Frankly ... integrated  A Walk in the Woods

On boredom, hobgoblins and deer families: Sineb El Masrar used to take Sunday hikes in the woods with her parents. She reminisces – and explains why she still gets a thrill out of walks in the countryside today.
 

Each year starts out cold and damp or snowy, sometimes both. And it’s been that way since my childhood. Many childhood traditions stay with us into adulthood. Like it or not, they leave an indelible mark on our thoughts, actions and feelings. One tradition I thoroughly enjoy now, but sometimes found pretty dull as a kid, is going for a walk with my parents on Sundays. I grew up in Lower Saxony, which is very flat and has plenty of farmland, but also woods, parks and stately gardens. Hanover’s Herrenhausen Gardens, for example, are well known in Germany and definitely worth a visit next time you happen to be in the state capital.

But my parents took me on walking tours mainly in the woods, where we undertook long hikes in every season. I perceived the forest differently as a child. For some time I wondered whether there were little hobgoblins there, or dwarfs who dwelt at the foot of trees and could talk to the animals. Back in the day when there were no smartphones or podcasts to listen to during a long walk, I would gaze up into the treetops and listen to the birdsong, stroke the soft moss growing by the wayside, gather pine cones and pick sap off the tree trunks. Sometimes it was too repetitious, doing the same things every time, but there were special moments, too, so I always looked forward excitedly to our next Sunday hike. After the harvests, there was still the odd sugar beet left lying in the vast fields, which I’d promptly pick up and take home with me. Or, at another season, the asparagus mounds I’d stick my little hands into to feel for the long white stalks. But the animals were much more exciting. Partridges and cranes, for example, sometimes whole flocks of them: when I hollered “yoo-hoo!” the big birds would flap their broad wings and fly up into the sky. Sometimes there were cows in the pastures on the way to the woods. Fascinated, I’d watch them chewing monotonously and imitate their mooing in an effort to chat with them, in my childish imagination, about the cold, damp weather. Though I never received a “moo” in reply.

But the most exciting thing was deer. I was utterly spellbound at the sight. I’d hold my breath and very slowly draw closer to them, though unfortunately I never got close enough to pet one. But every time I saw a deer, I was over the moon. And I was particularly thrilled when it was a whole little family of deer out for a Sunday stroll, like us. I wondered if the little fawns got bored from time to time too. Or did they feel threatened by our nearby presence? After all, we humans have succeeded in threatening animals in their natural habitats since time immemorial.

I still enjoy a walk in the woods today. Even in such cold, damp weather. Usually with a companion, or if by myself, then with earbuds on, listening to a podcast or audiobook. But when a deer shows up by the wayside, I switch everything off and marvel at its innocence as if it were the very first time I’d ever seen one.
 
 

February 2023