this must be the place

Adam Sawyer, Silver Falls, Silverton, OR.

Thirst enhances the sensory experience Pamela Sue Johnson seeks while hiking the moss-enveloped forests surrounding Lake Merwin in Amboy, Washington. “I like to eat the forest when I walk,” she said, bending over to pick a wood sorrel. She slips it in her mouth and chews briefly, examining the taste. “That’s a nice, sweet one,” she said with a satisfied exhale.

She revels in the moment before carrying on. Gravel crunches under her weathered leather boots. The echo bouncing around the forest a reminder of Lake Merwin’s remoteness.

On the way to her favorite kayaking spot, her enthusiasm for the scenery reveals itself in keen observation and freewheeling humor. She notes the “tall, striking blooms” of nascent lupines, bending the adjectives to give them form with her voice. When a big leaf maple tree catches her eye, she mimics its contortions almost instinctively. “Look at her, she’s voluptuous,” she said. “Look at her, man. She’s sassy. That’s a good-looking tree.”

Johnson’s family once owned a small residence by Lake Merwin. The bond she’s developed with Merwin is years in the making. “Lake Merwin is my favorite therapist,” Johnson said.

The reservoir is now an essential part of Johnson. In turn, she too has become a part of it. The lakebed contains several mementos Johnson has cast into Merwin over the years in the pursuit of finally letting the past go. A necklace an ex-boyfriend made her now lies somewhere under Yale Bridge.

At the tip of Johnson’s favorite trail is a boneyard rich with animal remains. She brushes her hand through a thin layer of leaves with an archaeologist’s precision. A few vertebrae surface. “I just feel so much life force, so much energy,” she said, assessing her discoveries. She tucks her selections into her backpack.

They will end up adorning the “Wishing Tree” outside her home. Passersby are encouraged to write down their desires and tie them to the evergreen’s branches. Backwoods bones rarely find themselves engulfed by strangers. But Johnson thinks it’s the least she can do to give back to the place that has so empathetically enveloped her.

Adam Sawyer exploring the nature around them, Silverton, OR.

Rushes of white water from North Falls in Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park create a hypnotic drone that blankets the rustling forest. Only the occasional bird call breaks through. Above, a pale white sky contrasts the lush greenery. Adam Sawyer scans it for birds.

A memory dawns on him.

He is transported back to the early morning beach walks he would take in Tillamook following the loss of his wife, Kara, in a house fire on Feb. 25, 2022. Cormorants fly in jagged, anxious patterns above him. They contrast the pelicans, who soar and coast with grace. “I remember thinking, ‘If I’m ever in a place where I have the opportunity to fly again, I’ll try to remember what I learned from the pelicans,’” he said.

Sawyer herds his epiphanies into his blog, “Collecting Sunsets.” Its meditations on grief often intertwine his loss with wide-eyed reverence for the outdoors. No detail is disregarded. Sawyer might pass a tangle of tree roots on a hike. Suddenly, that rears a revelation about persevering in defiance of life’s hurdles. As Sawyer said, “You grow the way you have to grow.”

Research by the National Institutes of Health indicates a strong correlation between outdoor exposure and improved mental well-being. For many, like Sawyer, developing an intimate relationship with the natural world helps in navigating hardships.

When he first discovered Silver Falls, it was a refuge from his old IT job. He fell in love with the whimsically-named wildflowers — salmonberries and fairyslippers and candyflowers — and trails that wind for miles into patches of solitude. There he could find comfort in feeling “like a wonderfully useful small cog” in the world.

Sawyer’s recollections of walking behind waterfalls and losing himself in spring’s “greening out of everything” reveal adoration in his voice. Every change he notes from last season’s visit uncovers something new that helped soften his grief. “The way I hike has changed since the loss,” he said. “I'm not really counting mileage or elevation gain anymore, or even hours spent. I’m just observing and paying attention to the cycles.”

He picks up a vine maple leaf that winter discarded. Time has sapped its chlorophyll, leaving it as frail as rice paper. Still, the leaf perseveres. Soon it will reintegrate into the soil.

The most remarkable moments for Sawyer come when something clicks during a trek and an entire essay pours out. “It feels almost inspired, right?” he said. “Like, ‘Oh my gosh, this just came out the way it had to come out.’” In a post entitled “My Favorite Places,” Sawyer called his home with Kara “unequivocally my favorite place on Earth.” Where can he go when that is gone?

Nature is indefinite. So be it. Sawyer isn’t interested in definite answers, he prefers to go “hunting for perspectives.” “Perspectives, for me, give insight without the answer part,” he said. “I don’t have the answers to why Kara’s life ended, but I at least have the perspective that life continues.”

It’s uncertain how the coming seasons will alter Silver Falls’ landscape. On this spring morning, Sawyer’s eye catches the clover-green leaves of a wood sorrel. He picks it and relishes the sweet taste. For a few minutes more, his thirst for tranquility has been slaked.

Pamela Johnson, Amboy, WA.