Thinking of the East

Mossy forest, a soft bed of leaves upon leaves upon leaves. I wouldn’t know where the dirt began beneath if I tried.

The trees loom high and leaning in above me, their limbs outstretched like arms to cover the forest floor, unsuccessfully shielding it from the persistent drizzle all around me.

The cool fog and the scent of the wet earth and ancient trees do nothing to stop me from looking up into the white sky, to feel the cold little drops of rain on my already damp face.

I wandered further in and found more of my heart there, underneath the dirt and years of colorful but dead leaves.

I sat and breathed the air in. It was wet, and chilled, the kind of air that sticks to your skin and pulses through your bones to keep your cheeks a blushing pink, your nose perfectly dripping, your hair matted to your face, but never enough to say you were soaked.

Just enough to say you liked to walk in the rain.

Because it’s New Hampshire, and the trees hold as much wisdom and peace as the ocean here.

You can climb to the top of the mountains and see all the trees and roads below, like a colorful painting beneath you, holding stories and lives so tiny and full you wouldn’t be able to hold them all.

You can stumble through the sand at our cold beaches, listen to the waves crash down, feel the constant breeze, and smell the salt it carries, knowing every grain of sand you’ve touched and every drop of sea you’ve felt holds more than you could understand.

You can sit in a mossy forest and see the looming giants above you, the trees, full of their secrets and their safety.

You can breathe in the air of New Hampshire and know that in the dirt, in the water, in the bones of it all, there is a sweet connection, a whispered hello, a misty sort of beckoning, “won’t you come and listen? Won’t you wait for all our secrets?”

But they won’t ever tell them all. They’ll keep them safe, keep them hidden, keep you wondering, keep you trailing after them, searching the woods and the mountains and the ocean and the very air for every story you have ever felt.