June 6, 2026: Raccoons by day, trails by night

Yesterday morning was cool enough to bike comfortably, but the temperature was rising and the air growing saturated, and it would stay that way, as it is now while I write and the cat is in the window watching birds in the pine tree, suddenly realizing there is a milkbone for the dog on the bedstand, which, if he plays his cards right—if Mittens, the cat, plays his cards right—will be cat food momentarily. But in yesterday’s still morning, on the road that leads toward Big Rock Visitor Station, there were anxious calls like the whines of hungry birds who don’t know if they will ever eat again. I stopped my bike and looked high. Nothing. My eyes drifted around, then they settled on a red oak trunk where two baby raccoons were stacked one above the other, shrieking. Another raccoon was calling from high overhead, out of view, but stopped. Perhaps it was the parent, shouting helpful directions, as parents like to do. The two babies kept calling and looking my way. I did not want to agitate them further, but I did stay long enough to watch the upper one crawl downslope over its sibling, lose its footing, roll over its sibling’s back and tumble six feet to the ground, where it picked itself up and climbed the tree again. They were still shouting as I biked away.

At the end of the day I returned home, where I made supper and sat outside with Brooklyn for a few hours. Brooklyn wandered around the yard, chased a squirrel running across the top of the fence, lay in the ferns beneath the pear tree. I started a fire. I read the last three chapters of Steve Brusatte’s epic The Story of Birds, which recounts the long history of bird evolution from dinosaurs to today, with terror birds and demon ducks and dodos and a host of other exotics long gone, some that overlapped with humans, most that we can only know from fossils. Robins moved around the yard picking up nesting material, sticking their noses into piles of leaves. Brooklyn meandered over to drink from her kiddie pool, then returned to lie next to my chair. I played with her ears as I read. The night grew dark enough that I had to step out from beneath the pear tree to finish the book, squeezing out the last light of the day while standing close to the fire, letting the sweet dry heat rise up under my shirt. At about 9 p.m. I finished. “Let’s enjoy birds during this moment we share the world together.”

I let Brooklyn inside, as she wanted nothing more than to sneak up to our bed to lie down, and walked toward Lyman Woods.

Jupiter and Venus were paired low on the horizon, following the sun slowly downward behind our neighbors’ houses. I followed the clouds northward. They were piled high, masses glowing the color of ripe peaches on the west side, every lobe cast into relief by the setting sun. Rachel and I texted back and forth as I walked, the light dimming. I crossed Ogden Avenue, walked northward. Rachel texted me a photo of a snake winding sideways across a tree trunk. The toads started singing as Sterling Avenue dipped down toward the east side of the wetland that feeds into Lacey Creek. Two lightning bugs came out. I wrote Rachel about the toads and lightning bugs. We wished we were walking together. We said goodnight and I put my phone away.

I don’t like to use a flashlight when I walk trails at night, because it messes up your night vision. You don’t see anything except the ring of light right at your feet. You hear less, you think less about the trail. Also, when I walk trails at night without a flashlight, I kind of feel like a badass. I’m not proud of that. I think walking without a flashlight is a net positive: yes, I’ve stubbed my toes and fallen at times; yes, I’ve had some disorienting moments. But I learn more about a site by walking it at night, and I like the experience of not feeling familiar with a trail I’ve walked hundreds of times previously, just during the day. Sometimes it’s a little scary. When I was 20ish, I thought I’d like to experience a bog at night as a fox or coyote or raccoon experiences it, so I walked to the bog at the camp where I was working, sans flashlight, and crawled through the sphagnum. This was great, really enriching, a little gooshy on the knees, but within a minute I became frantically and irrationally frightened that I might come nose-to-nose with a bear in the dark, scare it, and that would be the end of my face and, most likely, of me. I stood up, returned to the trail, and ran back to my cabin.

The trails through Lyman Woods are as hard as pavement. You cannot not feel them under your feet. I walked in along the trail that leads from the neighborhood to the east of the forest, followed it comfortably along, then, without warning, the ground under my feet was soft. Okay. No worries. I returned to the trail, followed it along again, and this time took what I felt to be the correct turn, but I was heading downslope toward Lacey Creek. Again, this was not right. I returned to the trail, tried a third time and somehow failed again. I took out my phone and turned on the light, and the trail resolved clearly. I followed it along the correct route.

But somehow even with my light, I ended up at a cul-de-sac I had never seen before. There were houses backing up along Lyman Woods, so perhaps I was beside one of these? Then I realized I was exactly where I had entered the woods. The trail had felt so natural because I was walking backward along the trail I had come in on.

At 20, I got turned around and didn’t worry about it. At 55, these moments make me think of John Cheever’s middle-aged swimmer, making his way across the county from one pool to the next, becoming increasing exhausted, standing disheveled at the side of the road before he gets to the next backyard pool, looking up at the night sky at one point and finding that he cannot recognize the constellations. I think of On Golden Pond. I think of my grandpa sitting alone in the dark because, we only began to suspect years later, he no longer had the confidence to walk on his own.

But also I think, “dammit.” And so I closed my eyes for a few minutes to regain my night vision. Then I walked the trail without error into the woods.

Trails stretch out when you walk them in the dark. I know this is just perception, but I cannot help believing it’s also partly witchcraft. The trail through the brush toward the wetland was about two and a half times as long as usual, and many trees had been placed in my way since I last walked it. By contrast, the trail that follows the edge of marsh into the densest, nicest part of Lyman Woods is fairly open, and I could easily see. I reached the end of it, walked up into the forest, and immediately I was in a matrix of sparse gossamer, threads trailed between the trees adhering lightly to my glasses, my cheeks and beard, my forearms. The air with the gossamer in it was that much more feelable. I raised my arms above me and walked slowly uphill, remembering where the fallen logs were, remembering every step of this trail I started walking regularly in 2020. I walked the ridge, looking around at the white oaks in the dark. I walked the boardwalk, careful not to turn an ankle. I climbed over the big log. The gossamer was gone now, only moderately-cool evening air and a good walk toward the parking structure on the backside of the hospital.

On the way home, I passed the marsh where the toads were still droning from the cattails. The tall grasses were pricked with the flashes of lightning bugs. I reached home and called for Brooklyn. I could hear her plop off of our bed upstairs and, collar jingling, walk down the steps to greet me.

I can imagine a good life as a baby raccoon, tumbling down the tree trunk over my sibling, calling for mom, scared, but safe. But I like life at this age. I can talk myself down and continue on. I can think through problems I couldn’t at 30 and concentrate better than I could then. I can watch my boys grow and joke around with them. I know the joy of imagining Rachel’s voice in my ear as she texts me photos and thoughts from across the country. I got turned around on trails in the wilderness at 20 years old and survived. I’ll be getting turned around on trails as long as I persist in walking at night.