Following The Strange Pull of What I Really Love

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.      - Rumi, poet

July  23, 2021
Field Notes

I am finally back on the coast of Maine driving the route along Mount Desert Island (MDI) back to our family cabin. A never ending to-do list scrolls through my mind, but the warming rocky ledges of Hull's Cove persuade me to change course. I pull over, grab a pen and journal, and follow a short path to the ocean.

It is one of those mornings where everything seems to move at a slower pace. Even the seagulls and cormorants bob on wave tops, as if there is nothing more pressing in the world.

After filling several blank pages, I change course again, and spend the day following the things I love: pine forests, lichen, mushrooms, seaweed, and undiscovered trails.

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Recently I traveled to a place near my home in central Texas where millions of years of geological activity had created an area known as a shatter zone. The unpredictable terrain, scattered with fractured rock, became a place I wanted to learn more about.

It turns out that shatter zones exist all over MDI. Millions of years ago, subterranean, molten rock pushed up through the surface with such force that the existing rock exploded into pieces. Today I want to sit down in the middle of the shatter zone and write. I want to understand why I am drawn to places like this -- beautiful, broken places. I want to uncover their secrets, something I've learned to do by listening to landscapes. 

And so after checking the map, I head through Bar Harbor and Otter Creek to the quiet side of the island. The trail marker is faded and tricky to find. Summer rains have created the perfect conditions for mushrooms, slime molds, and other fungi. On tree bark, damp lichen glow. Layers of moss and pine needles feel like pillows beneath my feet.

The trail is impressive for many reasons. It is a perfect illustration of the workings of a watershed: the topsy-turvy topography, a brook that flows to the sea. The art of trail making is also apparent in the bridges and steps that effortlessly blend in to the contours of the land.

And this is where the path ends: a cobblestone beach.  As I sit down to write, I sense that this is a place to come when you, too, feel broken, where a path reveals what is necessary to put yourself back together again.