this one day

i remember a book i read, where the author said that we eat too many seeds, not enough leaves and stems and fruits. i remember that, while i eat handfuls of nuts and trail mix, and wonder if he's right.

this one day i walked with a boy and his dog through a vast oregon forest, following the curves of a muddy creek. it was not the woods i'm used to. it was not lush and damp and seething with undergrowth, not dense and thorny and moist. there was space between the trunks of the trees. there were small flowers growing beneath them, at intervals, wildflowers i'd never seen before, in reds and whites and strange formations.

i laid down on the pine needles and the cool, dusty dirt, and closed my eyes to the sudden, towering silence. everything was magnified. a mosquito crawled across my forearm, but i didn't move, and it flew away. i opened my eyes and the trees shot upwards towards the sky, telescoping away from my small face on the forest floor.

& the quiet was so intoxicating that i would have laid there forever if the dog hadn't stuck his cold nose in my face and tempted me laughing back upright.