Somewhere Between the Pines and the Past

I don’t really know how to start this. I guess I’m just writing because… well, something in the air today felt off. Or maybe just different. It’s hard to explain. I took a walk earlier — through Wilbraham, the parts no one really talks about. Not the glossy center or the postcard spots. Just the back roads. Where the pine needles collect and nobody rakes them away. That kind of place.

I passed by an old mailbox, bent like it had been leaning into the wind for decades. It had moss on it. Real moss. Not the kind you see in curated garden photos, but the wild, unbothered kind. I don’t know why that stuck with me. Maybe because it reminded me of people who grow older, slower, softer — and are still beautiful in their own strange way.

It’s funny how memory works. One scent, like woodsmoke or old leaves, and suddenly you’re not walking through town anymore. You’re ten years old again, wrapped in some moment you thought you forgot. I think science says it’s something about how smell connects directly to the limbic system. Whatever. All I know is, when I smelled that chimney burning, I remembered my grandfather’s old flannel shirt and the way he used to hum when he cooked beans on the stove. He didn’t talk much, but he listened like nobody else I’ve ever known.

These days, it feels like everyone’s shouting to be heard, y’know? Online, in person, even in the way we dress or decorate our homes. Constant signal, constant noise. But walking through these woods today, there was this rare thing… quiet. Not silence — no, there were birds and wind and a far-off dog losing its mind at probably nothing. But quiet in the sense that I didn’t feel like I had to be anyone, or say anything, or even think something smart or useful.

There’s this word — fernweh. It’s German, and it means something like “far-sickness.” Like homesickness, but for a place you’ve never been. I’ve been feeling that a lot lately. But today, for a strange hour or so, that ache was gone. And I didn’t expect that to happen in Wilbraham. But there you go.

I don’t really have a point, and maybe that’s the point. Life doesn’t always arrange itself neatly. Sometimes you just need to go outside and look at moss, and remember someone who listened well. Sometimes that’s enough.

If you made it this far — thanks for sticking around. I didn’t mean for this to be a post or a diary or even much of anything. Just… a breath, I guess. Maybe I’ll write more. Maybe I won’t. For now, the kettle’s on, and there’s a chill coming in through the window. Feels like fall is already leaning in. That’s not a bad thing.