The Scariest Thing in the Woods
She's a menace.
What you are reading right now is my only defense against a cursor that has been blinking at me — no — taunting me for days.
“What? Are? You? Going? To? Do? Next?” it seems to say, never deviating from its relentless rhythm.
I glare back at it. Writing and then deleting, writing and deleting. Just when I feel like I’m on to something, I stop, let out a huff and…
*tap, tap, tap, taptaptaptaptaptaptap*
The page blank, it’s just me and the cursor…again.
“What? Are? You? Going? To? Do? Now?”
Without another word (quite literally) I would do anything else, anything but write.
Despite what they tell you on motivational posters, I think there can be freedom in giving up on things sometimes. Rather than going crazy getting nowhere, better to disengage, regroup and reevaluate. Is this something worth working on or do I need to let it go entirely? Am I burned out, lazy or just experiencing stress associated with sentience in the year 2025?
Whatever the case, time away in times of trouble is beneficial. It provides the space to work through our challenges and emerge more productive on the other side — at least this is what I told myself when I set off for a walk in the woods to “clear my head.”
Turns out my head had other ideas.
It was a beautiful day — sun shining, just warm enough to chase the chill out of the wind that blew through the treetops. I breathed deep — taking in the smell of damp earth and surprised to see a thin carpet of grass emerging on a path I’d last seen covered in snow. Patches of sunlight revealed downed logs in fuzzy moss coats and the woods were alive with sounds of Spring.
I breathed deep again and my mind started to wander.
“What if,” I wondered, “what would happen if… someone dragged you off this path and left you for dead?”
That would have been bad enough but it didn’t end there.
“What would come first?” The thoughts continued. “Insects? Probably, right? Or is it too cold for all of them still?”
I looked over my shoulder and picked up the pace.
“What is wrong with you?” I mumbled, probably a little too loudly and momentarily feared hearing an actual answer from under a collection of branches or from behind a tree.
To my dismay, the very same brain that had spent the past several days locked in a stubborn refusal to think of anything useful whatsoever, had chosen this moment to get creative.
“Unbelievable,” I thought and then, “this is Stephen King’s fault.”
It’s not what you might think. I read a recommendation for King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. The horror he delves into in this book involves his own experiences as a writer. He also dispenses his best advice for aspiring authors. The article I read specifically mentioned King advising writers to make sure they are reading as much as they are writing, calling it a key component of success.
I felt ahead of the game. Having already vowed to read more, I recently picked up The God of the Woods by Liz Moore — a book everyone seems to have read already and they all speak of it in the same way — an exaggerated intake of breath followed by a hushed, and conspiratorial, “keep going and let me know when you’re done!” One woman told me she was giving it some time, but couldn’t wait to read it again.
Central to the plot of this story: a child who vanishes… in the woods.
Even with my imagination, I cannot make this stuff up.
I breathed in again — laughing now at the absurdity of it all.
“You’re your own worst enemy.”
I told myself to relax and not worry so much about, well, everything — but especially this recent bout of writer’s block.
“Something will come,” I told myself. “It always does.”
That’s when a sudden rustle of leaves stopped me cold. My head instinctively snapped toward the sound. I waited, eyes darting — only to find the woods carrying on business as usual.
A passage from the book came to mind — a character’s reference to Pan — the actual God of the Woods and the etymological inspiration for the word “panic.”
To panic, the character explains, is to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm is to be its friend.
I took in another deep breath, my chin rising, the weight of my head sinking back into my stiffened neck. I watched the treetops elegantly negotiate sharp gusts of wind, closed my eyes and willed myself to not be afraid.
This essay appeared in my column in the March 27, 2025 edition of The Perry Herald in Perry, NY.