Fall is here.

Fall has erupted. 
The last day of summer was the first rain of the season. 
Friday the 20th was a peculiar day. 
Arrived to the place where we would hike out (about a mile) to go do stream work. 
We opened our car doors, greeted by the warm, yet frigid air, to hear a hissing noise. 
Flat tire. 
We change the tire. Start work late. 
Leave work an hour early. 
Take off gear, start to get into the car, and a 30% chance of rain becomes reality. 
The sky becomes sharper, the trees greener, and the dust settles. 
An hour later we arrive to the top of the mountain, and to the gate where my car is parked, and I take off for San Francisco. 
It was time to see my incredible friend Rachel, and see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic with her and her friend Dacia. 
The drive passed by quickly until Sausalito and the bridge. 19th was backed up. But it was okay -- being in this city is home. Having the extra time in traffic to gaze and people watch was much appreciated. 
Arrived at Rachel's home in Daly City. Awesome neighborhood. Awesome house. Have food, have wine. Meet Dacia, and instantly become best friends -- upon her (mutually approved of) request. Shower like a mad woman. And head for the concert. 
Get on Muni. Find a bible written in Spanish. 
Concert was on Pier 23 under the moonlight. It wasn't raining. I was wearing only a tank top and jeans, in San Francisco, and I was comfortable. 
Edward Sharpe had just finished the first song. We show our tickets, run to the stage, and are nearly front row (standing), but off to the left (facing the stage). 
I smiled, so much as we ran to the stage and began dancing. 
Several moments I had to pinch myself. 
I was dancing. Dancing so much. There was a slight, so very slight breeze parading through my hair. Outside. On the Pier. With the moon. In SF. The last summer night. Edward Sharpe. Great friends. Hand holding. Screaming. 
Concert finishes, and gets cut off. But it's alright. 
Back on Muni -- to Mel's diner. Vanilla shakes, cheese fries, late night conversations with the waiter. 
Back to home, drop off Dacia. 
Late night chats. 
Fall asleep to Christmas Lights making the room softer, and awaken to a day of rain on the first day of Autumn. Perfection. 
Rachel and I had coffee, lots of fruit with oatmeal, and some cookie butter, and then I fled to Sausalito, in pouring skies and water filled roads, to go see houseboats with my family. 
Go back to Rachel's, 
and now I'm here. Drinking tea, and talking with her. 
It's Dani's (my Spanish housemate from Italy) birthday. I celebrated it with him last year. Last year. 
Life is so conventionally and unconventionally odd and beautiful. 

Forests

To momentarily exist independent of others is disturbing and enlightening. 

We've been conditioned to think that nature cannot teach, but can provide a space to learn; an entity to study and a means to self-discovery. 

We categorize, we identify so that the mysterious moves into the known. 

We seek the ordered chaos, to implement order in our very minds. 

Yet, we do not learn from. We do not let ourselves be taught by the natural world that surrounds -- deeming it impossible that a seemingly inanimate object -- something wild and separate from the human environment, could teach one about the self, about the world, and about our very own bodies. 

I've hiked. I've backpacked. I've sat on many shores, swam in uncounted waters, and found myself in deserts. Ice, snow, dirt, sand, mud. Steep slopes, flat lands. 

My time in nature consistently brought me to a place of understanding. Brought me.I saw nature as this beautiful, sacred, space that I could learn in; a place of peace where the mind could find clarity. 

But those spaces in nature, had clear paths, were more refined, and were places where people usually go. 

To carve my own path through nature, to submerse myself in the wild, and let myself be... just be -- that was a different experience. To go into nature, where people have not tried to organize and categorize. To go to spaces where you do not understand, and places where you have not seen, that is when you truly allow the mind to unfold. 

In the depths of the forest, you relearn how to be human. You learn how to walk, to step, to ascend, and to stabilize. Your legs, your feet, must carry you differently. Your core is more activated. Your arms must pull, grab, claw, brace, bend, and break to help you move. There is no simple, graceful, and calm arm swing. It is jagged, abrupt, awkward, and untimely. Your legs swing over and your body dives under fallen trees. The forest shows you, teaches you, how to exist as a body. As your own individual entity in the midst of the undefined. 

In the depths of the forest, your lungs breathe deep. Reminding you the power of air. The power of your own body to live. Your skin is scratched, scraped, and bruised -- reminding you of the power of that casing that holds your body together -- protects you. The forest shows you how to move, how to breathe, how to navigate. It teaches you and shows you what you are actually capable of as a body, in the simplest of terms. It teaches you that we are not all-knowing, even when it comes to knowing our very own bodies. 

To many that simplicity may be dehumanizing, or even belittling. But for me, to understand myself in the simplest form -- how I walk, jump, move, breathe, run is more humanizing than not having this connection with who I am. We see our body only as compartment for our mind -- that our mind is truly what defines us. But to understand the body that carries the mind is invaluable and is the gateway to not only understanding our minds, but having a stronger mind as well. 

Learning at first felt empty. The familiar ways of moving that I had known for the past 22 years became as unrecognizable as the landscape I was encountering. Taking these -- what we see as -- basic parts of life, of movement, and making them inapplicable, forces you to be as undefined as the space around you. From that point of indefinite knowing, being, and surrounding, you are then able to define yourself, as you define the space around you. 

And with each step of complete intention, each muscle flex and engagement, each tear of the skin, and each deep inhale of the lungs, you relearn who you are, what your body is, what your mind can withstand, and the varying ways it can interact with the world around you.