Dottie ran along the forest trail. Here was wilderness, wind, and freedom. The trail here was fairly straight, wide, and excellent for running for a good eighth of a mile, some where just past a couple hundred meters. Her feet hit the earth, and then launched her body with her toes, her ankle and knees helping with the whole springboard affect of keeping herself in motion. She loved this, the movement, the freshness, the whole joy of freedom without the gym sharp tang in her lungs from using recycled air.
As she ran she saw some of the forest critters. A couple deer were startled to the side that had been wandering down the opposite direction. A grouse was drumming on the dirt. She could here more in the distance as well. Bees and other insects were going for the mid summer flowers around her.
Not many people walked this. Some did, as she knew one of her neighbours walked his dog here occasionally. There were other trails he walked his dog on as well. She saw the occasional biker, but not many did since this trail ended on the edge of a field. It was up the valley as well, so she understood it as a nice walk for those wanting to stretch their legs, but not for people wanting to picnic or anything like that.
The one place the majority of people came to see that did walk this was a stream that mostly dried up in late summer before it got wet again, as it seemed as the bikers at least tried to build themselves bridges. There had been one that had been well made, for an amateur, and it had lasted for years until it had washed out. Now the stream where it had been was roughed up by the occasional all-terrain vehicle going from the town to the field, but there was a skinny thing, just wide enough for your foot, crossing it so one could cross without getting their feet wet.
She slowed down to pause as the grade finally tilted down towards the other major wet spot, but still a spot one wouldn't run down. It was clay, with some pebbles, so quite slick at times, and at the bottom, usually. The run off hit against the old clay rail bank, unused and untended, and while it had forced a better way through besides the narrow pipe at some point, it still tended to puddle there.
The forest had taken it over, mostly. The rail bank was the reason the path was so straight, as it was the center of it. On either side, trees and shrubs had come up the sides, but the center, where the old trains had gone, was hard packed and was the home for grasses and flowers. The fact that people still used it occasionally for walking on most likely didn't help that either.
Past that dip, and up to the old rail line again, she followed along some more. She was about to turn off soon, so she kept a close eye on the trees. It wasn't a human made path, or if it was, not a known human made path, and that is where she entered the trees uphill. There it was, and so she stopped to breathe.
She knelt, checked her shoe laces, and tied her sweater around her neck more tightly. It wouldn't do if it came off.
She entered the trees. Out there, you could still think you were around people. In here, you weren't. Here you were off the path, following a trail mostly used by deer, and you had to be aware. She had been in the area and found it two years ago, but she usually stayed on the path. However, recently she had gone back to school and she needed to be away from the people. She needed to feel the branches of the trees rubbing her arms, the grass at her ankles, even the occasional burr. She wasn't used to that many people and it showed. She needed to feel the life of the forest after feeling the dead pavement and walls and floors.
There it was, the plum and crabapple tree clearing. Once again, upon coming to the entrance of the glade, she felt it not quite natural, but the person that had created it had either gone a few years (poison ivy took a couple years to invade) or had touched it sparingly to keep it as wild as it was. The lack of that ivy was one, but the lack of harsh grass was another, as if it had been seeded. The fact that the trees were such an exact measurement apart helped too. No young shrub growth was at the edges, pushing its way in.
Dottie walked in and began to talk. She didn't know why, but she did. It felt good though.
Once she sat down, she sat under the crabapple and just listened. At first, it was just the insects she could hear. In a few minutes, the crickets rejoined. Some patient waiting after that, the faraway calls of birds became near again. She opened her eyes and could see them flying around her in the trees. She sat for another half hour.
She got up quietly. A bird did flee from her movement, the crickets quieted some, but the disturbance was less than when she entered her haven. A quiet "thank you" was heard at the entrance, a gap between two trees with their branches arching overhead, and then she left with a calmer air around her than when she came.
She was tired as she got home, and she needed to stay up longer to get the home work completed, but now she could focus.
It became a habit everyday as she came home from school.