Into the Wild
On Friday I felt the need for forest. Brighton isn’t a large city, but it is bustling and dense, and since the sun was shining, it seemed like a good time to get out of the city and into some green, far from people.
A look at the map revealed an enticingly titled “Moulsecoomb Wild Park” green blob, north of the city on the way to Lewes. Sam was game, so off we went on the #25 bus. We got to sit in our favorite seats at the very front of the top deck and watch the bustle from on high, including an intrepid biker who at one point was sandwiched between 4 buses. I missed the shot but you can see him pulling away from the bus sandwich now.
We turned off of busy North Street and went past the Pavilion–Brighton’s castle–the pleasure palace built for the Prince Regent (George IV). This is where he came to get away from the hustle and bustle of early 19th-century London.
Sam said, “How did they get those pointy points way up there? Did they use a crane?”
I said, “No, I don’t think they had cranes back then.”
“Oh,” she said, “Maybe they used a ladder.”
The bus took us farther up Lewes Road, past the University of Brighton, and gradually the road widened and the buildings stretched out and wild space looked promising.
Especially because I managed to get us off the bus in time. Negotiating the twisty stairs down to the lower deck on a careening bus with a 4 year old in tow is exactly as tricky as it sounds. I always stumble down first so that Sam can land on me if need be.
Right place, wrong time. See those dark clouds? They were getting ready to dump rain on us. But I am desperately trying to embrace a saying I heard in the Bay Area before we left: “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” So on we went, into the entrance of the Wild Park which leads onto a football pitch and a graffiti-covered derelict café. On the hill behind the football pitch we saw red flames and rising smoke. A fire, but not a wild one. It was controlled. We heard chain saws and shouts of men. We followed a trash-strewn trail away from the fire, and just as we saw where the trail penetrated the woods, it started to rain.
Sam grumbled. “I’m not used to forests with trash and chain saws and fires and stuff!”
Indeed. There was far too much civilization in the Wild Park and the only thing nature was feeling generous with was rain. Still, we sludged into the forest. My one hope was that the trees might shield us from the worst of the pelting rain, and if they didn’t, then we could go explore the pub across the street from the bus shelter.
The trees didn’t shield us from the rain much, but they did something better.
They distracted us.
Suddenly the forest was mysterious, mossy, twisting, falling, limbs creaking in the wind. Green. But not with youth. Green with age. At last, I thought. Into the wild. The wild of the old country. The forests of stories.
Sam was as excited as I was. “Look, Mommy, this tree looks like an alligator!”
The moss did things to Sam’s imagination. She decided we were in an Emerald Forest and that I was the Scarecrow and she the Tin Woodman. She is holding her axe in the picture.
Then the moss did something to my vision. I had to blink a couple of times. Was that a stick ladder over the fallen tree trunk?
Now we were really excited. Who built the ladder? And why? Was this some ongoing forest project? A kid’s secret playground? Do people live here? Wood nymphs? Little people? Hobbits?
The more we looked the more wooden ladders we saw:
Some looked recent. All of them were fitted seamlessly into the landscape, such that these planned structures looked as careless, wild and haphazard as the fallen trunks that supported them.
Finally we’d found the wild.
Then we saw the tracks.
Tire tracks. Mountain bike tire tracks.
Then we saw this crazy ladder and I knew that we hadn’t stumbled onto some mysterious wood dwelling, ladder building folk village, but rather an ordinary mountain bike course.
Or maybe not so ordinary. Can you imagine how fast you’d have to be going to ride across that ladder and stay on it?
My wild vision dashed, we left the mountain bike course and headed up the ridge.
The sun came out and the green trees glowed.
At the top of the ridge we had a lovely view of the north:
and a blinding view of the south and the sea and Brighton:
We turned south and trekked down a long meadow frequented by magpies and dogwalkers. Ahead of us and below were buildings and cars and people. The mossy laddered forest felt far away. The Tin Woodman turned to me and said, “Mommy, it looks like Berkeley!”
It was an apt remark because when we got to the bottom we came out into the University of Brighton campus.
It took us 10 minutes to cross the busy Lewes road to get to the bus shelter and then we sat at the back of a jam-packed bus full of Uni students, that took us back to the wild of Brighton, where it was sunny and noisy and peopled and not so green.