Hour-old raindrops fall from the rocky overhang and slam my very large leaf. All around me, leaves float on the stream and collect in dams downwind from Machine Falls.
“It’s like a chandelier when the light hits it right,” Danielle says.
I wouldn’t know. There are no sunbeams in Tullahoma, Tenn. today, only light that soaks through the clouds. A day this dreary should deflect hordes of hikers, but people keep appearing around the bend.
I’ve chosen a resting spot against this rock wall to steal a small bit of solitude as I watch a family of seven take comically long to tiptoe toward the waterfall on slippery rocks. The children lead the way, donning metallic pink shoes and faded chartreuse hair. Then they all stand at the base of the falls and pose for photos.
There are tons of waterfalls east of Nashville, but the Machine Falls Loop hike is relatively short and easy to find, with a large water tower marking the parking lot. All the commotion highlights a particularly frustrating reality: encouraging others to turn to the natural world to reduce anxiety and stress means we all have to share the same space.
As another big family approaches, Logan nods from across the way, a signal that he and Danielle are ready to go. Leaving the falls early, I hope, will give me the motivation to come back another time, preferably a weekday.
At least we have the actual hiking trail nearly entirely to ourselves the rest of the day. The trail has some short uphill jaunts that get the blood pumping, but Logan manages just fine with a sore hip, and the abundance of leaf shapes that pad the ground give the hike a uniquely autumn feel.
Many of the trees here in Short Springs Natural Area have already undressed, a yearly display of comradery with the fallen: in December 2016, an EF-1 tornado tore through the region, felling trees with a 105 mph wind. The corpses remain, crumbling, a slowly deteriorating home for beetles and salamanders. We chat briefly about tornadoes, and Logan says he’s seen at least six. His voice takes on a tinge of an Illinois country accent when he talks about his home, a field of cornstalks stitched to the horizon.
Danielle and I shared many of Nashville’s own ominous nights, when my dad’s eyes sparkled with excitement otherwise reserved for persimmon trees, on-sale Christmas ornaments, and perfect ratios. But I never saw a funnel cloud, no matter how much I pranced around the front yard under egg-carton skies, waiting for a spout to form. And thank goodness for that—the tornado watches always thrilled me, but the warnings burdened me with preliminary guilt. Cramped with the family in our cement “tornado alley” (our basement storm shelter) listening to the wind howl under the garage door, I imagined our street a flattened zone of debris, and regretted the thrilling thoughts of something severe.
The forest here today is a fitting place to acknowledge both destruction and danger. The roots of giant, felled trees poke out of caked dirt like worms from a carcass, shriveled, while the path is so littered with leaves that dusk would make for difficult navigation. The white blazes painted on the
trees would be the saving grace if we lost the trail. Several years ago, I spontaneously speed-hiked to the top of a forested, unmarked path in Oak Ridge, Tenn. to catch an autumn sunset, then got disoriented by the thick, colorful blanket of leaves. The moon rose as I catapulted down a streambed toward the highway’s distant sound. An evening jogger was my white blaze. She was listening to music; all I could hear was my labored breath.
Logan, Danielle and I are still three hours from sunset when we decide to explore the off-shoot toward Adams Falls, a seasonally selective waterfall that we hear but don’t see from the path. I’m carrying my teddy bear-thick sweater under my arm, watching the sun filter through the clouds and illuminate shades of yellow and red.
The loop rejoins the main path in less than a mile and offers an unremarkable overlook of Machine Falls before the final jaunt to the parking lot. I keep my distance from the others during the last part of the hike so that I hear only my footsteps, and a single birdcall, rising through the November air. I do not find the bird. It blends into the woods, brushing against leaves as it flies through our shared space of bodies, dead and alive.
