Foraging

So, I’m a bit of a wanderer. 

When I was a kid, I used to pick a direction and start walking. We lived in a semi-rural area, and the neighbors never seemed to mind a gangly, androgynous sprite skipping through their forests or across their yards and fields. “Free-range,” adults used to call me. I was a sensitive kid, so it’s no wonder I felt a draw to nature and places of solitude. I liked to be alone with my thoughts. I still do. 

I’m an adult now and have to abide by the rules of society, but I still wander. Although, these days, my wandering primarily takes me through city neighborhoods and parks. The neighborhood immediately around my studio is an old one, full of mature trees and fascinating Arts-and-crafts/Art Deco -style houses from the early 20th century. For months now, I’ve been watching the city take down trees that interfere with the powerlines, and surreptitiously taking note of the species of tree, size of trunk…..and accessibility of sawn pieces. More than once I’ve come across a fresh tree stump and crouched down to examine the grain, only to rue my bad timing, as a trunk cookie slice from said tree would have been perfect for ________. 

A few weeks ago, I was wandering through the neighborhood once again, talking on the phone with my friend Nicole. I found myself down a small side street that I didn’t typically walk down because of its boarded-up houses, but something caught my eye at the other end of the block. The city had taken down a tree. And they had left the cut pieces on the curb. All of them. 

I rushed down to the corner and was hit by the sour urine smell of freshly cut spalted lumber. Up close, the logs were more figured than I realized. I ran my hands over the pieces; they were stunning. Streaked with red and black and figured with swirls of pale sapwood. Beauty destined for mulch. 

And up against the pile leaned the treasure I had been hoping for for months. A 30” round slice from the base of the trunk. 

I stared at the log slice for a few minutes in reverent silence. I couldn’t believe my luck. Even the lot on which the wood was piled was without a house. No one to claim the wood. 

“Em? Em…? You still with me?” Nicole’s voice through my earbuds. “What is it?”

“I have to take this.”

“Take what?”

“This slice.” 

I spun around and race-walked back to the studio to the accompaniment of Nicole’s excited, laughing voice: 

“What? Take what??”

In my giddiness, all I could repeat was “Slice! A slice! Wood!” 

I charged up the driveway and nearly plowed into one of the other studio-house inhabitants, Jed. 

“Jed! I have to go get a wood slice! The city! They cut down a tree! There’s a slice…!!”

Jed stared at me for only a moment before asking, 

“You need help?”

I drove with unnecessary speed back through the neighborhood, careening around corners and throwing Jed against the window, until I could see the woodpile with my precious wood slice in the distance. We pulled up next to the pile, and with the quickness of bandits, I threw up the back hatch, Jed hefted the slice into the back, and we sped off. 

Nicole was still with me. “What’s happening? What’s happening….??”

Jed leaned his elbow on the window ledge. “So…..um. What are you doing with this, again?”

“I’m foraging.”

“Foraging.”

“Yes.” 

Jed stifled a grin and cleared his throat. “So, um….you’re not stealing.”

“Right. I’m foraging.” 

I caught Jed’s amused smirk out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t suppress a bashful grin. I coughed and re-comported my face. “The city would have turned it into mulch. I’m rescuing it.”

“Right.” He said, still amused. 

“Emmmmm…! What’s happening!” Nicole shouted through my earbuds. 

“I’m here, I’m here!” Jed gave me a quizzical look and I pointed to my ears. “Oh, um, my friend Nicole is with us.” 

Long story short, I got the smelly slice back to the studio, and continued to drive around with a massive, soggy, urine-smelling wood slab in the back of my car until I could take it to a sawyer in Portland to get it leveled. It’s now resting on two cement blocks with a fan pointed at it until it’s dry enough to use. And in the meantime, I’m trying to solve the mystery of its identity. A beautiful slab and a research quest. Two treasures in one. 

Just goes to show that it pays to wander.