The Forest: An Awakening

A personal essay by Eli Hovey

“44, you’re in!”

I only picked 44 because Nick took my favorite number, so I had to repeat it in double digits. I had just moved to Plymouth last year so of course he always beat me in the popularity contest. The referee told me to toss my PHITEN necklace—my good luck charm—I couldn’t wear it on the court even though I needed it to make me popular.

It was my first travel game on the team: my shorts hung low and bagged below my dry, skinny knees. I tucked into them my bulky, cotton white shirt and the overhanging blue pennant-jersey; I wasn’t allowed to wear just the tank top—plus it was a cold Massachusetts morning anyways so I didn’t mind.

It all happened so fast. Rebound. Full court press. “WATCH OUT FOR THE STRIP.” I felt a bulky presence trailing my heels trying to take the ball away from me. Jump. Shot. Hit. Fall. SNAP.

Ok, let me get up.
*squelch*
What is going on? Why can’t I stand up? 
“OH SHIT HE’S BLEEDING! CALL 911!”
What? I can’t see anything. 
“Where are your Mom and Dad?”
Dad? I don’t know . . . I think they are at an open house or something. 
“Do you want me to come with you?” pleaded my computer lab teacher, who happened to be the only person in the building I vaguely knew enough to trust.

12/12/09. 11:12 a.m. I was 12 years old. I was in an ambulance with a stranger. 

Sick with worry, my mom and dad stood on the other side of the back doors of the ambulance when they lowered me down in the stretcher. I cried, I’ll admit it. I cried out loud. I was just a kid, after all. Things started to blur after that moment, cutting in and out. The next thing I can recall, the doctors were bending my broken knee to fit a straight cast. To this day it is the most pain I’ve ever felt. And to top it all off, I never got my necklace back—it was cleaned off the dusty floor where I had tossed it. So much for good luck.

The basketball association didn’t want us to sue them, so they showered me with food, Barnes & Nobles gift cards, and a half library of books. As an elite member of the PCIS 10,000 page club, I was excited to receive the 10th book in the Pendragon series, the last installment I had left to read. And I still to this day remember from that book my favorite line:

The greatest defeat only occurs the moment you think you’ve won.

And I really thought I had it all until I sat sprawled on my couch with my lifeless leg elevated in the air by seven pillows, hugged by a bright orange cast waiting to be signed with a fresh sharpie. I had experienced true fallacy, weakness, and brokenness for the first time in my life. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be a three sport athlete. I wanted the status. Yet there I laid—broken, battered, beaten—unable to even stand on my own two legs.


Even at the end of the road, a new road stretches out, endless and open, a road that may lead anywhere. To him who will find it, there is always a road.


In the confinement of my new home—the family room—the only novel contrast to the white walls was the paintings placed intermittently upon them. I fixated on my grandmother’s painting of a beautiful snow-capped mountain range with a river running freely through it’s conclaves. A man balancing a mahogany violin on his shoulder, gazing profoundly beyond the picture frame into the future. And most curiously, an alluring amber forest, with Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken waringly printed in it’s foreground. Something about it kept drawing me in, enchanting me with its elusive allure.

I dove into the picture.

There I stood. Odd because I couldn’t walk. Am I dreaming? I looked to my left and to my right, and all I could see were tall, dense trees with scarlet and russet leaves falling slowly around me. The lurid landscape begged me to investigate further, and, to my surprise, I saw a multitude of footprints behind me. In front of me, two paths of untouched soil, pleading to be worn. I decided to follow the footprints behind me to see where they would take me.

I arrived at the sandy beaches of Duxbury and peered into our quaint beachside home. I saw myself cheering at the top of my lungs with my Dad because Big Papi had just hit a clutch home run for Red Sox to break their 86 year curse. He grew up with Larry Bird and the championship Celtics, while I grew up with Paul Pierce and the Big Three—I then followed suit as the next biggest fan. I continued down the path.

Further down I was brought to a wooden building to find a hanging green banner with the words “Hovey Music” etched into it. I stood with my Dad before the wall of trumpets, violins, trombones, pianos, guitars—he had everything, really. In the corner of the spacious room, I fixated on the drumset: my moment of truth. “Dad, I want to play the drums!” insisted little 8-year-old-hopeful me. “No, Eli” with a hint of disdain he said, “pick a real instrument.” I can only assume now that he saw the rambunctious middle school drummer I might have become. Or maybe he just wanted me to learn notation and not just rhythm. Whatever it was, I stood there thinking. I peered at the wall again and decided that I would play the saxophone. It hypnotized me I think, bound in some way to its size and curved design.

I kept along that marked path to find my grandfathers, smiling down at me. Grampie Lagerstedt, a pianist with perfect pitch, a witty and well spoken teacher, reminded me that it is okay to be well rounded in life. Grampa Hovey, a cornetist, a lawyer and a writer, reminded me that music can complement anything in life. They imbued me with power to liberate myself above physical obstacles by empowering my mind through literature.

After much walking, I finally found myself on the battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War with Thomas Hovey, a trumpetist with my father’s blood. Right beside it, the swedish castle, where the king crowned the surname Lagerstedt—meaning great player—to an organist with my mother’s blood. That would make me, then, a product of music’s reproductive success.

Suddenly I found myself back in the living room, disoriented, yes, but oriented to where I was to go. And so I went. I had to echo in my fake perseverance—my baby face and innocent sea-blue eyes turned graphite through emotional duress—that same maxim and so we go. And so I went.

No road is taken that doesn't lead to another. What's important is that those roads always be kept open, for there's no telling what wonder they might lead to.

My first step led me to Mr. Grossman. At the end of band class, I heard some talking about how the old chorus teacher was fired and a new guy, fresh out of college, was fired up to be the replacement. He spent his first few weeks recruiting for an all new A Cappella pilot program, and I figured I’d learn—I had nothing else to do with my time now that my surgeon told me I couldn’t play sports anymore. At our first concert ever, I was so nervous to sing in public for the first time. I remember like it was yesterday: I was wearing my Dad’s turquoise button-down tucked into my baggy black dress pants and a black tie with white music notes, one we used to have at Hovey Music. I failed miserably trying to push through the voice cracks, missed notes, and nervous shaking. At least I started down the road, falling yes, but not physically. This time I was falling upward and onward.

I got better at the saxophone too. The music room became my second home, and sanctuary for my baritone saxophone, my golden beauty. 10 years after I selected the saxophone, I was on the football field, now only during halftime. What poetic justice—I still got to be on the field just as I wanted to.

Eventually, like my grandfathers I began to branch out and find new passions, grown from the nutrients of my musical roots. I stemmed out to studying languages, writing, exploring, travelling, reading ancient texts, and drafting future ones—never abandoning music, but always remembering it. Music seeded powers and potential in me that grafted life into my wounds and enabled me to excel and enjoy life.

All it took was one glimpse into the yellow wood to be guided beyond the clearing in the brush to the blessed xanthous light. Peering into the picture frame like Charlie Bone, I became one with my ancestors who’ve walked the same path before me. Now I have their strength, and they guide me along my journey back to them. And so, then, I go. Forward into the darkness-cast-light. Forward, strengthened by our common roots, the aspirations of my ambitious forefathers. And in that way, forward, we go together.

Image Credits:
"In the Hospital Bed" by Eli Hovey; personal photo.
"Golden Trees" by Andrew Preble [public domain via unsplash]
"Snow Capped Mountains" by Eli Hovey; personal photo.
"Tree Roots on Rock Formation" by Zach Reiner [public domain via unsplash]