By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.
Hands sanitized, car parked, checklist in hand, and not another human in sight (though plenty of vehicles in the lot), it’s time to get to work.
Today’s goal: scramble to the top of Medfield’s picturesque Noon Hill, avoiding any and all close human contact on my way. In itself, that’s not the end of the world. I’ve been seeking green spaces as a means of social escape for years, so that part of it’s completely natural to me. The woods are well suited to solitude.
I do have something of a companion, though: I’ve taken along a recording of “Robert Frost Reads His Poetry,” which came out in 1957 (you can find it on Spotify, if you’d care to replicate my experience, though I suspect an old-fashioned hard-copy would work just as well).
Maybe it’s just the influence of the venerable New England poet in my ear, but these woods have a wonderfully primordial quality about them. They feel like a place in which time doesn’t exist. They serve as a pristine canvas on which imaginative walkers can paint miniature fantasies as they go.
Looking left and right, behind abundant old fir trees, boulders, and blankets of princess pine, one can picture the landscape being silently traversed by Wampanoag scouts in search of quarry.
As somebody who’s been editing Richard DeSorgher’s work on Medfield history for years now, it’s difficult not to start imagining the initial settlers of the town, particularly as I walk by numerous old stone walls. This place must have looked and felt similar to to them as it does now, if perhaps more densely overgrown - and, in these times of pandemic, more thronged with others on the trail, who respectfully keep their distance as they pass.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
There is a mysteriousness to all wooded areas, but especially so for Noon Hill. A walk through it pitches you out of your daily routine and forces you to be fully present in the moment. You can see it most clearly in the children who blaze the trail with their parents - and there are more than usual now, with solitary outdoor activities being temporarily en vogue - whose eyes dart around the space, their senses bombarded with newness. For those of us who are nostalgic for simpler days before “screen time” became a central pillar of existence, it reminds you of an age when kids milked every last hour of daylight to explore their surroundings, dreading the distant calls of parents beckoning them to dinner.
A walk up Noon Hill reminds you of all the natural wonders that once demanded your undivided attention, back when you were more wide-eyed and your thoughts unoccupied by grown-up concerns. A turkey vulture sails above the tree-line (too big to be a red-tail, you and your hiking companion concur), causing you to crane your neck in an attempt to follow it through gaps in the canopy. A dried puffball to the side of the trail has you briefly contemplating an overdramatic stomp; you look over your shoulder to make sure there are no others in sight before indulging the impulse. A blue jay’s feather, lying against the backdrop of a bed of fallen leaves, causes you to stop in your tracks and admire.
By the time you’ve reached the summit, your already-piqued curiosity is rewarded with a panoramic view of home. How many people, over the course of history, have shared this same view with you? Ralph Wheelock? Metacomet (King Philip) himself? You briefly try to convince yourself that the trail of smoke on the distant horizon, almost surely from a local industrial site, is in fact from a campfire, or perhaps another remote village. It doesn’t take much; mental escapism comes easily in this odd moment in time.
You pause to contemplate that amidst the news reports, the uncertainty, the anxiety, such peaceful places still do exist.
Sarcastic Science she would like to know,
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out.
I take off my headphones and listen to the silence for a moment, which, in itself, is profoundly reassuring.
It’s not as dire as Frost’s “Why Wait for Science” would have you think. Noon Hill is accessible, peaceful, right around the corner, and - crucially - very conducive to social distancing.
Medfielders, take note: if you’re looking for respite from the here and now, this is it.
Medfielders should also take note that Noon Hill - along with all other Trustees’ properties, including Rocky Woods - will be closed due to coronavirus through noon on April 7.
This story could not possibly have been completed without the initial trail guidance of Ingrid and her intrepid hound, Echo, who acted as both my compass and six-feet-away-at-all-times company during my first trek up Noon Hill. My many thanks.
