The Feeling of a Forest

The German language seems to have a word for everything.

Joe sits in the middle of a clearing in a forest not far from home. Jeans cling to skinny legs, tired and aching. It’s been a long walk. This feeling though, is worth it.

Waldeinsamkeit: the feeling of being at peace in the woods.

The breeze rustles through the trees as Joe lays against a stump, a raincoat behaving as a pillow, folded delicately into a semi-round structure, pressing gently into the back of the neck, cold and soft. The material crinkles. It sounds a little like the trees are whispering in Joe’s ears. Air rushes over his skin, making it prickle. Animals cherub and rustle around him and he sucks the green/blue air (if air had a colour) into his lungs.

Waldeinsamkeit is the only word to describe this feeling.

Joe moved to England three months ago. Papa got a job here. Some place called Cornwall.

Joe is yet to see any corn on a wall and subsequently thinks the name is stupid. Perhaps something like Forestpocket or something might be more suitable. Joe doesn’t know if the whole of Cornwall has forests, but he is glad his house is close to this one.

A few days ago, Joe asked his Mama whether he could explore the forest. His Mama replied in English; Joe’s Mama is trying to learn English by speaking it, badly.

‘No. I am about to dinner make.’

‘make dinner,’ Joe replied.

‘I am about to make dinner,’ Mama repeated. Then, in German, ‘why are the words all in the wrong order.’

‘They would say the same to us. I guess.’ Joe shrugged.

The front door clicked open and Joe hung from the doorframe, peering down the hallway. The vague shadow of Papa took shape through the frosted glass before his full frame shuffled into the hallway, scraping his feet on the welcome mat. Papa does not make an effort to speak English at work. Joe thinks it is because he speaks English at work all day and doesn’t want to forget German for when they go back.

Right now there is no German and English. Trees don’t have a language but but the feeling of waldeinsamkeit is a language.

Mama knew what he needed before he could speak. She gave it to him. But now, he has all the words in two languages and no one can hear what he needs. Apart from the trees. Joe doesn’t want to start a new school where they have to pray every day in assembly. The new school starts at 9am and finishes at 3.30pm. It is all wrong. Joe needs his friends from home and his Grandparents meeting him after school every day (at 12.30 noon) with his bright red bike that didn’t fit in the luggage. All his teachers said he had promise and could go to the gymnasium. Now he has to go to a secondary school. Which doesn’t sound as good as a primary school. But apparently older kids can’t go to a primary school. It means ‘first school’ not ‘best school’, Joe was told.

‘I hate my new school,’ Joe tells the trees. They whisper in the response and the breeze wraps him up.

The forest stills, waiting for Joe to tell it the next secret.

‘I want to go back to Germany.’

But the forest stays still because it knows this is not a secret.

‘Okay, tough guy, you want a real secret?’

A bird chirps and Joe scrambles to his feet.

‘I’m scared I won’t make any new friends, or teach Mama English right, or get good marks in school and…’ he starts to shout ‘…and that Opa was die before I go home.’

The forest ripples.

Joe’s tears run down his face. Air flows into his lungs as he gasps for air, cleaned by the trees. He notices he is crying. The forest doesn’t mind that he is crying. Not like Mama and Papa. They ask him where it hurts and he says it doesn’t which just means that there is no need for crying. No need for crying.

Opa says the forest is the best place to scream because everyone and no one can hear you. Especially on a windy day. The forest can keep secrets that no friends or family can keep because the forest doesn’t speak the same language as humans. It doesn’t speak like humans, Opa believes, it speaks to humans in ways we could never understand. Like telepathy, without the magic.

If waldeinsamkeit could exist anywhere else it wouldn’t be waldeinsamkeit. It would just be a feeling. Without the forest. And Joe has plenty of them.

Mama said that Joe can only explore as far as the brown fence that marks the end of the neighbours farmland. The neighbour seems nice and sometimes lets Joe feed the chickens. He even let Joe give milk to the lambs right after they were born.

Joe tries to think of a word for the feeling of being at peace with an animal.

He can’t think of it right now, but is sure that there is one. Or that there should be one.

A squirrel, a grey one, springs across scattered leaves and starts digging. Joe watches it, still as a tree. The squirrel stops and stares at him for a moment before going back to digging below the new buds and old leaves.

The squirrel feels at peace with Joe. He watches it dig for a while before it scuttles away with something round and brown.

Joe flops back down onto his tree stump.

The farmers brown fence is a long way behind him. At least a 20 minute walk on his tired legs. He checks his watch. It’s only 3pm.

This time tomorrow, Joe thinks, he will still be stuck in school and he won’t even have time after school to come into the forest before dinner. Then it will be dark and there is no chance Mama will let him explore in the dark.

Since moving, Joe never expected that waldeinsamkeit would be reserved for weekends.

If waldeinsamkeit could exist anywhere else it would just be a feeling. And Joe has plenty of those.