Platte Clove Residency: Encounter On Devil's Path

Devil's Path Trail; Catskills; NY; July 2012

I value solitude, but prefer not to hike alone. In the event of an injury, it's always better to have a companion. Moreover, since moving west, I've learned that even an ambitious mountain lion is unlikely to consider two or more humans fair game. Simply put, a duo or small group is afforded greater peace of mind. Sometimes, though, in order to take advantage of a window of opportunity, hiking solo is the only option.

Frankly, as I set out from the Platte Clove cabin on my first morning in the Catskills, safety concerns were far from my mind. I'm a confident hiker and I was excited to explore the 7.5-mile route I'd plotted the night before. My planning, though, had been cursory. I didn't realize that Wikipedia describesthe longest segment of my loop as "the toughest hiking trail in the Eastern United States." (In retrospect, I should have been clued in to the trail's difficulty by its name, Devil's Path.) I also shrugged off wildlife precautions. Though they may be the region's namesake, mountain lions were extirpated from the Catskills by the early 20th century; American black bears, however, are plentiful, and regional trail guides encourage hikers to wear bells and to talk at a normal volume so as to alert the animals of their presence. That's good advice, but amateur naturalists like myself shun bells and, when on trails, frown upon extended conversation. We don't go into the woods or up mountains for a constitutional. We go to see other animals, be they birds, porcupines, snakes, squirrels, or bears, and the less noise we make, the more creatures we're privileged to see.

The Plant Whisperer

In high school, I enjoyed reading William Faulkner's meandering sentences. I often contrasted Faulkner's verbosity with Ernest Hemingway's short, punctuated descriptions. Despite their dramatic stylistic differences, both writers excel as story tellers, but it was the writing itself, the technique, that made or broke a piece.

These days, though I'm more inclined to read non-fiction, I struggle through poorly crafted work, no matter how excellent the narrative or the conceit. I'm a pretentious reader, I suppose. Fortunately, there are many contemporary essayists who excel at their craft. The prose of Edward Hoagland and William Gass, to offer two notable examples, is often so compelling that I am moved to read it aloud.

Superior writing should not remain on the page; it must be released, through annunciation. This is most often true of poetry. Designed for the ear as much as the mind, the best verse floats somewhere between abstract instrumentation and lucid communication.

I was therefore delighted to stumble upon William Gass's essay "The Sentence Seeks Its Form: What Can We Do To Find Out How Writing Is Written?" in the most recent issue of BookForum. Gass's best passages make me purr with satisfaction or, less happily, make me aware of my relative failings as a writer. Consider the following selection.

"When we breathe, we take in the oxygen we need to live, but we also acquire at the same time the air necessary to form words, and these are sent forth, when we exhale, in the same way that the lion growls or the hyena chortles. Breath (pneuma) has always been seen as a sign of life and was once identified with the soul. Don't fall for phrases like 'gut feeling' or 'coming from the heart.' Language is born in the lungs and is shaped by the lips, palate, teeth, and tongue out of spent breath - that is, from carbon dioxide. That is why plants like being spoken to. Language is speech before it is anything. It is born of babble and shaped by imitating other sounds. It therefore must be listened to while it is being written."

A friend once told me that he sometimes became sexually aroused when reading good literature. At the time, I laughed off this idea; I was convinced that he was exaggerating. Years later, I'm not so sure. Though my literary pleasures are never sexual, they remain a form of intense arousal, a brief euphoria that can be cultivated and revisited. As Gass puts it, "That is why plants like being spoken to. Language is speech before it is anything."

Photo credit: ripped from the Access Excellence Health website