The Forest is Calling and I Must Go
My childhood unfolded in the tender embrace of a forest, where trees were not just scenery but steadfast companions, guardians of a world that felt like a living heartbeat. Summer days glowed with an endless expanse of green, the sunlight spilling through the canopy in a mesmerizing interplay of light and shadow that danced across the weathered siding of our house. The wind wove its way through the leaves, their rustling a soft, ceaseless symphony that hummed with life, a lullaby of peace that wrapped around me. Fall arrived with a crisp stillness, the air thick with the earthy scent of a forest easing into dormancy—moss and fallen needles mingling with the faint tang of decay. I’d listen to the scamper of squirrels and deer rustling through the crackling leaves, gathering their stores for the cold ahead. Winter draped the woods in a heavy blanket of snow, transforming the branches into glistening sculptures, a silent wonderland that sparkled under the muted sun. Then spring would erupt, coaxing the forest awake with birdsong and budding leaves, the cycle turning once more. It was a small, perfect world — just me, my family, our house, and the trees that cradled us. Living there felt fulfilling, a quiet joy I didn’t fully grasp at the time, though even then I knew it was special. The forest was my sanctuary, a place where I felt tethered to the world, its rhythms pulsing through me — something I took for granted, assuming it would always be there. As any child would assume.
Those memories linger like a living thing inside me: the sharp fragrance of pine and damp soil, the whisper of branches swaying in the breeze, the vivid beauty that colored every season with its own distinct brushstroke. But in the fall of 2003, I turned away from that sanctuary. University called, its promise of a future dangling before me, and I leapt at it with a restless hunger, for it was the next thing. I swapped the forest for a new landscape of concrete towers and the clamor of unfamiliar voices — a jarring, exhilarating shift. Dormitory life was a wild whirlwind: loud neighbors banging on walls, music blaring at all hours, all of us crammed into a concrete box where every window revealed a patchwork of sparse grass and towering buildings. Sidewalks stretched in every direction, leading to more structures, more noise—a jungle of gray that dwarfed the slivers of nature clinging to the edges. The university thrummed with wild energy, and I threw myself into it, swept up in late-night parties and the intoxicating freedom of being untethered. Yet that thrill couldn’t last forever. Soon, the 18-year-old me had to have a conversation with other 18-year-old me, a serious one. My future rested on these years, on finding a way to focus and succeed. So I tried — sometimes stumbling, sometimes steadying myself — but always pushing forward.
In the summers, when the students emptied out, a familiar quiet would settle over the campus, echoing the calm of the woods I’d known. Buildings stood silent, the air still, but something was missing — a depth, a soul that the forest had once given me. It wasn’t until 2006 that I left the raucous dorms for my first apartment near campus, sharing thin walls with three others in a building buzzing with the lives of 80 or 100 more souls, all of us orbiting the same chaotic center. But in the summers of those years, the silence came back as almost the entire university shut down, students scattering home. We stayed, wandering the quiet concrete scape—empty streets and still buildings stretching out like a ghost town. That silent remedy, stark and strange against the gray, would tug at me again, a faint pull I couldn’t yet name.
I forgot to mention that in 2004, my family left our forest home of 20 years for a house in a tidy development nearby. It felt like progress — a step forward into a new chapter — and I didn’t realize then that I was leaving behind a piece of myself, a moment in the woods that would never return. Those forest faded further into the past, a distant echo growing fainter with each year.
After university, my girlfriend — later my wife — and I ventured deeper into city life, chasing the next chapter. We landed in another apartment, swallowed by the concrete grip of a bustling urban sprawl, the roar of a nearby highway our constant companion. It was more of the same — roads and buildings stretching out, a small city life with only a whisper of wilderness in the occasional tree-lined street. Towering structures loomed, and the hum of traffic replaced the rustle of leaves — a soundtrack I learned to live with for decades now. Somewhere in those years, a pull I couldn’t name — unrecognizable at the time — began tugging at me, faint but persistent. Years later, married and eager to put down roots, we found a lot in a subdivision — a modest plot backing to a narrow ribbon of that old life, a thin sliver of trees that hinted at wilderness until you looked closer and saw the rooftops peeking through. We built our house there, raising our family in a sea of developments where roofs and homes stretch as far as the eye can see, each one pressed against the next in an endless grid for miles and miles. That sliver of woods in our backyard offers a fleeting glimpse of green, but it’s hemmed in by more houses, more lives — a fragile echo of the forest I once knew. Our city is a vast mosaic of asphalt and shingles, a world so far removed from the forest of my youth that now it honestly feels like another lifetime. Yet that tug lingered, a quiet ache for something wilder, something lost.
For over a decade now, we’ve lived here, carving out a life I genuinely treasure—full of laughter, milestones, and the quiet joys of raising our kids. Our house sits close to a major highway, and the sound of traffic is a constant companion — always there, a low roar that never fades. But somewhere in these two decades away from the woods, that subtle longing began to stir more insistently. It started as a faint itch, a fleeting thought, but it’s grown into something deeper—a pull, a whisper from the trees I once knew so intimately. Lately, the forest has started speaking to me more clearly. On weekends, we’ve taken to hiking in wooded areas nearby, the crunch of leaves underfoot and the scent of pine stirring something dormant in me. I’ve watched our kids race through playgrounds nestled near groves of trees, their laughter mingling with the rustle of branches, and felt a flicker of that old connection — faint but familiar. We’ve even begun looking at properties in those areas, walking wooded lots where the air feels alive, and each time, I’m struck by how it echoes the sanctuary of my childhood. That pull is no longer just a whisper; it’s a voice, steady and clear. I find myself yearning to stand among the trees again, to feel the cool shade of their branches overhead, to hear their rustling voices weaving through the silence. I crave the stillness of that world, the way it breathes with scents of cedar and earth, unburdened by the weight of concrete and noise.
It’s been over 20 years since I last felt that connection, since the forest was my home, my refuge. For two decades, I’ve done my best to make friends with the concrete, the structures, and the hum of highways — adapting to their rhythm, building a life within their bounds. But now, I long to reconnect with the living, with the trees that pulse with a heartbeat I once knew. Their call grows louder — a deep, steady summons that tugs at my soul, refusing to be ignored. The woods wait for me, patient and timeless, as they always have. I left them to chase a future, but they never left me. And so, after all this time, I must go — back to the sanctuary that shaped me, back to the trees that have been calling me home.
Hello woods!
_brandon