Roots 06.02.2013

When my dad was a kid, he lived in a house on the outskirts of town. His backyard was a stretch of rolling woods, veined with trails that he ran on as a teenager. His sneakers packed the dirt, skipped over roots and fallen branches, and carried him to the top, from where he could see the river in the fall, when the trees were bare.

Nearly 40 years later, I lived around the corner, and I felt magnetically drawn to those woods. I spent hours walking the trails and sitting on boulders, soaking up the spots of sun that danced through the canopy. Each season, I watched the landscape morph into something even more beautiful than it had previously been. The budding trees of spring, the lush moss of summer, the fiery yellow leaves of fall, the crusty and diamond-laced snow of winter-- they were all my favorites, depending.

One morning in the late fall, I pulled on my sneakers and ran to the top, skipping (and tripping) over the roots and fallen branches. The earth was soft and I sunk into it slightly as I rested my hands on my hips to catch my breath. Through the last of the season’s foliage, I watched a mist glide across the river.

A breeze sent chills up my sweaty spine, as I leaned against a maple, tangling my feet in its roots, grounding me with my own.