Finally.
She shrugged her pack off and lowered herself so her back rested against a tree, blessing — for the umpteenth time — the waterproofs she’d splurged on several years ago. The purchase had meant giving up puddings for two months, but she’d never regretted the trade-off.
Food was essential, but so was heeding nature’s call for spending time in the outdoors. It was required nourishment for her soul.
In any weather, no matter damp or cold.
Soon she’d make the tent, gather wood, and light a fire to cook her oats on. But first she just sat, filling her lungs with air and her mind with calm contentment.
Raised in the city, she didn’t know how hungry she was for the outdoors until friends invited them to join a camping trip. She was ten.
Her parents hated every minute of it. For her, it had been like finally finding home.
For Crimson’s Creative Challenge #52
Na'ama Yehuda 
I feel her contentment in leaning against that tree, back in the wilds (or maybe not so wild if we’re talking of where I took the photo) Yet away from the towns, in amongst the trees, the air changes. You’ve caught that well.
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Thank you, Crispina! I know the orderly tree rows speak of not-so-wild-nature, but I think the light and peacefulness in the photo could well be a grove away from the hustle and noise of city life. And for her, nature enough. 🙂
I know from walking into Central Park – mostly man made and filled with all manner of artistic artifice – that it can be nature enough (sans tent and camping .. it’s not allowed), sometimes, when push comes to shove. The wilds hold extra magic, of course, but there is a lot to be said about replenishing with what one has access to. No matter cold or damp. 🙂
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The reality of this little woodland is it’s a fairly recent planting of trees, perhaps intended to give shade to the horses kept on this farm, but also as a windbreak since behind me when I was taking this were the Flixton Marshes… flat, bleak, nothing to stop the wind whistling in from both the west and the east. It abutts Flixton Decoy, which in ages past was a planting around a pond (in this case one of the Norfolk Broads… strictly speaking a Suffolk Broad) used to devoy ducks from the shooting fraternity. Blood sports? Perhaps, yet always for the pot. Those not eaten by the house and guests would be sold in the nearest towns, for the lesser masses to eat.
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OH! I love the back story! (no pun… or …what the heck, yes pun) …
As for the ducks … I guess that as long as they lived their lives fairly happily on the marshes until they got (less happily) shot to become someone’s dinner … then perhaps it is not all that awful (though I never did much care for the hunting vetos on the ‘masses’, but that’s another story altogether…).
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And we must ask which is best, a swift bullet, or to be hunted by foxes or frozen to death?
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Ah, the existential questions of duckhood!
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So that’s what they sit on the pond and ponder 🙂
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Yep, and even as they seem calm, they are pedaling furiously underneath … 😉
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Oh yes, I’ve seen their feet. I keep trying to get a photo but… not yet
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🙂 Will be delighted to see it when you capture it!
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I shall keep trying 🙂
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🙂
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The serenity and peace is beautifully described… makes me want to go for a long walk!
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Ah! Then it is mission accomplished … 🙂
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How the hell did I miss this?
What a wonderful, lung-filling with pure air, feeling of contentment I feel myself reading this…
I get her.
Much as I love the city, getting away from it once and again, grounds me.
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I think it’s easy to miss some of the things I write given the volume of stuff I write … 😉
AND, I’m glad you saw this. AND, I’m glad you responded and in this way! 🙂
Yay to a bit of the outdoors. I love the city, though I also love being out in nature, and the quietude it brings. Amen. 😉
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There is that…
I am glad, too.
And yes! Here is to the great outdoors, even if it but a small park in the city…
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Exactly! Or a large park in the City … (says moi, who is spoiled rotten to live within walking distance from Central Park …) 😉
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Indeed!
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😀 <– spoiled rotten
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