I am by myself wearing my blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. It is cool outside but I decided to leave my gloves at home, feeling comfortable with my warm shirt and my sturdy boots.
It is just me and the woods. I take nothing with me when I leave, because I know that I won't be gone too long.
It is early fall so it is cool outside but not cold. I am back on the east coast walking through the woods of the Buckhead Manor Neighborhood. The leaves have begun turning colors so there is a beautiful array of oranges, yellows, greens, and reds. The red colors of the leaves remind me of the maple trees that used to be outside of my house. I remember looking at the red leaves on those trees the evening of our homecoming football game when my good friend Beau came over.
The floor of the forest is damp but not muddy. There are moss covered stones that litter the path I am walking. Some of them are loose, and others are firmly embedded in the ground. For the most part they are the rocks that you have to watch out for when your are running a cross-country race so that you do not sprain your ankle. They are the type of rocks that are annoying at picnics and camp fires because they are not big enough to sit on and too big to move.
I keep walking because I know that ahead of me is a small stream where I can quietly sit and listen to the water. It is small enough that some rocks protrude above the water and I could walk across if I wanted to.
As I walk towards the stream I see a bottle that is empty and crushed. At one point it had been a bottle filled with mineral water for someone who had been hiking through the woods on a health trip. When I see it I don't stop to pick it up, but I make a mental note of its locations so I can grab it on my way back.
Once I reach the stream I sit on a rock and watch the water tumble over and around the stones in the creek bed. As I sit there a deer appears on the other side of the