Forest Through The Trees

My head's never really been "in the right space" I guess. I tend to live in it a little more than I should. I spend so much time trying to figure out how the movie ends I forget to watch it and I guess I do that with life too. Too much time trying to figure it out not enough time spent living. I've been told it's a trauma response but I think it's just always been me. Maybe not the constant thinking about what might come next but the constant feeling of seeing with eyes closed. Living in a place and time that only exists in my mind. Never seeing the forest through the trees.

It started with a song and a choice. I don't even remember which song it was but I was driving around my sleepy small town on autopilot and it came over the radio. When the first few notes trickled over the speakers it felt like I had come to life. It was slow and freeing like when you wake up snuggled deep into your softest blanket on a sunny Sunday morning. I noticed this little parking area close to a river and decided to pull over. I switched the song over to my phone and hit replay, trying to keep that tune with me a little longer. After a few steps to the wooded area around the river, I realized that at some point that day it must have started to rain. The mud clung to my shoes and the rain had left a smell that mixed with the fresh pine. There where winding paths in the dirt that led further along the river and I decided to follow them.

As much fun as it is to watch the ground I decided to look up. Squirrels ran between the trees and birds watched my approach, deciding to fly or not. The sun was hitting the water that still clung to the leaves and it looked almost like stars. I sang quietly to the song as I walked until I found a little stream running to the river with a little bridge crossing it. I don't know what it was but something compelled to me take my shoes off and hop into the stream. The song picked up and standing in the cold stream as the hot air brushed past my arms in a warm summer breeze really hit home and dancing seemed the only option. Nothing on my mind, no one to try and figure out. Just me alone in the woods dancing in a stream, smiling wider than I had in a long time. It was...freeing.

When the song was over this time I turned it off. And heard the gentle roaring of a waterfall. A short continued walk through the forest brought me to a hobbled collection of stones jutting out from the Earth and, just beyond that, a waterfall. I climbed down the time smoothed stones and bent back a tree branch to see the forest fall away to a tumbling rush of water leading to a calm crystalline river. Larger stones sat out of the water as if compelling me to sit and stay for a while. I sat on the side of one rock, watching the rushing of the water flow over the edge towards the mist for what seemed like the shortest amount of time. The mist coated my skin but dried almost just as fast in the warm sun.

When I finally got up and headed back to my car I was surprised to find my shoes still sitting by the little bridge and that my car clock was telling me I had spent a little over two hours in that little forest by the river. I was also surprised to feel so at peace. With all the running around of day to day life a lot can get lost. We spend so much time trying to make life work we forget to live it. I still spend the vast majority of my time living in my head but every once in a while I like to stop. Just stop. Take a deep breath, go down a new path, learn to dance again, and find 5 things around you that never would have noticed before. The summer breeze caressing your skin as it goes by. The different colored squirrels running around the trees. Just 5 things that you may never have noticed if you didn't really look. And I hope it brings you as much peace as it did me.