Sometimes the only useful thing to do is to drive to some woods just far enough away where I can’t hear the roads where I can look up at the trees and let their snowy branches graze my head protecting me from all the suffering I could give rise to by all the stories I could write from all the thoughts I could obsess about. Sometimes I need that soothing combination of science and magic that happens when I exert myself in the forest, allowing me to feel whats real without adding gasoline to the fire already raging in my heart.
Revisited Bear Brook State Park with Seven last week. We did a four hour loop attempting to follow my really bad map managing to not get lost. We saw a total of two people, both on snowmobiles. We saw big tracks…deer or maybe even moose. We saw lots of bunny tracks that ended at trees as if the tree just swallowed them.
Seven calls the Arboretum an appetizer. It’s an incredible resource that I live so close to but it’s not the forest. But when I only have a couple hours and need nature, it is there and it is beautiful and expansive. 5e and I hit it last week. I’m going back to get in some last skiing before the snow all melts away.
“Sometimes I need that soothing combination of science and magic that happens when I exert myself in the forest, allowing me to feel whats real without adding gasoline to the fire already raging in my heart.”
So well put ❤
Thanks. I’m very interested in science backed magic. Reading lots of studies by neuroscientists about the healing benefits or being in nature. It’s like duh! But it’s also like wow!
I am so tired of reading and hearing the term “crushing miles”. My latest goal. Stop counting miles all together and hike them as slowly as possible.
I adore that. It makes you wonder what people are out there for if it’s just about bagging peaks and crushing miles. Then again, we can get what we want from it and their way doesn’t have to be my way.
Word.
I’m definitely not above peak bagging or clocking big mile days…it’s just that term “crush”…it’s like…everywhere! It’s on billboards. It makes me cringe.
Tam: following your blog now, fellow snow and forest bather! “…all the suffering I could give rise to by all the stories I could write from all the thoughts I could obsess about…” Yeah, I know a thing or two about THAT, and how being out in the woods is such a balm. Looking forward to further conversations!
Great opening paragraph! Love it.
Thanks!