Recently I revisited the Rozarks, one of my favorite places in the city, which I thought had been destroyed but in fact is still—at least partially—intact. I hadn’t been there in years. Not since Earth Day 2017, when I arrived and saw a large swath of trees had been clear-cut, an entire hillside grove leveled for a new power substation, an act that seemed unconscionable and yet which, as a user of electricity, I also felt complicit in. But last week Neal reminded me that the trails were still there, and the main intact portion at least I should revisit, especially this time of year when everything is green and yellow and not yet deep orange or brown.
While on my walk I decided to put on my blue surgical mask for some reason, even though there was no one around. A few moments later, a couple deer—I would guess a mother and a fawn—appeared on the path. Instead of running away, they walked toward me, looking at me curiously. Maybe with my mask on they did not perceive me as a human danger, but as a less harmful animal. Or maybe they were just bold, reckless city deer. Eventually they heard a small animal moving in the brush and wandered off.
These trails have been used by Rosedalians for generations, as shortcuts to school, dogwalking routes, a refuge for crazies, motorbikers, teenagers, or dads who want to smoke or birdwatch, the way we pass the time in the Dale. The hill overlooks Southwest Boulevard, the diagonal thoroughfare of Mexican restaurants, like the nearby red lights of Sol Azteca, Sabor y Sol, Bohemio, all of which are the same place except at different eras. The first place I went after we found out we were going to have a kid, the place we returned to a few years later with a kid who knocked over my massive Coca-Cola.
The Boulevard, too, used to flood. Turkey Creek would rise up every so often from its banks, just look at the pictures from 1951. The smaller streams that feed it are mostly buried now, which I know because at a spot in the Rozarks you can hear the water trickling beneath the sewer grates, right along the powerline path. Tamed but the forces live on.
While in the Rozarks you can see the sunset on mild days in winter, see the trains pass, the traffic headed out from downtown, where you should probably still be working, but you took off early, and by this point you’ve been “off” for so long you can’t remember when you last went to the city. Still working at home, in your basement, or on your phone, on the trail, in your waking dreams, exhausted. Now you need more than a break. You need a new path forward.
I’m glad these trails still exist. That the woods are still here. The colors. The sounds, of birds and insects, planes and traffic, a few other families, dogwalkers, a couple. Signs of life ahead of a long winter. We’re going to need every bit of light we can find.
As for the doe and the fawn, I’ll never know exactly why they approached me instead of darting into the woods like usual. But I very much appreciate that they did.
lucas wetzel 