by Kevin Dorning

Created on: October 25, 2009

A place of comfort

Comfort implies more to me than being physically at ease. It is an internal state as much as anything. It implies that I am mentally at rest, but not necessarily secure, not the absence of things that cause discomfort. It is finding a place where I can be internally at rest and satisfied. A place that is conducive to thinking and pondering without having to come to any conclusions. It's a place where I don't have to be concerned about wasting time. It's a place where I can reflect and wonder, and wander mentally.

Come with me and experience a place of comfort.

Many years ago I spent my days in the forests of the Northwest cruising timber. Don't worry if you don't know what that is. Just understand that it involved being in places that are apart from the business of life. Sometimes in placed that no other person has ever been.

The clear cut is behind me now. Having spent much of the day wandering through the mud, muck and noise that is the industrial world of logging roads, log decks, landings, trucks, chain saws and more, I is a relief to finally be shed of that. Standing in the scarred acreages of a clear cut, the edge of the cut, the tree line, always seems to call out to me. A stark boundary, defined by an imposing wall of tall trees. Their dark boles, capped with deep green foliage stand out starkly against the barrenness of the cut. They towered like great wooden cliffs against the chaos of stumps and decks of freshly cut timber. There the dimness draws me in, evoking feelings of adventure and deep mysterious longings akin to nostalgia, that pull at the heart.

I stand in the silence, huge trees all around. Some are old growth, left by old time loggers because they were too big for axes and saws in the days of the first cutting. Here, aged High Stumps crumble with the passage of time. They are the ghosts of older times rising above the surrounding ferns and understory brush. The colors are different here. The greens and blacks provide sharp contrast, strong when compared to the pale greens and grays that you see out in the sun washed meadows. These are heavy, thick, dark colors. Colors that mean what they say.

It starts to rain. The heavy drops filter down through the canopy, shattered into a fine mist that eventually reaches the forest floor. The mist collects into tiny rivulets running down branches and leaves to gather in ever growing drops that glisten from the tips of leaves and Cedar boughs. They hang line ornaments from needles

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