The Distance to Wisdom

The distance to wisdom is crossed on foot, with no passing but through thickets and thorns and the burrs of low-hanging fruit. Some of us with machetes and boots, others with worn woodshed axes, some with nothing but gloves insulating from the terrain. And some of us with less than that—bare-armed against nature and the elements, sliced and scabbed. Still, onward.

There’s no delaying a setting sun, and a cerulean sky is pretty—when admired from a distance, when you can see trees silhouetted in black like a velvet page in a color-by-number. You can’t see that shade of blue inside the woods. If you find your way to twilight you’ll have earned a story of survival—and adventure, if you’re lucky. A cautionary tale is one misstep, one head turn, one crack of a twig underfoot.

Some try to arm their friends, kin: “Take my axe—I was given it by my grandfather.” “You’ll need this coat—it’s kept me warm, take it. My mother made it.” But many would rather have scars to show for their time. Tattoos of lessons and betrayals of uneven ground. They don’t want the wisdom of another’s hero’s journey. What is there after survival but to tell about it? After you’ve reached the clearing, barbs clung to pant legs like souls unwilling to be forgotten, while the low hum of the highway grows louder?

They say “you can’t take it with you.” Yet how many caskets close with stories inside, with the knowledge mined from years of finding fool’s gold, finally having learned the difference? Perhaps the riddle of it is that despite our ancient roots, we’re still looking at the tree tops, hoping to make it out of the woods for golden hour.