I am sorry, my friends, for missing our usual meeting last week. My fatigue was too heavy and I couldn't pull my head from the fog. But here we are, three weeks since our last wander, about to discover the first tiny blossoms of the season.
Come, let’s escape to the forest.
Gravel grumbles quietly beneath my wandering feet. Step by step, pavement turns to dirt as the forest closes in around me. I lift my feet a little higher as I continue, navigating the uneven ground with care as roots wind along the path before digging deep into the earth.
The flat trail begins to incline, turning rocky and steep, as I trek slowly upward. A cliff towers to my left, a ravine drops to my right, and I listen to the babbling of a small creek as gravity whisks the water away down the hill.
This forest may be nearly in my backyard, but I haven’t visited since the first snow of November. This hill becomes treacherous in the ice and snow, and with so few people traversing up this way, trailblazing becomes a challenge as the snow accumulates.
Previous winters would have seen me trudging up here anyway, albeit less often than when the trail is clear. But this winter, fatigue was a weight I could barely carry, so I opted for easier, flatter terrain to answer the call of the forest.
With the slightly higher elevation here, this forest is often a little slower through the seasons than other places I visit. But as I crest the first hill and pause to look around and catch my breath, I notice that spring is in full swing here too.
Leaves sprout from every branch, delicate and fragile as they unfurl into the warm air. The smallest buds of flowers are beginning their journey, still green in colour, they resemble the leaves within which they sprout, but soon, they will shift into soft yellow bells.
Further into the woods, more blooms catch my eye. I can always count on these little ones to start early, the oval-leafed blueberry grows prolifically in many areas of the forests here.
A small burst of colour brings me to these lovely pink flowers, perfect and unmarred, hanging delicately off branches.
Later in my walk, I find pristine white blossoms and spend many a moment here admiring their beauty. This white variety sports fewer flowers, for now, but these little bushes are tucked deeper into the woods where light is harder to come by.
It is comforting to be immersed in spring in the forest; the very first flowers dotting the landscape, bare branches sporting their new leaves, the streams full of winter melt.
I can feel the weight of winter melt off my shoulders just as the snow has melted from the moss. And despite my fatigue not melting away with the rest of it, my spirit does feel lighter than it has in many months.
And so I look forward to luscious green walks and many more flowers to come.
I’ll see you next time,
♡ Whitney
I know a few people who now have chronic fatigue after their bouts of Covid and they would certainly understand your need to lighten your daily load in whatever way you can. I also know two who have fully recovered and their 'foggy' days have past. So there is hope. May the freshness of spring help to heal you Whitney.
Thank you for sharing your walk. Those tiny pink and white lanterns are like little spring fairy lights. Thank you for sharing them. too!
Beautiful, as always. That pink is exquisite.