🕔 Entry time: 5:17 PM
2 miles. 86 degrees. No lighter. Just two blunts and no flame. Thanks to My pee brain of course I’d forget that part.
It was me, my work bestie, and my dog. There was also a not-even-two-year-old who baby-ran the whole damn trail. She ran like she was on a personal mission from the earth.
We went to Glenford Fort Preserve. It’s a sacred hilltop rooted in Native history. A 2,000-year-old Hopewell earthwork with a mile-long stone wall and a mound in the center. You don’t need a sign to know it’s ancient. You can feel it in your ribs.
We weren’t loud. Just there. The land didn’t ask us to be anything else.
There were giant rock formations the size of houses. Some had trees growing out the top like they’d been there since the beginning. Everything was mossy and green even though it hadn’t rained. Dry but not dead dry. One part of the trail was randomly soaking wet. Caught me off guard. Like drinking a Sprite thinking it’s Diet Coke. When you reach for your partners cup holder on accident… jolt.
I bent down to flick a tick off my leg. I found a druzy quartz between my feet. It was stuck in orange stone. A little shimmer just chilling there like it had been waiting. So I picked it up. Quietly. It felt right.
No Lighter One Job!
Seven waters. One backpack. A toddler, a dog, two adults stoned off nothing but vibes, and a trail that felt older than language.
I forgot the lighter in the car. We had no fire. Just movement. Sweat. A baby who refused to slow down.
And the whole time, I kept thinking about the people who built that place. Who gathered there. Who shaped stone on purpose. Who climbed that hill before it had a name.
This hike wasn’t for me. It was for them.
In the wind
in the trees
in the ancient feel of the worn fortress stone
I felt them.
We stepped soft.
I hope it was enough.
Whisper to the void it might whisper back