Forest Mist

We went on a long hike through the woods drenched in mist in the middle of a light rain. After being stuck at home for months, the weather was not nearly bad enough to hold us back. A mile in, we wanted to keep going. The rain held steady and we were unlikely to get soaked given the dense canopy. It was just the two of us for six miles - perfect solitude, nature completely untouched by the chaos in the world. Deer were everywhere more than usually startled to see humans. It was fun to learn the names of the weeds, plants and flowers along the way. 

The Seek app seems to have come a long way since the last time I used it. Just about everything I pointed to had a name. Driving back home, I thought about the strength in the apparently frail things in the world - the rain soaked wildflowers growing along the road-sides, the bees and lady bugs going about their day. They had been here before us and would be there long after we are gone. Nature sneezed a bit to warn us with covid but we seemed to have learned just about all the wrong lessons from it to our further peril. For the few hours that we walked in the forest mist, I experienced a spot of clarity - one that would not last once we got home and prepared for the business of living day to day.