The six a.m. loop through Bois de Vincennes
Notes from a year of walking the same forest loop in the dark — and what the body learns when the eyes cannot.
For most of last year I walked the same loop through the eastern part of the Bois de Vincennes at six in the morning. The loop is about three and a half kilometres. It starts at the Porte Dorée gate, runs along the lake, cuts up through the chestnut grove behind the old velodrome, and comes back along the wide gravel path. In winter most of the walk is in the dark.
I had thought I was doing it for exercise. I learned, slowly, over the months, that I was doing it for the dark. The forest at six in winter is not the same forest as the forest at ten. The animals are different — you hear them but mostly you do not see them. The air smells different. The body walks differently because the eyes cannot lead, and the feet have to start paying attention.
What the chestnut grove sounds like in February
Wet. Even in dry weather it sounds wet, because the dead leaves underfoot retain moisture for weeks and they squelch under the boot the way a sponge would. There is also a soft constant percussion of small things falling — twigs, last year's burrs, the occasional acorn that the squirrels have missed. None of this is loud. You only hear it because nothing else is happening.
I started, after a few weeks, to know the grove by its sounds. The patch where the squirrels live is sharper-sounding. The patch where the brambles are thickest sounds muffled. The wide gravel section reads, in the dark, as a kind of slight echo because the trees stand back from the path there. The forest had become a map I read with my ears.
What identification I do not do
I cannot tell you the names of most of the trees in the grove. I can tell you which ones I am near, by their sound and by the way the ground feels under the boot and by the smell of their leaves. This is a different kind of knowing. I think it might be older than the names.
If you live near a forest, walk the same loop in the dark for a season. Do not look at your phone. Do not listen to anything. The forest will start to be a place rather than a backdrop, and the body, which mostly does not get to know places any more, will be quietly grateful.