When we drive to Story Road, I step out of the car and into nature. Trees loom overhead. There is a fresh, earthy smell. 

I always greet the land quietly: “Hello Story Road. We are here.” Then I take my walk up past the Magnolia Tree and around the bend to the pond.

There I stop for a moment and just breathe. It is quiet.

I walk the rest of the pathway: around the lake, through the old growth forest, near our neighbor’s farm and back down to the fire pit.

We are beginning to have pathways on our land. When we first visited it, there was only one path and now we have made three. 

Part of this process includes felling trees. Vincent does all of that. I am afraid of using the chain saw. I don’t like loud noises. I wish I were the type of woman who didn’t mind a chain saw, but I’m not and part of this project for me is realizing my own limits. 

When I walk on the path, I breathe in and out and say, “I am enough. This is enough.” Sometimes I feel lazy for not doing the manual labor. Vincent walks into the shed sweaty and with this look on his pure satisfaction. Sometimes guilt gets the better part of me and I put on my work gloves and I get up from reading or thinking and help move branches or dig the well. 

But, truthfully, it is the dreaming I like the best. This past visit, I set up a desk in the middle of the forest and I worked on my poetry manuscript. It was pure delight.

And, so, I’ll leave it here. Sometimes less is more. I hope that you are enjoying your day and your weekend and I hope that you can find time to sit in silence near the trees. I am never alone when I am surrounded by the quiet pulse of a forest.