Temperate forests train us to be passive. Occasionally, hikers get
eaten by bears or cougars, or gored to death by mountain goats. But by and
large, the biggest threats you face in a temperate forest are the elements.
You’re much more likely to hurt yourself by getting lost, falling off of a
cliff, drowning in a raging river or freezing to death. You’re constantly
battling the elements when you’re outside--taking off a fleece, putting on a
rain jacket. You’re afraid of getting wet, of cold, of the setting sun.
In the tropics, the elements are more or less constant. It might rain,
but it’s so warm that it doesn’t really matter. It’s always hot and humid, and
so you’re constantly drenched in your own sweat. And yet, walking through a
tropical forest, you have to be constantly on guard. Here, all the threats to
your existence are living. There are the standard subjects of nature
documentaries—anacondas lurking in rivers, poisonous snakes tangled in the
vines of a tree, ants whose sting will have you in bed for two days with a
fever. But really, the danger is everywhere. Wasp stings become routine, like
getting bitten by a mosquito while hiking in the Cascades. You have to re-learn
how to walk in an environment where you can’t grab a tree to stop a fall because
the trunk is covered in spines, home to a toxic caterpillar, or protected by a
group of army ants. You’re constantly vigilant, because everything around you
is full of poison—the spines of plants, the insects living on them, the snakes
you’ve been afraid of your whole life, the frogs hiding between the leaves. There’s
no place for idle daydreaming, for putting your hands on a blind ledge or
grabbing a vine without really looking at it.
And yet, here I take risks. I strip naked, wearing nothing but my rain boots,
and let wasps sting me in unmentionable places as I bathe in a puddle of water
on the forest floor. I run through the forest on a moonless night without a
headlamp, where the dark is so total that I can’t see my hand in front of my
face. I swim in a river where I’ve seen an anaconda the night before, where
there are piranhas and caimans and parasitic fish that will swim up your vagina
and have to be surgically removed. I do this for a week, get stung by something
large and black that I can’t quite see, and my hand is radiating burning pain
past my wrist for an hour. But I’m fine. I survive, largely without incident.
Now, I want to go home and get to know my place better. I’ve never
thought to run naked through a temperate forest, partially because I’d probably
be close to well-frequented trails, but really because I just haven’t been
trying hard enough to actually be outside. I don’t go into Discovery Park at
night and run around without a headlamp. I don’t sit nestled between the roots
of a hemlock tree and sketch the plants near me or close my eyes and see if I
can hear the wind over the sound of my own thoughts. I haven’t even snuck back
into Cleveland Memorial Forest, the Seattle School District-owned piece of
old-growth where my high school ran outdoor program trips, to run around on the
trails that used to be my home almost every weekend during the school year.
I’ve been spending too much time reading, as usual, and not enough time getting
to know the plants I live near.
When I come home to the US, I’m going to feel very homeless. Since I
left for Ecuador, my cousin has moved into my room. My stuff is mostly in boxes
in the basement. I have stuff in storage at Whitman, but I’m not moved into my
house there either. I need focus and purpose for the month I’m home, or I’m
going to drive myself crazy sitting at home and feeling like I don’t quite
belong. And so, I want to try to re-learn the forests of my childhood, to
connect with them better, to teach myself botany like a scientist and teach myself
to see place like a tracker. I want to spend a good portion of a day or two
every week in the forests by my house, not hiking, but just sitting and
observing things and drawing leaves. So many indigenous people raised in the
Amazon are able to walk through their tropical forests with completely
confidence, knowing which plants are safe to eat and how to get where they need
to go. I’ve been blessed to grow up near a forest that’s safe, a forest where
I’m not going to get bitten by a poisonous snake or attacked by a bullet ant.
And it’s time for me to start taking advantage of that.
