Wednesday, November 16, 2016

The pool in the woods


Once upon a time, there was a weekend.

A Frenchman and a South African decided to drive into it. So they hired a car. Once they had wiped the car down with Chlorox wet wipes, they pointed north, toward the country with the trees.


They were going to a place they remembered, where they could sit and listen to water, and see nothing but leaves falling.


To get there they walked on a path that crunched, where clusters of honey mushrooms grew on roots.


 And where a man who passed them told them they had just missed an otter. 


It was as it had ever been.


They waited and watched, but no otter.


Then he went downstream, and she circled trees and explored leaves. 


They ate lunch on the big rock. Hot soup from a Thermos. Sandwiches with garden leaves and cheese, and Sunday salmon on a Brooklyn bagel.




                                                        And then they drove home.
.


                                                    Into the thickening arteries of the city.

12 comments:

  1. Lovely post! I want to get out into the forest and have a serene picnic of my own with a thermos and otters. It just all looks so perfect.

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    Replies
    1. I have yet to see a real live otter in the wild. I will be so happy. I would like to be an otter.

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  2. You're so fortunate that it was as it ever was. That so often isn't the case. Beautiful place.

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    Replies
    1. Yes. Going back to a special place to find it violated in one of the many ways it can be - housing, development, a golf course - is terrible. I think this narrow valley will always be protected, as it is a source of NYC's drinking water.

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  3. Marie, I'm having a hard time imagining you using Chlorox wipes. Is there bleach in them?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, bleach. We use Zipcars or Car2Go, whose surfaces inside can get quite grim and smeared because they are used often, and are sometimes just-used by other people. So we don't want bugs on our hands. At home it's soap and water - in a city of 8.4 million, with 4 million on the subway every day, you get used to washing your hands the minute you step in the door. But the bleach wipes last us years, and I feel I won't go to hell (I think we might be there already, actually) for using them... Considering we don't own cars, and don't have children, our carbon footprint is not bad :-)

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  4. You could photography a can of spam and a Diet Coke and still, it would somehow look very special and inviting. (Not that I would eat that stuff.)

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    Replies
    1. Ha, now you have set me a challenge :-) Thank you.

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