The world around me reflects my dismal mood. It’s cold and a heavy fog hangs in the air. Even upon glimpsing a cardinal in a tree on my way into White Clay, I can barely muster a smile. Getting to my sit spot is harder than usual today. I take a slightly different path in and find myself surrounded by and tangled in thorny branches. They grab at my clothing, as if they are trying to prevent me and my sulky mood from entering the forest. At one point, I am trapped in a complete standstill. There is no place for me to go without the danger of getting stabbed. My anger rises as I trudge forward, getting pricked and poked almost the whole way to my spot.

I finally reach my place and ease my body down onto the log I like to sit on. My eyes land immediately on the shredded plastic bag that is trapped in the branches of a tree that lies in the stream. I realize that plastic bag is the one aspect of the landscape that has not, and probably will not change from one week to the next as winter melts into spring. The Styrofoam cup that was trapped on the side of the stream the last two times I was here is now gone. Great, now it’s just polluting some other part of the woods, I think to myself.  

Sitting here on the log, I notice that the air is still and a little warmer than on my walk here. I hear an airplane above me, but when I look up all I see is a thick layer of grey clouds. A few minutes later, I hear another airplane. And then another. Three planes pass over my head in just the first 10 minutes since arriving here. For some reason, this makes me snap. The noise pollution and stress and exhaustion and cold seem to permeate my body and sink into my bones. My senses, usually so acute when I am in the woods, are blurring the world around me into one damp, cold, dismal mess. The one thing I notice is water… A giant blur of water. I hear it flowing in the stream. I feel it landing on my hands and hear it tapping on the hood of my rain jacket. The air I breathe is moist and water-laden. Two drops pool at the corners of my eyes. I don’t even know why I’m crying.

I lay down on the log and close my eyes in an effort to calm down. At first, the rain hitting my face bothers me. The drops are too cold, too prickly, too many. I hear another plane pass above me. The log is hard and cold against my back. Two birds call down to me from above. One speaks in a short chirp that I have heard in these woods before. The other trills between two distinct notes. I recognize the interval as a minor third. I am captivated by this call and open my eyes to try to spot the bird. I am unsuccessful, but do see three robins in a tree in front of me. I sit up to get a better look when a small grey bird enters into my vision. It hops and flies along the ground, stopping only to peck in the brush. It is plump and grey with a small, pointed beak and a yellow stripe on its head. After looking for it in both my field guide and online, I am convinced it was a golden-crowned kinglet. A flash of cobalt blue appears in my peripheral vision and I turn my head to see a bright blue bird fly across the creek and land on a branch directly across from me. It is medium in size and has a burnt orange chest – an eastern bluebird, according to my field guide. I am taken by this bird and how majestic it seems, sitting on its throne in the trees. A moment later, it flies across the larger creek and off into the distance. I am completely captivated by these birds and only now notice that I am warmer and calmer.

I sit back down on the log and look at the mud underneath my hiking boots. A sudden urge to walk barefoot overcomes me and in moments, I have stripped my feet of my boots and two layers of socks and am standing barefoot in the mud. I walk towards the stream and feel the mud rise into the cracks between my toes just a little bit. I step into the frigid water and feel it forming a path around my ankles. My feet are so cold they burn and I start grinning. I walk upstream for a few steps and then, unable to bear the cold any longer, hurry back to my log. My feet are slightly pink and tingling. I dry them off and slip my boots back on. Before heading home, I untangle the plastic bag from the branches of the log in the stream across from me.

On my way out of the woods, my steps are slow and my mind is calm. I have left my hood down and don’t mind the rain on my hair. Two birds are cawing and chasing each other in circles above me. I imagine the spiraling trails they would leave behind them if they were airplanes. As I emerge from the woods, I feel my eyes filling with tears again. I stop and just let the tears roll down my cheeks. A red blur–a cardinal–flies across the path only twenty feet in front of me. It must be the same cardinal that I saw on the way in. This time, the smile comes easily and lingers on my lips all the way home.