It has been many years since I've stepped into the forest I once called home. Growing up in a small New England town, with mostly cows for neighbors, I had to use my imagination to keep occupied since there weren't other children to play with. I spent my childhood with my dog, and plenty of good books, in the lush old pine forests surrounding our old farmhouse.
The call of birds nested in the evergreen canopies greeted me in the morning. Pine needles crunched softly under my feet, and I could smell the fresh air heavy with relaxing pine and the musk of wet leaves. Each day, I would bring an apple and a hard boiled egg and sit on the same mossy log for an afternoon snack. I took my time eating and enjoying a new book as the sunshine filtered through the ancient trees; my old black lab would lay down on the soft forest floor and keep watch. She was a good girl.
The natural silence was welcome to me as a child, I found it comforting, not scary. As a grown man I still crave that simplicity.
I want to live somewhere with more trees than people, once again.
Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash
