John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Journal columnist

“There have been times, I have seen the reaper; in the bad times, and the good.” — Gordon Lightfoot

And now, finally, as the snapping and hissing of an electric wire is heard being dragged through gasoline on blacktop, I have arrived sound and safe inside this dusty room of books and dreams, music and mortal comforts.

Here, inside these walls, I am hoping to shed the sagging wet coat weight of another year gone by. It is New Year’s Eve and the clock is ticking. The sun has set, and the grains of sand are tumbling one by one through the neck of the hourglass.

Someone is about to drop the ball.

This night before the new year dawns for me is like sitting on the saddle of a mountain. I can look to my right and see new horizons, places where I want to go or be. If I turn to my left, I can see down the valley to the dusty, twisting road I’ve walked.

It’s a feeling I usually only experience twice each year, the other being on my birthday.

If I am thinking at my best, if I am truly aware and present, I can also look around me at where I am standing in this moment – experiencing it for everything it has to offer.

For it too, is passing quickly.

See the sky, sense the ground beneath my feet. Hear the pounding of the surf, feel the wind gusting up out of the canyon, bringing with it the sweet smells of water and life.

I sink myself down into this upholstered love seat and feel its color running into and through me — a deep cerulean, soft-textured pile — blue.

If I sort the wheat from the chaff, I’d say the past year was more chaff, though speckled with moments of magic and hope to help sustain me.

Trending up as the minutes tick down on 2021: people working to bring about peace, love, truth, understanding, honesty, forgiveness and togetherness.

Trending downward: Everyone else.

Among the highlights from the passing year were the visits of my brother and his Canuck girlfriend, both of my accomplished sons and their significant others and my two darling grandchildren.

The time we spent with them was tremendous. With some, we walked the shorelines and the forest paths in the summertime and with others, the snow-covered bluffs and backwoods in late autumn.

I spent a good deal of time, though not enough, chasing brook trout and listening to the songs of birds, frogs and grasshoppers. I saw as many constellations, planets and meteors as I could.

I sat before a few campfires and slept outside, again, though not enough. I walked many muddy trails and stood outside in the pouring rain. I heard the creatures of the night and the thunder rumbling all the way across the valley until it got right over me.

I slept in on some Saturday mornings and got up and out early on some Sundays. I am like a sponge, though saturated, I am constantly trying to pick up more.

Another highlight from 2021 was seeing the distance I have been able to push myself on a range of endeavors, from health and wellness to intellectual and educational pursuits. I have accomplished a good deal in a relatively short amount of time.

One of the highlight predictions for 2022 would be how much farther I hope to be down those pathways to greater knowing and abilities.

I’ve been inspired by a colleague who committed this past year to taking 52 hikes, one each week to help schedule time for her to engage with nature and all the truth and healing that comes with those types of encounters.

I plan to do the same in the coming year. I look forward to seeing my boots setting foot on unfamiliar shores and pathways. There will be specific things I search for in my quest for mental and spiritual enrichment.

I want to tick a few more things off my bucket list. I also want to eat more grilled cheese sandwiches and fewer words in the days ahead. I also hope to help many more people out into these great north woods to experience nature’s panacea effects.

Like most people, I would guess, I am hoping to endure fewer disappointments, falseness, frustrations, corruption, shallowness and deceit over the next 12 months.

I’d like to trade all these things in for more hugs and kisses, saunas and naps, morning walks and evening talks, if the destroyers can only put off blowing up the world for another year.

I saw a few things this year I don’t often see, including a weasel, a blue-speckled salamander and a pine marten, river otters and a handful of uncommon birds.

I broke new ground over old pathways, studied my way across numerous maps to find new directions, looking for new ways to find my way home.

I felt as high as I can ever remember being and felt every bit as low on more than one occasion. There have been many kind and touching gestures extended toward me this past year from people I’ve met or communicated with.

Though I hate to admit it, I think there were more tears shed over the past year than in the past few combined. Here’s to better days ahead!

Sip the eggnog.

Bottoms up.

More nutmeg?

Sure, why not?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

Another year forward means another year farther behind are the hurts and the pain of yesterday. Like forgiveness, love and time are healers. With age comes wisdom, for those who live long enough.

Death is not often patient.

The dark reaper’s scythe cuts down the wheat when it’s time to harvest, not any sooner nor later.

Seasons don’t fear the reaper, nor do the wind or the sun and the rain. We can be like they are.

Chopin’s nocturnes are in my ears. The small size of this room compliments its comforts, like the rocking chair over there, fashioned from tree branches. My walls are adorned with framed posters of some of my favorite musicians or show bills from the performances they’ve staged.

There are still several people I’d like to see perform live, national parks I’d like to lay my head down in and rivers I’d like to toss a line into – maybe for a Dolly Varden or a cut-throat or a golden trout.

The past two years of the pandemic have shown me that I am far less comfortable with a sedentary lifestyle than I once might have thought. I need to get up and go before my get up has got up and went.

Old streets to walk down with wrought-iron fences and cracked sidewalks, old and battered wooden siding and roofing shingles on houses built in those mining times to many decades ago.

For me, now three score and a few months, I won’t mind when Father Time tells me my dance card is full. I’ll gladly hang up my rock-n-roll shoes and head on home.

But in the meantime, I hope the next year will see me taking advantage of every moment and opportunity I can to get in deeper touch with my surroundings. I know that the more I watch, the more I understand.

Woodpeckers land on tree trunks above the suet cages and then shift their weight back down in short hops to get to where they want to be. Bats float on summer’s cooling evening breezes, using echolocation to track their insect prey.

Creepers land at the base of trees and then make their way up the trees, circling the trunks. Flying squirrels are amazing animals to watch and enjoy, especially when they jump into the air.

Today, a walk.

Tomorrow, a walk.

The next day, another.

By the end of next year, I should be home from my hiking, having seen a whole wide world of fascinating things. The experience that awaits excites me.

For now, more eggnog, more leftover Christmas cookies and a prayer for the living and toast to the dead.

I’m sleepy now in the arms of this love seat.

My eyelids are getting heavy.

I think it’s more likely than not that my next realizations of my surroundings will take place amid the cries of the new year already born.

Happy new year, baby.

Shake your rattle. Drink some milk.

Get some sleep before the world knows you’re here.

Love to love to love to love to love.

Editor’s note: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.