Out of the woods

A brief reflection on a road less traveled

Happy Easter! 🌷

Today, instead of my usual new post, I’m re-sharing a short, meditative piece I wrote in 2023, before most of you were aware that this newsletter existed.

I hesitate to return to anything I wrote more than a year ago, rationally fearing the cringe of confronting my younger self, but I’m glad I revisited this one. In These Times™, it’s so easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of the news cycle, to become angry, depressed, or bitter about our personal circumstances or the state of the world. I would never advocate for turning a blind eye to what’s going on around us, but that’s just the thing. “What’s going on around us” is not only out there: It’s right here. And sometimes, against all odds, right here is pretty nice.

For me, this piece was a timely reminder of that. Hope you enjoy it too.

IMHO, one of the best photos I’ve ever taken

I’ve long been enamored by tales of childhoods spent outdoors, wading through streams, scaling fences, or otherwise roaming free, getting into all sorts of character-building trouble. My own childhood was decidedly more supervised. Though I did my fair share of digging for worms, an adult was never far. I took walks in the woods, but usually within earshot of a major roadway.

Maybe that’s why I decided to literally take the road less traveled on my bike-ride-turned-walk yesterday, ditching the paved path for a muddy loop around a reservoir labeled, “This trail is not maintained. Enter at your own risk.”

On this walk, I saw no one (aside from a goose who seemed mildly annoyed by my presence). I actually watched where I stepped, carefully evading poison ivy, hopping over puddles, and dodging felled branches.

After deciding to explore an intersecting path, I stumbled on a small gazebo and a makeshift wooden seat on a hill. From this vantage point, I saw the bridge I had biked across earlier snaked across the reservoir in a thin strip. I saw tiny birds criss-crossing the air, their calligraphic shapes reflected in the still surface of the water. I saw a distant cloud whose bottom edge smudged toward the ground: a rainstorm.

I found my way back to my car without a problem — other than getting my shoes wet.

It was exactly what I needed.

Being alone in nature reminds me of my own insignificance in the nicest way. Dwarfed by tall trees, whatever stresses previously dominated my attention seem trivial. Breathing in the scent of pine, wet leaves, a distant campfire, I sense life teeming all around me, the full extent of which I’ll never know. Urged forward by the rhythmic rustle of my own footsteps, I know I’m getting somewhere without needing to arrive.

I wonder what it would take to carry this attitude out of the woods and into more of my day-to-day experiences. I wonder if it’s even possible.

Thank you for reading Art Life Balance.

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