The Trees Were the Plan

Marcus's birthday. I woke up and the apartment felt too quiet in that specific way it gets when you don't have anywhere to be, and I thought: I'm going to drive somewhere with trees.

I pulled up MapQuest before I left and wrote the directions on the back of an envelope, Mohican State Forest, about an hour and forty minutes. I've driven past the exit signs before and never taken one. I packed a water bottle, a granola bar, and my jacket and left before I could talk myself out of it. The trails aren't difficult but they're long enough that you stop keeping track of time after the first mile. I took a wrong turn somewhere near the middle of the loop and ended up at a rocky overlook I hadn't planned for, and I sat there for maybe fifteen minutes just watching the valley. That's the thing about wrong turns on trails, sometimes they're just correct turns you didn't know about yet.

There's a creek crossing about two miles in that I handled with moderate success. One shoe got a little wet. Not catastrophically wet, more like a reminder that confidence and waterproofing are not the same thing.

the overlook I almost missed because I took a wrong turn

A woman coming from the other direction laughed kindly and said the water's always higher in March, which, noted for next time.

I got back to the car around four. Ate the granola bar in the parking lot. Drove home with the windows cracked even though it was fifty degrees because the air smelled good and I wasn't ready to lose it yet. I keep thinking about publishing something I've been sitting on, something that has my mother's name in it, which sounds small and isn't, and I think sometimes the only way to get ready for a thing like that is to go somewhere with trees first. The pothos on my windowsill looked very pleased with itself when I got home. I think it's been there long enough now that it counts as furniture.

very confident. one foot already wet.