Old-Growth Forest
By Krista Drechsel
@kristadrechsel
I dip my paddle into upside-down pine trees and cotton candy clouds, the steady slosh of each stroke syncing effortlessly with my husband’s. I can still see the dock behind us in the distance, but already I feel free, like I have grown wings, like I can skim the water's surface alongside the birds swooping nearby.
Once each year, my husband and I leave our children with their grandparents and drive north to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. With over one million acres of preserved wilderness stretching between Minnesota and Ontario, it is the perfect place to reconnect, to find each other again in the midst of something bigger and wilder and wiser than us.
We’ve canoed these same lakes several times over the years, but today is the first time I pay more attention to the forest than the rippling water. Thanks to a recently acquired Midwest nature guide, I now know a few things about the trees that make up these woods.
My husband sits in the canoe’s stern, steering silently, while I chatter on about every evergreen I can spot. I point to the red pine, the jack pine, the cedar. I tell him everything I know about how they survive.
I do not tell him evergreens are my favorite because they know how to adapt, how to remain green and vibrant in every season. I do not tell him evergreens are a metaphor. I do not tell him that, when I talk about evergreens, I am really talking about us.
***
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota contains 455,000 acres of old-growth forest. Unlike other forests, old-growth forests consist of trees that are hundreds of years old and have survived every catastrophe, against all odds.
While fire, logging, disease, and heavy winds have wiped out numerous trees in surrounding areas, these sturdy forests remain.
***
When our stomachs begin to grumble and our biceps begin to burn, my husband and I paddle to the rocky shore and sit on sun-soaked boulders. We stretch out our legs and dig apples, Clif bars, and beef jerky from our packs.
A strong wind whips across the lake. I watch one tree bend toward another in the wind like it’s yearning to be held up, heavy with the weight of unspoken questions.
I think back to the moment at the bagel shop, ten years earlier. We had been dating for a year, and the previous night, had spent hours slow dancing at my brother’s wedding reception. I had wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling so certain about my love for him, so confident about our future together. I had hoped he might finally feel the same way.
As much as he had loved me those first months together, his cautious, hesitant nature triggered some of my deepest fears—that I needed to convince others to love me back, and even then I couldn’t trust them to fight for me when I really needed them.
Sitting across the table from him, both of our bagels left untouched, most of what I remember is visceral—all body and raw emotion. Me, leaning in, asking and asking and asking. Him, sitting back in his chair, looking blankly out the window, silent and silent and silent.
“Take me home,” I said.
We did not speak the entire drive there.
Will you be there when I need you?
Can I find you? Can I trust you?
I watch a loon’s midnight head disappear underwater and think about how I have been this tree—the one leaning in, the one with all the questions.
***
One of the signifying features of old-growth forests is their abundance of fallen logs and snags—portions of dead trees that remain standing. While the tallest, strongest trees are hallmarks of the old-growth forest, they are not the most vital part of its ecosystem. Downed logs and hollowed snags host new growth, foster habitats for wildlife, and add nutrients to the soil.
In other words, every part of the forest is necessary for survival—especially what the trees have discarded and outgrown. Without the fallen, weaker pieces, there would be no old-growth forest at all.
***
There are times I feel as though I cannot reach my husband. There are times we are ghosts floating through each other, carrying baskets of laundry and half-empty coffee mugs, invisible lists of who will do what and when, and the weight of a dozen burdens stacked tenuously on our own shoulders. It’s as though I am paddling, straining hard against the wind, and the harder I paddle, the further away from shore I become.
“Sometimes,” I tell him as we reach the next portage, “I feel like I can’t reach you—like you’re so far away, and I’m left all by myself.”
We cross the rooted path and settle the Kevlar canoe into the lake, carefully avoiding the jagged rocks hidden just under the water’s surface.
He is quiet for a moment. “Do you feel like you can reach me right now?” he asks, steering us away from the rocks.
I pause briefly before nodding. I do not turn around to look at him. I do not tell him I am scared to lose him again, that if he is the tree holding me up in the wind, then I am the one trying to trust it will hold.
***
In couple’s therapy several weeks prior, I finally said it.
I finally spoke aloud my fear that I had somehow forced his hand—roped him into a marriage and a life in which he felt he had to settle. I wondered out loud if he was really here because he wanted to be here, or because I had done a thorough job convincing him.
The words tasted bitter coming out of my mouth. This fear had no basis, no true foundation in our marriage, and yet it had returned over and over through the years, its gnarled roots twisting miles deep. If I were this tree, nested deep inside all its concentric rings would be the child who often ached for meaningful connection, who felt uncertain that she could trust her parents to be there when she most needed them, who learned to weigh carefully her desire to fully give herself over to loving and trusting with the knowledge that this sense of safety would never last.
In the back of my head, the same questions played in a continuous loop.
Will you be there when I need you?
Can I find you? Can I trust you?
Our therapist said my name, jolting me back to the present.
“Look,” she said. “He’s right here with you.”
***
When the sun begins to creep lower in the sky, my husband and I stop to rest on a small rocky island in the middle of the lake. We sit next to the island’s singular tree jutting out from a crack in the rock, far away from the rest of the forest.
My husband gestures to it with his hand. “This is your kind of tree,” he says, and we both smile. It has only been in the last two years that he and I have begun to deeply understand each other’s pain and fear. We smile because we know each other better than we ever have. We smile because it is a relief to be fully seen and loved.
He’s right. I have been this tree—the one determined to make it on its own, to stay a safe distance away from any potential risk, perceived or otherwise—just me and the rock and the water.
“How can a tree survive like this?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he says.
On our drive home from the Boundary Waters, he will take my hand and offer reassurance over sandwiches and french fries. He will ask me if I can find a way to trust, if I can resist the urge to pull away and protect myself, if I can find the courage to try and tell myself a new story. I will remember this lonely tree. I will look at his face and remind my body that I am safe, that I can take in the reassurance and love he is offering.
I will promise him that I will try.
But at this moment, I say nothing. We paddle away from the rocky island and its crooked tree, him steering in the back, both of us pulling hard on our paddles to keep moving forward.
***
At another couple’s therapy session, our therapist slowly wore me down. She chipped away at all my hard layers until they gave way, until I finally verbalized the questions that had been playing in the back of my head:
“Will you be there when I need you?”
“Can I find you? Can I trust you?”
I had spent so much of my life keeping myself safe and protected by keeping these questions to myself, by believing the answer would always be no.
But in that moment, I let the pieces fall. If I wanted to build a marriage that could weather anything—and I did—it would mean learning how to let the parts that once protected me crumble to the ground and grow into something new.
My husband reached over and squeezed my knee. He offered reassurance, gentleness, patience. But when our therapist asked me to look at his face, I could hardly do it. What if he thought I was simply too much? Or worse, what if his face registered nothing at all? It felt safer to remain guarded, on my own.
When I did finally steal a glance, he seemed solid, secure, a reassuring smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Can you take this in?” she asked. “Can you accept what he is offering?”
***
On the final stretch of our canoe trip, when our arms are on fire and the wind threatens to push us off course, when we shriek into the face of the howling gusts and can hardly hear each other, our faces silent movies of laughter, my husband yells something up to me from the back of the canoe.
“What?” I crane my neck and watch his mouth carefully.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be!” he says.
Pushing my hair out of my face, I let my eyes meet his.
For the first time, I believe him.
Guest essay written by Krista Drechsel. Krista is a wife and mother to two girls and lives in Minneapolis, MN. A lover of all things outdoors, she relishes long hikes in the woods, canoeing with her husband, and exploring new places. If she's not outside, you can find her drinking coffee, playing the piano, writing poetry, and staying up way too late with a book. She believes in the power of words to help us feel seen, held, and loved. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Substack.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.