My Favorite Place

 My favorite place is less of a "place" and more of a category of places. My favorite place is a forest, woods, or any sort of place full of trees where you can't see civilization. 

 (A Forest in Washington: Wikimedia Commons)

There is just something about them that is hard to describe. Forests have a certain energy about them, a sort of charge that you can feel deep within you. It's whimsy, but with an underlying sense of danger. There are things in the forest: bears, mountain lions, and who knows what else. Even if you aren't normally prone to superstition you might hesitate before stepping in a ring of mushrooms or stones. It is an experience akin to looking up at the sky on a cloudless night; you get the sense that millions of people before you have been in that moment, feeling that same sense of wonder. 

Across the road from my house and past the railroad tracks, there is a woods. It's big enough to get lost in, but small enough that you could find a road in any direction if you walked far enough. My family knows the people who own it, and they let us use the land for hunting and foraging as long as we let them know when we'll be there. One of the downsides of attending university in the spring is missing the window to forage for morel mushrooms.

 (A Morel Mushroom: Wikimedia Commons)

Those spongy looking little fungi are delicious. There is a poisonous false morel, but they look more like a brain and are usually darker in color, so it is not too hard to tell them apart.

Of course, I also just like exploring in the woods. If you go deep enough, there is a suspiciously grave shaped pile of rocks that I have affectionately dubbed the "Unmarked Grave." I took a picture, but at an angle so that nothing caught on to what I was doing. It is obscured by leaves, and only a partial picture, but the larger rocks are visible:

(Image Description: personal photo of the "Unmarked Grave;" photo from April 2017)

I also like to collect the animal bones that I find there. I feel like it is a way to immortalize them somewhat. It is rare for the story of a random animal in the woods to be told, but it feels meaningful when it is, even to an audience of only one. Bones can tell that story, if you know how to listen.

(Image Description: personal photo of a coyote skull; photo from April 2017)

Take this coyote skull, for example. The skull looks young, not a pup, but not an old coyote either. At the back of the skull, near the base of where the neck would be, is an intact bullet hole. Based on this and what I know about my neighbors, I can piece together how this coyote died. Someone was trespassing (likely to hunt deer) and saw this coyote instead. They then shot the coyote as it was fleeing, because coyotes are widely considered pests. I kept this one as an apology. I think shooting a coyote is like shooting a crow, it's rude and just asking for bad luck. 

-A