My Portal
It is a sunny, Thursday morning and I get dressed around 9, spray on the tick and bug repellant and begin my two-mile walk, rain or shine, up Slope Drive, where I stop at the intersection with Route 57 and wait for the speeding trucks and cars to pass and it is safe to cross the heavily-traveled county road and I am there.
My destination is the portal where I go every morning. To others, it is just a narrow, often muddy trail that winds through state-protected land and along the Musconetcong River but for me it is a doorway that lets me leave the troubling world of quarantines, COVID 19 and Donald Trump, if only for an hour or so.
As soon as I enter the portal, I leave far behind me the noises from the road, the annoyingly ear-splitting blasts from the trucks, the unrepentant sounds of the landscapers and their loud leaf blowers, and louder mowers speeding back and forth on the neighborhood lawns.
Sometimes I listen to the wind whistle and move the leaves and also to the the different peeping and creaking sounds of the insects and the birds. I look skyward and see three turkey vultures gracefully circling and gliding in the updrafts, obviously preparing to dine on some sort of carcass and I can’t take my eyes off the expansive, timeless beauty and reliability of Schooley’s Mountain in the distance.
It is all so peaceful and something that I need so much.
Sometimes I plug in my earbuds and wave my hands like a mad maestro to my favorite symphony, “Scheherezade” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov or I listen to the soundtrack from Narnia and imagine the great battle scenes and the sublime bravery of Aslan.
Other times I crank up “Caravan” by Van the Man Morrison and dance wildly down the path, absolutely oblivious and utterly unconcerned with anyone who might see me as some nut.
But there is usually nobody around, except on Fridays when I see the parked pick-up trucks of the fishermen who wear waterproof waders into the river to try their fly fishing abilities, even though I have not seen one successful fisherman.
The woods and meadows along the trail must be rich with all kinds of wildlife but I see very few animals which is a testament to their wariness and amazing ability to avoid any interaction with a possible enemy.
One day a large buck who was twice my size saw me and like a bolt of lightening, he jumped into the river in a panic and swam to the protection and safety of the other river bank. Another day my eyes met with those of a deer 50 feet away on the trail and we stopped and stared at each other for a good minute before the deer got bored of the game and galloped into the woods.
Often I see rabbits and am amazed at how fast they hop away and run for safety in the maze of trees and other growths, as if they know where they are going. There are occasional box turtles that lie in the sun along the trail so still that they could be mistaken for a rock. I hear the sound in the vernal pond before I see the frog jumping in to hide from me.
I would like to tell the animals that they have nothing to fear but they are hard-wired to expect the worst from people who would hunt them and kill them, unfortunately a likely scenario.
As I walk, two thoughts come to my unhinged mind, damsels in distress and magpies and I have no idea why. I have never met a distressed damsel nor have I ever crossed paths with a magpie.
The portal may be an entrance to a magical place where I have been given the order from on high to rescue said beautiful and helpless damsel in distress from the prison in the far away castle where she has been kept for more than a year by the suitor she has rejected. It is no small challenge but I will do whatever it takes to win her freedom.
As for magpies, they are everywhere, cackling away about absolutely nothing just so they can hear themselves cackle. We have a brief conversation but it is impossible to hear anything worthwhile from the magpies, so I leave them to their incessant babbling.
A herd of deer runs up to meet me and as they screech to a halt in a dirt cloud, the lead deer asks for my help in ridding the land of the evil king who eats as many of the deer as his henchmen can catch. I agree to help but not until I explain that I have no special powers beyond compassion and have never actually killed anything.
But that is OK as the lead deer leads me down the path to a clearing where I see the king and two of his soldiers cooking their latest catch over a fire. As I approach, the portly king sees me and rather than act aggressively, motions to me and asks me with a smile if I would like to dine with him.
Politely turning down the meal, I explain to the king that the deer fear for their lives and are such peaceful, docile creatures and that the king and his men should refrain from slaughter. As the king laughs at my suggestion, I quickly move toward him, grabbing him by his royal throat and threatening him with his own life if he ever kills another deer. Realizing that discretion is the better part of valor, the king backs off and agrees to make peace with the deer.
And I have saved a damsel and protected the fauna from death. Not bad for a morning stroll through the portal. But then it is time to return to reality and I walk up the path to Route 57 and the familiar sounds that make up my world and I wait for the next portal adventure.