Refuge

The sun was shining, there was a slight hint of spring in the air, and the woods....or forest, as in deep forest, as in Robin Hood and his Merry Men forest, beckoned. He'd explored it before, of course, extensively, daily, walking the edges of the woods, truncated now by fences--other people's back yards--so he knew there was scant mystery in his forest, but still, it is what he had...and, thus, was his.

Nobody else went there, at least not when he was, not so early in the morning, just as the birds were waking up, and the first squirrels descending from their nests, ready for a nut or two. He too was always hungry in the forest--his mother said he could spend 21 minutes there every day before being home and at the table for breakfast, then brushing his teeth, the rituals of being a kid--but those 21 minutes in the forest were his, bargained up from the 15 she had started with...and with his phone in his pocket so he could call if there was an emergency.

Emergency! What emergency could happen in his forest? He ritualistically turned off the phone as he entered, and switched it back on as he left.

What did he do there? Throw rocks at squirrels? No.

Dig holes in the underbrush? No.

Pretend he was an outlaw? a pirate? a bad guy? one of the merry men? No.

He sat. 

He watched.

He listened.

He sat in the same spot every morning, his back against a willow tree, his willow, and listened as the morning began--to the chirps, scratches, whistles, the breath of wind stirring the day, beginning the next thing that would come.

She'd asked him what he did in the forest.

"Nothing," he'd said, knowing that wasn't true, not really, but how to explain.

"That's impossible," she'd said, a bit too loudly. "What do you do? Answer me!"

So he lied. "I explore," he said. "look around, dig stuff up, throw rocks at the squirrels....but I always miss. I don't hurt anything."

That was true...and the rest satisfied her.

Then he ate breakfast and got on the school bus--another day perfectly begun.