Last week I was gone for a magical week, deep in the woods of extreme northern Minnesota, a stone's throw from the Canadian border. A week spent deep in the woods gives a person a lot of time to think and you generally come back to your normal everyday life with some thoughts. Today, I'm sharing those deep thoughts from the woods here with you.


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The problem is, when you spend a lot of time away and have some moments of clarity, you come back to a jumbled up world and it can be really hard to reacclimate yourself to what's going on here in real life. It's been a bumpy ride to say the least. But I offer up my three thoughts to you in the hopes that maybe one of them will help untangle something in your head, too.
Deep thought #1: Prepare for then, but live in the now
Somewhere while packing the last items into the truck for our annual cabin trip, it occurred to me, this could be our last real family vacation. By next September, our oldest will be graduated from high school, possibly college, and will be a full fledged adult. Our youngest is only a year behind. And that thought sat in the back of my head as we drove up and unpacked our gear.

But somewhere along the first trip out on the 4 wheelers it hit me. I can focus on the fact it might be his last trip to the cabin as a kid and be sad, or I can pour myself into the moments of this vacation and actually experience them.



And then, I realized something else.

We’re all doing the same thing as it relates to what’s coming next for our economy, for our society. We are so caught up in what might be coming around the bend that we’re missing what’s happening right now.

Now, I do think it's important to prepare. I myself am someone who likes to try and think two steps ahead. I think that's a responsible thing to do. But not to the detriment of the life you're living and breathing in right now, at this moment. 

It's okay to peek at what's coming around the corner, but make sure you've got your feet on the ground where you're standing.
Deep thought #2: The trees have answers
Because the air is more clear and the woods chill me out, I generally go to the cabin looking for brilliant answers— for the way around everything, or for a solution to whatever is the current issue in my life. This time though, the answers just weren't coming and I was getting frustrated. The second to the last morning that we were at the cabin, I started the coffee pot, sat at the table in a sort of silence that is almost suffocating, and I penned the following free verse poem.



A Tree in the Woods
In this place
where I can see my breath at the kitchen table,
Where making a pot of coffee is not as easy as
Running the faucet
Clicking the power switch
Waiting a few minutes to pour your cup,
Where stepping off the deck means
Greeting a bear,
Where the changing leaves
are your television.
In this place
where we haven’t seen another
Human being for five days
Not on the trails.
Not on the roads.
Not in the woods.
Where the world could have stopped
Blown up
Ended
And we wouldn’t even know
Unless we turned on the radio.
In this place
where I come for clarity
Answers
Perspective
Where I usually come out on the other side with
A deep refreshing
Cleansing sigh
And a big idea
A solution
A plan
But this time is different
There is no cleansing sigh
I’m here and I feel like I’m
Holding
My
Breath.
And
Like an impatient two year old
I want the answers
Demand the answers
The sky and woods laugh at me
and say
Sit back
Watch
Breathe.
And I look
and all I see are trees.
Trees being trees.