I just got home from a truly strange experience. I went into the arboretum tonight for a walk and my flashlight burnt out. I was far enough into an area I didn't know of to feel quite disoriented. I decided to keep walking without the light to try and get back home. Before long I was scrambling through the forest, with dense brush pulling at me from every side, scratching my face. I felt really lost in as small a forest as the arboretum...not a positive thing. Paranoia and fear were flooding through me for reasons I can't explain, my childhood fears had returned. I was afraid of the dark, like I always had been when I was younger. All the night sounds of the arboretum were permeating the air; the crush of falling branches distantly in the woods, the far off road and cars flying along on it, and many other imagined sounds joined in the dark atmosphere. It was strange for me to have such profound fear in such a controlled area, not really remote or wild in the least. Generally I don't admit my phobias, but I feel like it more reflective of the journey I took tonight in the forest.
I would like to say as well that I have been wandering at night with no lights before in the arboretum, but then there was a moon. Tonight is crisp, cool and clear, perfect for stargazing and getting hopelessly lost. Through the absence of the light of the moon, fearful emotions dominated this walk and stay with me as I write this before going to sleep.
Perhaps the primordial fear our species has with wild places at night was what sparked my experience last night. One feels better prepared when in a group, which I was not. It all happened rather fast, and although I was only lost for about one and a half hours, because of the panic it felt like the whole night.
ReplyDelete