― Steven Erikson
Thoreau went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately, to simplify his life and question the assumptions of the society that dictated the lifestyle choices of so many he saw around him.
I went back to the land for many of the same reasons.
Oh, I'd simplify it for others saying I was trying to live out my deceased father's dream, but truth was, I returned from Afghanistan with PTSD and saw retreating to the woods as a form of therapy for social anxiety and my inability to fit back into civilian life.
But today, I went out to my land for a different reason.
I wanted to take time to pause and reflect--to prepare myself to confront Harold Franklin and decide on the best way to question him about why he withheld crucial information related to the murder of Ned Harkness.
The last thing I wanted was a misstep at this sensitive point in the investigation. I wasn't sure if Harold Franklin was the perp or was intimately involved in a series of murders that traced back to the Loyalist Lodge. I could either turn him into a hostile adversary or a cooperating ally.
But I did not want to mess this up by acting precipitously.
It was a beautiful early July day with a slight breeze and a sky filled with towers of cumulus clouds slowly drifting above me. I was up on the cliff at my observation post as I called it and watching hawks circling below me scanning the fields for prey.
It caused me a slight frisson to think that someone had done much the same thing--spied on Ned from afar and like the hawks waited for the opportune moment to strike.
Suddenly, the day that had seemed so peaceful and serene turned sinister and as if on cue, one of the hawks swooped down and struck, carrying off a hapless chipmunk in its talons.
It reminded me of Ned being suddenly taken by a sniper's bullet. Killing was the law of the wilderness but seemed even more merciless when carried out within the shelter of human society.
I felt nauseous and turned away. I had seen enough. I started down the worn path toward my pickup truck and then saw something embedded in the limestone. I stooped down to get a closer look.
It was an ancient fern fossilized in rock. A feeling of awe came over me.
I came back to my land to let it soothe and heal me but focussed on the hawks and got dispirited. I forgot there's more to life than simply this present moment as depressing as it may seem.
The fossil imprint told me a different story about endurance and the permanence of things. It told me why humans have prevailed often against great catastrophes.
There will always be killers but life continues regardless.
Just as the hawks wait patiently for their prey, I will wait and bide my time observing as the noiseless, patient spider in Walt Whitman's poem-- forever launching filaments, waiting for one to catch hold.