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This spot here’s still important to me, but it used to be a lot more important. For a while it was the premier bit of woods in my life.
Thinking back to those days is odd. Driving a few minutes every day to walk the dogs in woods busy with other people and their own dogs: no privacy, no agency.
Our favorite part was, of course, the quietest place, the place where kids go to get away and smoke weed or make out. But even there you could hear folks walking, hear trucks honking, and feel the city just over yonder.
I can hear trucks sometimes from my woods, but I can’t see them, and I certainly can’t feel them. People don’t go into these woods without my permission and that level of control is what allows for a feeling of freedom and certainty that I’ve never otherwise had.
This spot here’s still important to me, but it used to be a lot more important. For a while it was the premier bit of woods in my life.
Thinking back to those days is odd. Driving a few minutes every day to walk the dogs in woods busy with other people and their own dogs: no privacy, no agency.
Our favorite part was, of course, the quietest place, the place where kids go to get away and smoke weed or make out. But even there you could hear folks walking, hear trucks honking, and feel the city just over yonder.
I can hear trucks sometimes from my woods, but I can’t see them, and I certainly can’t feel them. People don’t go into these woods without my permission and that level of control is what allows for a feeling of freedom and certainty that I’ve never otherwise had.
I’ve been surprised by a stranger once, during a party at the beginning of the summer. I was moving a rock, I knew people might be around, I knew I might be walked in on, but I felt trespassed upon. I wasn’t doing anything to be embarassed by, in fact, it’s something I’m quite proud of. But these woods aren’t for anybody else and I do not like to be percieved. I like it less all the time, I like it less the longer I’m out here. I like it less because I think by not being percieved I am able to grow in ways that were denied me in a city.
I should probably quit using computers, too.