The Magical Woods of Duncan
about a place that holds decades of memories and prayers (and maybe where actual fairies live)
Someone with the name of Duncan, a century and a half ago, saw fit to save a forty acre plot of un-touched dune forest from the demise of logging and development along the shores of Lake Michigan.
A small stone wall flanks both sides of the entrance to a driveway lined with towering Canadian hemlock trees. When I turn into the entrance from the busy city street, I’m no longer near the hospital and close to the downtown shops of Grand Haven, I’m transported into another world as the trees hem me in. Fallen logs, layers of brown leaves and beech nuts carpet the forest floor. A small herd of deer munch on foliage and raise their heads only an inch to acknowledge my presence as I drive by. The road dead ends into a parking lot, and from that vantage point I feel like I am in the center of a large bowl, hills sloping up away from me on multiple sides. I can choose to walk on the paved path through the center of the park, a former continuation of the road I drove in on, now blocked off for foot traffic only, or choose one of the many winding trails through the woods.
I see an unmarked trailhead under a large arched Hemlock branch, duck my head slightly and enter the forest. As I walk up a gentle slope, cherry red mushrooms begin to erupt from the earth on either side of the trail. Speckled toad stools, like bread crumbs, mark the distance I've traveled and awaken my wonder. Ahead of me a deer laps from a puddle in the hollow of a decayed beech tree. It turns to assess my threat level as the light cascading through the trees glimmers off its full rack of polished antlers, perfectly weighted with six points on either side. I hold my body as still as possible, but it seems entirely unbothered by my presence. Movement in the corner of my vision catches my attention, and I turn to see a trail of fairies giving each other chase through the tree canopy. The wind kicks up and a burst of leaves hurl into the air from the forest floor and begin to swirl around me, carrying me along.
Ok, not quite.
But immediately upon entering Duncan woods, it feels magical—it feels like anything could be possible.
It’s easy to feel peace and to notice the presence of God when I walk the familiar trails. It’s quiet, but not in an eerie way, in a safe way. It’s as if you know the trees will keep all your secret whispered prayers to themselves. A Duncan woods visit is always ripe with nostalgia for the decades of experiences I’ve shared there with those I love.
It feels a bit like coming home.
The history I have with this place begins almost 20 years ago as a sixteen year old girl following her first love through the trails, searching for geocaches (aka, treasure). For two decades now, I have collected moments of joy, wonder, contemplation, rest, deep conversation, movement, and amusement in the Magical Woods of Duncan.
Like the stones of remembrance God commanded Joshua to collect when they entered the promised land as a memorial of God’s provision for Israel, and like the stone pillars Jacob set up to mark the places where God spoke to him, I have collected 10 small stories as stones to lay before you here. I lay them before you to say, this place has been the setting of dozens of small, beautiful moments that I cherish. Duncan woods has been a consistent backdrop of God’s faithfulness and kindness toward me.
2005: Our senior year of Highschool (we went to different schools), Michael became friends with Gui, a foreign exchange student in his class from Brazil. It was Gui’s first winter, so when we got a heavy snow, Michael brought Gui and I to Duncan Woods to sled (a couple of its hills are frequent sledding spots in winter). I remember sharing in the sheer joy of Gui’s glee as he careened down the hill, white powder flying everywhere. I remember falling in love with how Michael made people feel seen, and with his quiet pursuit of simple adventures.
2009: After five years of dating, and having already picked out a ring, I knew Michael was going to ask me to marry him–I just didn’t know when or how. On a late August day, sun high, heat sweltering, golden light dressing the grass covered sledding hill at Duncan Woods in splendor, Michael pulled out his handheld GPS. “The geocache is hidden just up this hill through the trees, the GPS says we are about 20 yards away.” Michael points in the direction we should start walking and describes a landmark for me to head to. I struggle to see it, and when I turn around to ask for more direction, I see him down on one knee. Somewhere in the trees a friend is hidden with a camera, capturing the moment I bend down and say, “Yes!” In the Magical Woods of Duncan, we chose each other forever.
2014: When we moved back to West Michigan from Chicago with six month old baby Pascal, we only had one car. For two years I had a limited ability to go on adventures during the day with my growing toddler, and while many days I was content, I sometimes felt a sense of lack, sadness, and restlessness well up in my heart. The Lord placed it on my Aunt Lynne’s heart, in almost perfect intervals, to send me a text, “Hey, you free to have me grab us some lunch and come over, and maybe go on a walk??” Even though she knew I was bored out of my mind and stuck at home with a two year old, she had the grace to ask…as if I would ever say no. I was feeling energized and ready for some fresh air after we ate the Jimmy John's she brought over for lunch, so we loaded the backpack Kelty carrier she handed down to me from her grandkid carrying days, and headed to the trails in Duncan Woods. I was in that space of time with my body after having my first kid and just before getting pregnant with my second that I felt almost normal again. We walked, and talked, and made silly faces at Pascal who was kicking with happiness from his perch above my shoulders. Just a day prior, I felt the world on my shoulders instead of Pascal, telling me I was a useless stay at home mom with nothing to offer, except a dirty house, unkempt hair, and a brain that didn’t work half the time. In the Magical Woods of Duncan though, the crisp air inflated my lungs, and sharpened my mind, and the kind and joyous presence of my aunt alleviated my loneliness and self loathing. I could finally hear God reminding me of the precious, honored and loved daughter that I was.
2017: We finally had two kids old enough to go sledding, and we knew the perfect place to take them. No one enjoys careening down a bunny hill for ten seconds quite like a five and three year old do. Michael would walk up the hill again and again with both boys, tuck them safely in his lap and push them down the hill at “warp” speed as I stood at the bottom and captured their joyous expressions on camera. I definitely took a few turns going down the thill, but no one is as fun of a sledding partner as their father.
2018: As a former horticulturist, and now stay at home mom, I naturally carried a field guide on hikes with the boys and made sure to teach them some plant names. Little Lewis would often carry the book, and point to different plants asking, “whats this, what’s this…what’s this?” I would answer and try to guide him to pages that showed the specific plants we were observing around us. Lewis was most drawn to the mushrooms, which I knew nothing about compared to trees, so I heavily relied on the field guide. One day, as I let both boys kick at mostly decayed logs with their Croc boots, Lewis pointed out a particularly vibrant orange cluster of small mushrooms. I looked in the guide and found out they were called “orange mycena” (my-seen-aw). This was how I pronounced it, right or wrong, and Lewis memorized it like it was his middle name. Every time we saw a mushroom (literally, any type) after that day, he called it orange mycena in his squeaky, raspy, little voice.
It was easy for me to fall into the trap of believing I was “wasting” my plant degree by no longer working in the field. Moments in the woods with my boys, like this one with Lewis, reminded me that I could teach them how to love the world God created as an overflow of my education. I may not teach kids in a public garden anymore, but I have two little boys that I can help understand and appreciate the plant (and fungi) kingdoms. They are my favorite little nature adventure buddies.
2020: The year “After School Hikes With Mom, Fry-Yay” were born. Culver’s started a 1$ fries happy hour on Fridays (the time perfectly matched with school pick up), and I wanted a simple way to connect with the boys after a long week of attending school with masks on and trying to navigate the crazy world we lived in. I would purchase them (and sometimes me!) a bag of french fries, pick them up from school, and drive straight to Duncan Woods. We would walk and chat about their week, pick up cool sticks, count squirrels, identify plants, and tell silly jokes until the bags of fries were empty. On one occasion, the deer there smelled the fries and came up so close the boys ran away in fear of getting their snack stolen!
2021: As a family, many Sunday’s we set out into the woods for a small hike, or “woodsy walk” as I call them, after a long morning of working at church. We live by a few trails that we go to frequently, both out of enjoyment and convenience, but it was one of those rare, sunny, winter days, and the Magical Woods of Duncan was calling. I distinctly remember we took our usual path, but at the first fork, Lewis convinced us to take the path we never do. We followed it for a few hundred yards, crunching loudly and making no effort to quiet our voices, when we found ourselves in the middle of a small herd of deer. As a family, we are no strangers to deer. Our yard is full of them daily, and we see them at Duncan Woods often, but this moment caught us off guard. We all stopped and hushed each other, turning slowly from the deer munching grass on our left to follow the sound of more deer walking on a ridge to the right. I crouched down low and looked up through the trees to see a deer shrouded in light. I marveled at how it was perfectly framed by the trees, looking majestic from the sun’s illumination. It was one of those moments I imagined could be possible in the Magical Woods of Duncan. We stared at each other until I decided it was time to hike on, the boys balancing on downed tree trunks and musing how the difference of choosing one path lead us to this moment. “God knew we would run into the deer on this different path, he wanted to give us this present!”, declared Lewis. He sure did, buddy.
2022: We waited so many years to get a dog. The number of times Michael or I sent each other listings of herding dogs that were at the pound is embarrassing. We knew it wasn’t the right time for our family so we resisted the temptation for years. The spring of 2021 was the time we finally decided to bring home Juniper, our Australian Shepherd puppy, from a local breeder. Raising a puppy is absolutely terrible. Every time I complained to a friend about the early mornings, training, and the cost or stress, she would remind me, “you chose this”...and she wasn’t wrong. Almost a year after bringing June home, we brought her sledding with us at Duncan Woods. It felt like a party to celebrate all our dog training efforts…we really did it! She is a magnificent, adorable floof.
2023: No matter how perfect the habitat appears to be for an owl to live, no matter how many holes in trees I’ve peered in, no matter how many owl boxes set up by boy scouts i’ve tried to see inside of, I’ve never seen or heard an owl at Duncan Woods. I was relaying this exact sentiment to a friend we were hiking with there, when at the precise moment I said “never heard an owl”, a barred owl let out a series of loud calls. The friend with me, her toddler, and both my boys all stopped in their tracks. We inhaled a collective gasp, did that really just happen!? I declared, “30 seconds of silence!”, as I have done nearly every hike with my boys, gave the toddler a quick explanation, and waited for a second owl call on bated breath. The barred owl called, loud, deep, and haunting, one more time. I haven’t heard an owl there since.
2024: I’ve made many internet friends through Exhale creativity, and one of them holds a January challenge to go outside every day (she makes cakes too, and writes poems, and she’s really cool). I decided that was the kind of January challenge I could get behind, so I did it. I went out more often for brief periods than I would have otherwise, and a few times I savored longer walks through the forest. One weekend, soon after my youngest’s ninth birthday, we set off on a hike through Duncan Woods. The moss glowed vibrant green against the burnt sienna of rotten wood, and the squirrels were particularly chatty as they chased each other up and down trees, raining down needles and bits of bark on our heads.
I held Juniper’s leash in my hand and led the way up the ridge on the far north side of the park. When we came upon a massive downed log nestled into the ground parallel to the hiking path, I nodded to my three guys that this was the spot. Michael took out two Swiss Army pocket knives, the one’s our sons both received on their ninth birthday, and placed them in each boy’s hand. Michael pulled out a knife his older brother made by hand, flipped it open, and with a sharp click of the lock settling into place, began carving a stick with Lewis on his right and Pascal on on his left doing the same. He glanced over attentively at Lewis, yielding his knife for only the second time ever, and gave him gentle reminders on how to angle the blade and where to safely put his fingers on the stick. I sat and watched them with awe as I often do, the three guys I love most in the world quietly existing. What a wonder they are.
A few weeks later, on the last day of January, I took myself out on an artist date. I worked on a poem, drank coffee, and read a couple books on writing. I then set out on a solo woodsy walk at the Magical Woods of Duncan for my final installment of January “every day outside”. The sun came out and kissed my cheeks as I walked along the snow covered paths in silence. My mind flooded with the memories these woods held for me. For decades, this hidden old growth forest in the middle of a coastal lake town has kept my secrets. I grew up under its canopy, and now I realize, my children have too. Some places in life have a way of shaking us awake to the passage of time, and with every step I feel my senses tremble. The awareness of how God has grown and shaped my life into something beyond what I imagined, or could have done in my own strength, washes over me. Tears sting my eyes and I whisper another prayer of thanks into the wind, my words landing on hundred year old tree branches and tucking into the folds of a thousand tiny hemlock cones. They’ll keep my words safe. They will remind me of God's goodness the next time I’m struggling to remember.
They always have.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Sara
This is beautiful, friend. Love seeing you in your natural element!
Aw, I love this so much!! I feel that same sense of holy wonder and profound gratitude in the woods near my house here. Also, June’s giant grin in the snow picture! 😍😆