I’m not superstitious about much. Most of the tics I’ve picked up on this journey reflect very rational fears- they’re survival mechanisms, really, that sometimes misfire for being necessarily hair-triggered. Actual superstitions, though- I can count those on one hand.
The biggest has to do with my name- you might have noticed its absence. That’s not just good internet hygiene. That’s the real me. The me that gives false names at coffee shops to avoid hearing his own called out over the counter. The me that has used so many nicknames that even his old friends (and there are few now) would be hard-pressed to remember the root.
Why?
I don’t like people saying it, that’s all. I don’t like to think of my name in the hot air of other lungs. I don’t like the way it looks on lips and tongues. To hear my name in somebody else’s mouth is like feeling my fingers down their throat except I don’t mind that nearly as much. It’s like my fingers down their throat and then those same fingers straight into mine.
I like my name. I don’t mind saying it myself. I don’t mind whispering it to Hector, who is unlikely to repeat it. I don’t even mind seeing it written out, except that it greatly increases the chances that someone will read it aloud.
I’m also firmly in the ‘leave no trace’ crowd so you might imagine my surprise when I find myself carving my name into the trunk of a tree with my pocket knife. It’s hardly visible, for the all the hundreds of names that have come before it. But it’s there.
‘There is a short path at the end of Forest Road 4- a five-minute walk to a behemoth eyesore called ‘The Tortured Tree.’ It’s a pine tree, though it’s difficult to tell that now. Most of the branches have been torn from the trunk. Some hang loosely near the top and seem to retain needles enough for it to survive. ‘The Tortured Tree’ has been stripped of bark up to about fifteen feet. It weeps sap from the exposed wood, giving it something of a rubbery varnish where insects have not yet collected.
This devastation has been wrought by the relentless tendency of visitors to carve their names into the trunk, though ‘tendency’ might not be the right word. Those that speak of the experience describe a compulsion. Even those that have arrived with the intention of protecting the tree have lent their pocket knives to tourists or given in to the very behavior they came to prevent. Sensitive visitors report a feeling like justice as they carve letters. It isn’t as though the tree wants the names, it’s as though some outside intelligence wants the tree harmed.
‘The Tortured Tree’ falls within state jurisdiction, but rangers have been slow to respond to the vandalism. Off the record, they’ve suggested that protecting the one tree will only cause would-be vandals to target the otherwise pristine environment around it. The warnings they have issued are notably weak, never actually condemning the tradition but encouraging visitors to ‘be cool’ and to ‘do what feels right.’’
It seems a shame not to finish my name once I’ve started it. It seems impossible not to finish, really. Luckily, once the deed has been done, I feel a psychic pressure lifted and I’m able to hack the letters away again.
If someone speaks my name in the forest and I’m not around to hear it, would it still be intimate and vulgar? Probably not, but I’ll sleep easier knowing it won’t happen.
I look down and see Hector has shaved some wood from the tree himself.
“Is that your name, little buddy?” I ask, and he pees in the dirt, thinking it over.
I’ve got everything packed up to go before I rush back to the tree and really make sure my name is gone. I start on Hector’s and make sure that’s gone too. I feel better after that- actually better. I do.
Maybe I’ve gathered more tics than I thought. Can’t be helped. The Wayside is positively infested with them.
-traveler
