradually veil the dry meadow in a greenish haze; minuscule, magical mushrooms that pop up after the first rains; fresh, feathery ferns springing from the banks of the creek; the startling flash of bright orange berries; stark stands of teasels…

This is why it’s called Buckeye Creek

This time of year I love to see the fall of buckeyes littering the ground along the creek and to watch them, week by week, as they shed their rough outer husks to reveal shiny brown seeds. The seeds eventually split, and then a pallid green questing shoot, like a witch’s toenail, emerges from each and stabs into the ground, seeking purchase and establishment. Most don’t survive the long summer (which I’m inclined to think a good thing), but I admire this display of optimism.

Directions

These hikes remind me of what is perhaps my favorite (so far!) of Billy Collins’ many wonderful poems, which is called “Directions.” On the surface, the poet is giving someone directions for a hike up into the hills, and the first two sections explain the route and describe some of the things the walker might encounter. But then the poem veers — and this is where I always choke up as I try to read aloud:

But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.

Collins finishes with a valediction, sending the walker on her way, saying:

I will walk with you as far as the garden
with one hand on your shoulder.
I will even watch after you and not turn back
to the house until you disappear
into the crowd of maple and ash,
heading up toward the hill,
piercing the ground with your stick.

To me, this poem speaks of our connection to one another and to the broader circle of life, of the many sensory pleasures of the natural world (“a sprig of birdsong” or the way “the sun strobes through the columns of trees”), of what we can share with one another — and the roads we must each tread alone. And this is some of what I experience through our hikes in the hills.

I’m grateful that Craig has taught me to anticipate and appreciate the minor miracles of Buckeye Creek. It strikes me that most miracles are probably much like these: mundane and local and all too easy to miss, if you don’t expect them and aren’t paying attention.

So here’s to keeping our eyes and ears and hearts open
to the many small but significant miracles
that we encounter every single day:
May they not pass us by unnoticed!

Connections

• As I wrote this sentence — Visiting this ecosystem, season in – season out, has attuned us to the minute changes that take place through its annual cycle (it’s way back in the second paragraph of this post) — I pondered the word “attune.” Was this what I meant? I thought so but wanted to check, and a little searching turned up a relevant post in a Christian-themed blog called first responses (which appears to be defunct — no posts since 2016). The unnamed author writes: “When we speak of being ‘attuned,’ we think of being in harmony, of being aware, of being at one. When we are attuned, we hear and see and smell things that another might just miss or ignore.” That’s exactly it — and what lovely serendipity to find someone else saying exactly what I mean! You can find the whole post here: Being Attuned/In Tune.
• Billy Collins’ “Directions” appears in his collection entitled The Art of Drowning — which also includes the wonderful poem “Thesaurus.”

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• Cover Photo: Buckeye Creek on Christmas Day