Branches Book

BRANCHES

Witches Cap mushroom. In the off chance that I would find a mushroom, I would open my book and attempt to distinguish the most harmless mushroom from a Witch's Cap that would lead to my painful demise. Unsure in my shrooming abilities, I grudgingly moved onto other foods. I built my own fishing rod out of a stick. I built a fly out of string, a feather, and a hook I had brought. I cast my line, and waited. I laid in the shade of a tall Aspen tree that appeared to glitter in the wind as the leaves moved back and forth. I listened to the stream. I looked up to the rocky peaks of the horizon and saw the cotton clouds that dotted the sky. I dozed off to the roar of the stream and the rumbling of my stomach. I was rudely awakened by a tug on my line. A bolt of excitement burst through me, followed of course, by a rumbling stomach. I tugged on the line, set the hook, and pulled a 9” Brown Trout from the stream. I grabbed the slimy, squirming fish. I pulled out the hook, and decapitated the fish. As I gutted the fish, I struggled. I had never had such an intimate moment with the food I ate. For once, I was a little less hungry. Later that night, I easily fell asleep on my thin mat in my cold, wet tent. I finally felt a sense of comfort, sleeping on a bump that I would later discover was an anthill. I thought of why I had left for the woods. I sought excitement, yet I was met with simplicity. I learned the beauty of a moment, from witnessing a massive storm envelope me to shoveling dirt in the pouring rain to dig a latrine. I left on a jet plane, surrounded by an artificial world. I returned craving beauty. In such a sterilized world, there were no impurities. No dead trees blocking a trail or streams that divided a lawn. There were cement trails and rivers of cars. I had built everything I used in the woods. I had lived deliberately, surrounded by the sway of the pine trees and the songs of a stream. When I returned to this artificial world, I felt I was lost in a society of ease and convenience. Society had lost touch with the simplicity of life. The trails had been paved, the trees had been cut down, the sea had been fished. Tasks as simple as going to the store and as base as human interaction have been replaced in a ruthless pursuit of convenience. We had lost. Lost the beauty of the moment. The joy of the inconvenience had vanished from our cities. No longer does one have to worry about the cold of the night. No longer does one have to labor silently in a beautifully secluded plane. But the joy still exists, far away, hidden in the swaying forest, beneath a glittering Aspen.

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