Micro-Forest

33

I was working at my secondary office in the upstairs of a hatchery, just a few blocks from home. I try to work out of there at least one day a week; it’s my quiet sanity space.

It means a day without a commute, a day not hearing sirens 13 floors below, a day not being forced to overhear every conversation around me because of the open office floor plan, a day largely distraction free, a day that I can sometimes listen to music without headphones if i’m the only person upstairs (happens fairly often), and a day that (if I am alone upstairs) I don’t need to put headphones on or press a receiver to my hear for hours when I have a conference call…..I can put it on speaker phone and not disturb others.

And, if sunny, it also means a day that I can go stand at the edge of a river and listen to the rushing water, feel the sun on my face, and breathe something other than recycled office air.

These are usually very good days.

Down here in the canyon it’s often a few degrees colder than it is above, but that also means that, when the sun comes out, the canyon seems to magnify the warmth when one stands directly in it.

Today, at lunch, I wandered up to the far end of the site and through a gate down to a platform just above the river. I could see people on the other side of the river, on the public platforms on the trails, looking over at me, probably wondering how the heck to get where I was. The rocks along the water are covered with thick layers of moss and, in the cool and moist air, the moss is sprouting happily.

I love looking closely at moss, you can see a tiny forest within the little green mass; their little tiny sporophytes reaching for height, the capsules held aloft and swelling before popping to spread its spores and disperse itself farther afield.

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