This is just a little picture of a very simple happiness that I have enjoyed so many times on walks through woods.
.
It's May.
Isaac is 2. Wind is 5.
Clint thought he did alright as a dad. He knew what not to do and navigated the rest with Natasha at his side. It was when he took his boys out wandering in the woods that he felt like a number one dad. There was almost nothing from his childhood that he wished to replicate for his children, but he could give them the one thing he remembered bringing him happiness. As children he and his brother always had that escape. The forest on the edge of their farm was the healing quiet after their father's drunken rages. It was the kingdom of pretend when beyond it there were only ugly realities. When it was time to go home they could place their innocence safely in the care of one of the old trees where it would be waiting for them when they came running back.
Like he and his older brother, his boys too had their favorite games to play, favorite things to glimpse and their favorite sounds to hear. Clint loved the sound of trees creaking and branches rubbing in the breeze. Once in a while he went to take naps in the grass beside the tree line so he could doze off to those sounds. As a kid sometimes he would climb up in a tree and just listen. His sons loved the sound woodpeckers made drilling holes in trees. To hear that was always the jackpot on every venture. Natasha too had always loved that sound.
The forest was often a cacophony of birds, squirrels, breeze and rustling leaves, falling acorns or twigs. Other times it was still and mostly quiet with only a few bird voices sounding out here or there and echoing through the trunks and branches. The afternoon was one of those quiet times. The boys and their dad walked their familiar path and the peace all around them encouraged their silence. Clint walked with Isaac atop his shoulders while Wind tramped along ahead of them. The little boy had a stick in one hand as was his custom and he waved it up and down as he walked. It tapped the dirt with every other step he took. This had become a custom ever since walking face first into a spider's web that spanned across the path. That, and he usually had a stick to play with at any given moment.
Wind heard the familiar sound and stopped in his tracks. His stick hovered just over the ground, halted on his way back to the dirt. Clint, only a few paces behind, stopped too and watched him listen. The sun filtering through the trees bathed the forest floor around them in warm pools of light and golden speckles. The May breeze pushed the boy's reddish hair across his forehead. Clint listened too, waiting. The boughs and branches above them creeked as they swayed gently. Birds both near and further off whistled and peeped, going about their daily activities. Isaac, who seemed always to be listening, sat perfectly still on Clint's shoulders. His fingers were linked together on his dad's forehead keeping him secure. His quiet breathing was caught up in the light breeze but Clint could feel his little heart beating against the back of his head.
Then, somewhere above them the drumming of a woodpecker at work sounded out again.
Wind turned quickly. "There's a woodpecker, dad!"
Clint smiled. He gave Isaac's leg a little shake. "Hear him, buddy?" He felt the child give a vigorous nod.
They waited, listening to the woodpecker stop and start its work somewhere up above them. Then, in one of the pauses, the little read headed bird appeared, flying low between the trees and back up until landing on another very close to where they stood. Clint watched Wind following the bird's progress as it hopped up the tree trunk in total defiance of gravity searching for food beneath the bark
Wind squinted into the sun dappled canopy, completely entranced by the little's animal's simple pursuit of food.
None of them moved until the woodpecker finished. It hopped in one final circle then, satisfied its work was completed, flitted off the tree and disappeared into the sunny afternoon.
