Wild Greens

Adventure is out there. It’s with you. It’s inside of you. For this issue, we are casting ourselves forward into “The Great Unknown.”

Maggie Topel’s digital logo for the issue gathers everything needed to venture forth prepared. “Solvitur Ambulando,” a personal essay by Melissa Sokulski, recounts the author’s experience walking the Camino de Santiago, a 300-mile trek through three countries, as a way to process her grief. “Lost,” a digital photograph by Anne Kazak, takes a birds-eye view of the expanse of nature. Galina Dukov’s poem, “At The Threshold,” explores how personal thoughts and feelings can form the great unknown, which must be noticed and explored.

Scott Tierney’s “Two Doors” in ink, pencil, and acrylic paint shows possibilities: a doorway from and a doorway to. In Terence Young’s poem, “Elopement, 1974,” two young lovers choose to enter into the great unknown together, with confidence, in secret.

Sal Scheibe’s digital art, “Nature Feels Like the Great Unknown,” combines a fantastical landscape of rivers and mountains in a woman’s flowing hair. In the short story, “Moose Days” by JR Fenn, the narrator is visited by an Alaskan moose that evokes the wonder and mystery of the natural world.

“The Dance” by Ellen Greenblum-Siddons, in pencil, ink, watercolor, and pen, depicts mystical possibilities through divination. “Eternal Return,” a sonnet by Richard Collins, explores the great question of both life and the afterlife.

Melissa Mussak’s digital art, “The Great Road to the Unknown,” removes the human face in the reflection, instead displaying an expansive idea of identity. Jenica Lodde’s poem “Ode to Old Age” explores the aging body as a site of both unknowns and happiness. “Ladybug Soar,” digital art by Melissa Lomax, shows a dauntless bug. Hayley J. Boyle’s watercolor cover, “Moonrise and Mountains (reprised),” captures a slightly surreal landscape, the moon rising over mountains lit by sunset.

What will 2026 hold for us? The only way to find out is to dive into the great unknown.

-Rebecca

Solvitur Ambulando

By Melissa Sokulski

Boarding pass on my phone, I wait in line in Pittsburgh to board a plane to Montreal, and then, Paris. Ultimately, my destination is Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain, and somehow I will walk there from France. Along with my plane ticket, I have a backpack, a train ticket, some apps on my phone, and a whole lot of hope, fear, and anticipation. My heart beats wildly, and silently I am screaming: What am I about to do?

My husband died six years ago, my eldest daughter died eleven years before that, and now my youngest is in Italy for half a year: on an archeological dig in Tuscany and then to Rome for a semester abroad. I, too, want to do something. Possibly even something big, but what?

Alone in Pittsburgh, I had been waiting for a big break that never came, a flash of inspiration that never struck, a new love that never manifested. Five months ago, I began walking labyrinths as a way to help process my grief and figure out how to write about it. I walked in Pittsburgh, in the mountains of Central PA, New York City, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and Erie. A Latin phrase quoted on a labyrinth at the University Hospitals of Cleveland caught my attention: Solvitur Ambulando (“it is solved by walking”). It became my motto and mantra.

A month ago, after having decided to go to Europe, and exploring what to do there besides visiting my daughter, I hadn’t even heard of the Camino de Santiago—the Way of St. James. But internet searches and computer algorithms led me to learn of the Camino. Then I had to wrap my head around the fact that the Camino isn’t just one route, but many. The pilgrimage varies in length from 100 km to 1800 km or more, depending on where you start and how much time you have. One could start in France, Portugal, or Spain and walk a path, following yellow arrows, to St. James’s burial place, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain. I had given myself two months in Europe, and decided to hike 800 km—or 500 miles—from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, up over the Pyrenees and across Spain on the Camino Frances. Now I have a round-trip ticket to Europe, a few clothes and supplies in a backpack, and a trail of flabbergasted friends in my wake.

My starting point is the Basque region of France, in a town called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. On my second day, at breakfast in the monastery of Roncesvalles, France, I met someone who’d walked from his home in Italy north through Switzerland, into Germany, then France, and back south, to the top of the Pyrenees—where we currently were. I had just begun and he had been walking for months. My feet were already sore, and would get worse the longer I walked. I learned to think in kilometers, and that 20 km (9.5 miles) was my limit, and if I were being kind to myself, I’d walk 15–18 km a day. Unfortunately, most days I ignored my screaming feet and pushed on to walk 25, even 30, km. Those nights I could barely walk when I arrived at the albergue—hostel for pilgrims—and often skipped dinner rather than hobble somewhere to find it.

In Santa Domingo de la Calzada, 220 km (137 miles) from St. Jean, the albergue was large and open and communal. The kitchen was active: people cooking meals for themselves and in groups. I drank coffee from a vending machine, but the crowd and camaraderie felt too much that evening as I sat alone, so I found dinner at a restaurant down the narrow road, which offered a pilgrim’s meal: two courses, plus bread, wine, and dessert. When I arrived alone, asking for seating for one, they seated me at a long table with other single pilgrims, leaving a chair in between; close enough to be communal but not uncomfortable. On my right was a gregarious man from Western Canada, and on my left sat an introverted woman from Ohio. We chatted with a German woman and a Dutch woman who sat on the opposite side of the table. It was the perfect way to enjoy a meal, solo but together.

Burgos was the next large stop, one of the bigger cities on the Camino Frances. It had a stunning medieval archway entering the old city, leading to its breathtaking Gothic cathedral. Burgos also has the Arlanzón River running through it, leading pilgrims in and out. I spent an extra day and night in the city, and while walking along the river, I enjoyed seeing great blue herons, a tunnel of arching trees, Roman ruins, and interesting sculptures. But my feet hurt, and the daily walks felt repetitive, barren, and endless. The running water of the Arlanzón relaxed me, and a thought hit: Why am I here when the ocean is somewhere else?

The many routes of the Camino wind through Europe, all ending in Santiago. It had been difficult to decide which to walk, especially not knowing anything about the area, the experience, places to stay, and never having been to Spain or Portugal. In the end, my choice narrowed to the Camino Portuguese (which itself has multiple route options) or the Camino Frances. Because of its popularity, I chose the Camino Frances, but now, instead of continuing with my original plan, I decided to take a bus to Porto, Portugal, and walk the coastal Camino Portuguese to Santiago. I needed the ocean: I felt it calling me; it would soothe my nerves and calm my soul.

It was a long eight-hour bus ride from Burgos. A man on one side chatted to me nonstop in Portuguese, though I tried to convey I didn’t understand him, while on my other side, a young Brazilian man sang “Hello” by Lionel Richie to me, to demonstrate how he learned English. It was evening when we arrived in Porto, and I needed to find my way across the city by train. The station was deserted and the kiosks were closed. I couldn’t understand the machines to buy myself a ticket. My grief and despair threatened to snowball the situation into a feeling of utter helplessness. This wasn’t the first time on this trip I found myself having to ask for help from strangers whose language I didn’t know, and who didn’t know mine. But kindness transcends language barriers—a young man led me where I needed to go, helped me buy the ticket, and made sure I was on the right platform and boarded the correct train. Public transportation continued to be an obstacle, but with help, I never failed to get where I needed to go.

From Porto, I began my walk anew: new pilgrim credentials, new people, new Camino family. The ocean on my left, rhythmically crashing into rocks and over the shore, a constant companion for much of the remaining 290 km (180 miles) to Santiago. I smelled the salt in the air, and cooled my aching feet in the water. It centered me to gaze at the horizon, and watch waves exploding into rocks by the shore. Some people complained that walking next to the ocean day after day was boring, but I found the opposite to be true. The ocean excited my senses and uplifted my spirit while calming my soul. I was glad I listened to myself and trusted myself enough to get on that bus, leaving my Camino Frances family behind, and starting again in Portugal.

From Caminha, Portugal, I crossed the border to Spain in a rickety speedboat with a woman from Barcelona, and together we continued north through Galicia, Spain eating foods previously unknown to me: Padrón peppers—a Russian roulette on a plate, most of them mild but every once in a while one would be spicy—crema de calabaza (squash soup), and the delicious Spanish tortilla—an egg and potato dish that I had craved since leaving Burgos, but wasn’t found in Portugal.

Two weeks after I’d walked out of Porto, I arrived in Santiago and received my official certificate (Compostela). I celebrated with my Camino Portuguese family: four Canadians I’d met, the woman from Barcelona, a French man, and three Taiwanese women we’d met on the way for a night of tapas and wine.

My friends in Pittsburgh thought I was brave to go alone into the unknown, but really, I was desperate to do something, anything. I clung to my motto, Solvitur Ambulando, as I walked hundreds of miles through three countries. Though I doubt I’ll ever walk away from my grief, maybe I will learn to walk with it.

At The Threshold

Elopement, 1974

Moose Days

by JR Fenn

They announce their arrival with a rattle of branches against the side of the cabin. The first time, I think a storm has blown in from sea, though the sky is clear. Then I see their silvery flanks in the brush. With my partner away fishing, I am alone to watch. The saplings bend as they graze, the mother moose high up and the calf down lower. Purple light steals across the landscape as the gulls circle above, their bellies white flashes in the dusk.

That winter, the mother leads the calf to the spruce by the side of the cabin, skirting the dwelling as if it were just another part of the coast. My partner makes coffee, brings it to me at the window, takes his to the loft to read his book. Steam rises from my cup. The mother moose lifts her head in the salt wind, sidles up to the trunk. Her teeth dig into the bark, and the top of the spruce trembles. Her calf munches on a bough he’s now tall enough to catch.

That summer, the mother comes back without the calf, who’s gone his own way. My partner is fishing again, and I’m alone again for six weeks. I came north after college to discover myself—far north, so far north some nights the sun never sets. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so stubborn. But the moose gives me comfort. She’s a wild spirit. She is stoic, comfortable in her solitude. She carries herself with the confidence of the great creatures who once roamed the continents, trailed by an atmospheric host of saber-tooths, thylacines, mammoths, elephant birds—the marvels of the Pleistocene.

One time, she comes the closest she ever has, drawn by a patch of reeds, right up to the glass of the window. I don’t move. She looms against the sky, almost close enough to touch. Her kind strode across the Bering Strait when the glaciers retreated, wandered the deep swaths of the boreal forest, moved south down the coastline to the tip of this peninsula, its lush greenery and freshwater. I shiver, tighten my blanket. Cool air leaks up through the cabin’s floor.

The yard’s full of light behind her. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t need to. I can see the velvet of her nose, the pendulous swing of her dewlap, her hot breath rising in the air. The universe slows to the pulse of her giant heart. 

When my partner returns the cabin is empty. There’s no coal burning in the woodstove, no cutting board strewn with small bits of green herbs. Somewhere a moose is crossing a tidal stream, clear water rushing over her hooves out to sea. A figure follows behind in the mist, disappearing. 

Eternal Return

Ode to Old Age