The Part Where I Got a Little Lost

Nobody told me there would be a fork about forty minutes in with no signage and two trails that look exactly the same. I picked the left one. I was wrong. I figured this out approximately fifteen minutes later when the trees started looking very circular and I found a root I had definitely already stepped over. It was fine. I backtracked. I was only a little dramatic about it internally.

I drove up on a total whim this morning, saw the sky was that particular flat gray that's actually good hiking weather if you dress for it, threw my backpack in the car, and just went. There's a state park about an hour out that I'd had a printout of directions to sitting in my glove compartment since sometime this summer. Today felt like the day. I didn't tell anyone I was going, which in retrospect was probably not my smartest decision, but it also meant the whole drive felt like it was mine in a way that's harder to explain than it should be.

Somewhere on the trail, trying to look like I knew where I was going.

I found a spot where the trail opens up a little and you can see down through the trees into a valley, bare branches, that late-fall color that's mostly brown with just enough orange left to feel worth it. I sat on a rock and ate the granola bar I'd remembered to pack and did not think about anything in particular for a while. That part was the whole point, I think, even if I couldn't have said so before I got there. I've been writing a lot lately, in class and out of it, and some of that writing has started to feel very close to something, which is good, I think, but also means my brain has been running louder than usual. The trail was the opposite of that. My legs knew what to do and the rest of me got to be quiet.

Water break. Mandatory.

I got back to the car just as it was getting too cold to feel like fun. Drove home with the heat on full blast and the radio on low. There's something I want to write about the afternoon that I haven't figured out the shape of yet. Maybe that's enough for now, just to know it's there.