<< Back 11/13/02 An appreciation of nature and a two-year-old’s sense of sublime By Jay Hardwig I am happy that Eli is growing up in the mountains. His mom and I spent nine years in Texas, after all, where the most enchanting features of the natural landscape were crabgrass, tornado paths, and barbecue shacks. It is only mild overstatement to say that every day here is more beautiful than the most beautiful day there. I don’t mean to sound snippity — there is much to recommend Texas, and Austin in particular, to the fellow traveller — but we landed here on purpose. The mountains came calling; with any luck, Eli will grow up with waterfalls and ridgelines hard-wired into his brain. Hiking with Eli, however, can be a touch frustrating. We never get anywhere. Left purely to his own designs, a two-hour hike with Eli covers about 300 yards. To the two-year old mind, a preferred hike is one that includes lots of water, a bunny rabbit, and an ice-cream stand. As a 32-year-old, my tastes run a little different. I don’t know when, precisely, I can expect Eli to develop a sense of the sublime. He does not yet seem to appreciate a good mountain view, and the sun falling slantwise on a mountain stream is still just light and water in his eyes. The world engages him more fully when it is taken at close range. Hiking with Eli is not about mountains but about woods; he doesn’t care to summit but does like to climb rocks, play with leaves, and harass small bugs. I know that I can learn a few lessons from Eli; I can learn, for instance, to stop and look and listen, to take pleasure in what is at hand, to treasure experience over mileage, et cetera et cetera la-de-da-de-da. It is hard sometimes. There is something to love in the legs pumping, in cresting the ridge, in pulling off your boots after a 10-mile hike. I am not blinded enough by Eli’s idle innocence that I can’t see what is lost when an afternoon in the woods is spent in roughly the same spot. Of course, it’s possible, and maybe even easy, to have the best of both worlds. It is possible to have views and mileage as well as attention to detail and a lack of hurry. Somewhere between the hike of my imagination and the squat of his lies the amble ; perhaps that is what we should be aiming for in the woods. Eli is years from an honest hike, but he may not be that far from an amble — or dare I say a saunter? — and a stroll will come sooner still. I just shouldn’t expect any help carrying the raingear. These thoughts — and an old Cajun fiddle reel — were running through my head as I drove I-40 from Asheville towards Knoxville last Friday. The day was bright and shining and still young enough for a stop in the woods. I pulled off the Interstate at Exit 451, Waterville Road, just past the Tennessee state line. From there it is a short jaunt — left, left again, past the CP&L plant and back into North Carolina — to the Big Creek Camping Area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. By the time we hit the parking lot, we were both ready to get out of the car. He had spent an hour strapped in a five-point harness, after all, and I had just finished my third cup of coffee. My knees were starting to quiver. The fresh air did us the expected amount of good; we had a picnic on the banks of Big Creek before crossing the bridge and heading out on Baxter Creek Trail. Soon enough we were up to our usual tricks: Eli was giving a leaf a thorough grilling and I was lost in idle speculation. I composed a list of the things I hoped he would come to know and love: the cold humid air, the mountain laurel reaching in on the trailsides, the roar of Smokies streams; the smooth slick feel of moss on rocks, the deep rich smell of wet leaves rotting, the sensation on the skin when you walk from sun to shadows in the deep ravines; the beauty, the quiet, the greenness of it all; the feel of toes growing cold inside boots; the view from ridgetops when the trees thin out and the world spreads out before you. I hope he cultivates wonder and mystery and one day, what the hell, develops a sense of the sublime. There is so much to be had. There was much to see, but I could also appreciate what there was not. There was not any concrete on the Baxter Creek Trail. There was no neon, no plastic, no billboards. There was no pitch, artifice, or jingle; no rewind, no remote, no Upcoming Attractions. There was no veneer or varnish, no interface, nothing between him and his experience of the yellow leaf and its wider world. There was no interpretive brochure, not even a roadside sign. It was pure. I do not mean to sound the grouch here. There is much in our modern culture that I admire; there are forms of artifice, pitch, and interpretation that I subscribe to, and happily at that. At the right moment, nothing beats a remote control. But one of the glories of living in the mountains — and part of the reason I came back — is that you can go so quickly from one world to the other, and in so many directions, and with so much reward awaiting. It is a blessing. As it was, our jaunt was short. Hardly a stroll, and certainly not an amble or a hike. When he was finished with his leaf, he became preoccupied with his sunglasses. And sunglasses, dear readers, remind him of his Nana, for it was she who performed the Miracle of the Fixing of the Broken Sunglasses some months back, using her amazing Nana power (and a miniature screwdriver) to mend what had been torn asunder. After the requisite 300 yards (and not yet 2 hours), Eli asked to turn around. “I want to go see Nana,” he said. And so we turned around for the not-so-long but not-so-quick walk back down the trail, across the bridge, and to our car. It was the old holiday chestnut, played out to the word: over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go. But we’ll be back. (Jay Hardwig is a writer and teacher who lives in Asheville. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net)