Quiet Survival
Off grid Sunday… off duty Monday… still winning
We slipped out of town, rattling towards Lolo Pass until the hot air gave way to cool breezes, then to the hush of Lee Creek… towering pines filtered the sun into ribbons of gold, the stream soothed like distant traffic that never gets closer, and two bike rides unraveled the knots behind our eyes… a single night, yet it felt as if the forest loaned us a week’s worth of calm, the burgers on the grill while the sky cooled from blue to velvet.
Back home the screens blinked to life, meetings multiplied like raindrops on glass, and my brain… already tired.. refused the noise… I called in sick, knowing the word “overwhelmed” never sounds serious enough, but every alert felt like gravel in a gearbox, every polite ping a hammer on glass… taking the day felt strange and necessary, the kind of decision you make with both relief and guilt twined together.
Yet memory of the trees lingered… I noticed the family visit looked gentler in hindsight, the weekend’s quiet still breathing under today’s fatigue… I told myself, don’t talk to the police, don’t sleep on the tracks—my shorthand for staying clear of disaster, for choosing small safe steps until the fog lifts… by afternoon I’ll find a slower rhythm, trees instead of dread, and let the scent of pine ride the trail.
Sometimes the smallest escape stretches farther than panic can reach, and the heart, reminded of whispering pines, becomes wide enough to carry tomorrow.