03-27-21

Interurban Trail

8:09 PM

Feels like 45. Dark and clear

The frogs are deafeningly loud. There is little light, so I am restricted to the other senses. There are two pitches of frogs - low rrrib and high crickcrick. Once I walked to the edge of a wetland swale they all hushed. I hear them in the distance now.

Smells, too - it is now Skunk Cabbage season. I love the smell - I learned to love it the same way as sulfuric bogs. I know they are at their best when they're smelly.

I am in the woods today because I feel impossibly small. I feel too weak and scared to stand up to the fears I must face. I am not in the woods to escape it, for I have learned that no amount of running out-paces fear. I am in the woods because being small makes sense here.

I hear barking... no, hooting? That's too rhythmic to be a dog. I will look up owl rhythms.

I heard this trail used to be a railroad. I hard rail and trains as a colonial complex. But this trail and those tracks feel both to me like nets that fragment habitat and a net is a net. At least this one may pollute less?

It's too dark. I don't want to leave. I want the sound to eat me up.