By LYS GRANIER
Photo courtesy of the author.
Montréal, Québec, Canada
Le petit bois a brûlé. Le petit bois a brûlé. Where I went to pick up asparagus in the spring. Where I saw a dead mole on the path and cried for hours. Where we had that secret patch of mushrooms. Des petits gris, my parents called them. Where the pines smelled of summer and safety. Where I went for my first walk in the snow. The only time I saw the woods in the snow. Where I threw a handful of road gravel in the tiny stream every time I crossed the bridge. The wood where I pictured my dad reincarnated as a fox. Where we had to wear red and be loud during hunting season. Where boars would dig up moss on the side of the path.
I feel such an immense sense of loss. This wood was my escape. It was where I learned to see, to really see. Where my dad taught me the scientific names of plants. Where he said, “chut! Tu entends cet oiseau? C’est un pic”. My dad is gone and so is the wood.
I found out on Google Maps. I dreamt of my home, this home in Assas, France my dad sold thirteen years ago. This home, where most of my dreams are still set, is frozen in time. I drifted a bit on the map, as I always do, to see my wood. Mon petit bois. And it was gone. Grey, charred, gone.
From my bed in Montreal, I have lost a part of me. I have lost a friend, a presence that was forever.
On the day my dad was cremated, I brought my partner to mon petit bois. We walked the old path and we picked wild asparagus. The wood was still there for me, unchanged. The same patches of moss where I remembered them. The same sound of the pines in the wind, unmistakable.
My partner just found me crying and I told him about my woods. He said it was natural, that it would grow back someday. Of course it will. But it will never be mon petit bois. I will never see the fox in the clearing again.
Lys Granier is a French Montreal-based writer and social geographer. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Passages North, PRISM International, Hobart, and more. You can find her at lysgranier.com and on Instagram @montrealys.
