WALKING THE LOOP

By Randy Randall

The loop is about two miles. I know. I've measured it, and I've walked it hundreds of times. We began calling it the loop because it made a circle trip. We could leave the back door of our lakeside cabin, walk along a path on the shore, then back through the woods and a small swamp, onto other camp roads running behind other families’ camps, and so on to the main road. We would walk alongside that road for a half mile, turning down the dirt road toward our own cottage again and return to our back door. The complete circuit was almost exactly two miles.

When we were kids on vacation at the camp in the summer for our two weeks, walking the loop was a regular part of our daily activities. Maybe in the afternoon we’d hike out with mom and dad. The landmarks along the way all became so familiar—the smelt brook, the lady's slippers, the old paper birch, the boulder where dad fell asleep deer hunting, where we saw the partridge family, where an old camp burned, and where mom got stuck one winter with the car. All these places and events were part of our family’s mythology. They were the props and scenes in stories we all knew by heart and repeated to each other season after season.

We kids loved to run on ahead as scouts and then hurry back to meet mom and dad and report what we had found, what had changed, and what was new. We grew adept at spotting new shoots peeking out from under the forest floor and identifying the tracks of animal neighbors that had passed that way during the night. Dad would weave together for us a story of how the mouse had run away from the owl or the fawn had followed its mother down to the water’s edge. And once in a while we’d be ever so lucky and see the doe standing off in the swamp looking at us, or we’d spot the owl perched on his limb waiting for nightfall.

When Mom and Dad retired and began living at the camp all summer, walking the loop became their exercise, their society, their entertainment, and often their lunch when the berries were ripe. When we brought the grandkids, walking the loop became a grand adventure, with Grandpa showing the pointed deer tracks imprinted in the soft dirt. The little ones were startled when the partridge flushed, and then jumped aside when they almost stepped on the garter snake sunning itself on the pathway. Nana would help them search for jack-in-the-pulpits, and then for blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, often picking enough to bring home in their hats and hands for muffins and pancakes.

Then came the day when our children asked if they could walk the loop alone, just them without us grownups along. With much trepidation we said, “Yes” and spent the next hour or so trying not to appear too anxious.

“They'll be fine,” dad said, and so they were. Laughing and running, we could hear them getting closer as they tripped and skipped down over the hill behind the cottage.

“Grandpa,” they yelled. “We saw a rabbit and we have to tell nana about the pond lilies and we fell in the swamp and we heard the woodpecker.”

Then they were off for a swim, and we could relax.

How many times we’d come to the pond to visit and just spend the day when, by and by, someone would suggest, “let's walk the loop.” We’d change our shoes, and some of us would grab walking sticks, collected over the years and all leaning at the ready near the back door. We’d talk about the day and the kids and watch for the wild flowers and the little frogs in the stream. We’d meet the neighbors outside their cabins, and, stopping for a chat, we’d check on their tomatoes growing in the small gardens.

In the spring it was a landmark day when the path had dried out enough so we could cross over the swamp without getting damp feet. In the summer we had to skirt the yellow jackets’ nest and admire the little brook almost dried up. In the fall we scuffed our way through the carpet of fallen leaves and wore jackets and hats and maybe our gloves. Coming down over the hill, we would see the pond lying below us reflecting the reds and yellows of the autumn foliage. A brisk wind would chill our cheeks and cause us to hurry as we hitched our way downward toward the cottage and the waiting warmth of the old wood stove.

Then came the cancer and the long road back to good health after the surgery and chemo. We’d call them on the phone and hear how mom had walked a little way. Each day they walked a little farther. Then one day they got to the halfway point, and it was as far to go ahead as it was to turn back, so they went on. When we called, we could hear the pride in their voices.

“She made it all the way today,” he said, and mom and dad continued walking the loop for more summers and autumns.

Now all these years later I wonder, how did this happen? How did this little walk in the woods become such an important part of our lives? How can you become so attached to a place? Over the passing years the camps and their owners and the roads have all changed, too quickly it seems, but you can still make it around the loop if you slink through one neighbor’s backyard and pass through another’s fence.

Is it ritual or habit? Maybe it’s a little of both, like going to church on Sunday. You come to camp, you walk “the loop.” It’s become a measure of our health and the growth of our family. We recall the first time the little ones could go all the way without being carried. Then we remember the time when the kids could finally go alone without us. And then we think about how the trail is taking more and more time as ailing knees and sore backs and old age catch up.

Nowadays dad walks the loop alone. But there are great-grandkids too who have yet to see the deer tracks or be startled by the partridge or count the lady slippers. Now it’s our time to lead them along the trail and the roads and pass on the stories of the burned camp, the garter snake, and nana’s jack-in-the-pulpits.

Walking the loop has let us know where we are in life. It’s a common experience we shall always share with each other. Only as we’ve become adults and parents ourselves have we begun to understand that its importance in our lives far exceeds the simple act of walking in the woods. It’s only two miles. I know. I've measured it, but the significance of walking the loop in the life of our family is way beyond measuring.

 

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