`2024-07-18`

I go for a walk to explore the nearby forest. I am lucky to be living so near nature, in a small swedish city.

I hear a bird tweeting as I enter the forest. For once its not a seagull, so it is nice. Why are there even seagulls this far from sea?

I go further in and am surrounded by a lush environment of tall pine trees, moss-covered boulders and low-growing blueberry bushes. It feels like there's a missing middle there, but what do I know.

Wherever I go, I can see a house or a break in the treeline, showing where natures domain ends and civilization begins. I can always hear traffic from the not-so-distant road. I have to wear headphones to escape the sound of motorcycles and cars. At least I'm not missing out on much, there are no more birds for the next hour.

I reach the powerline zone. A scar across the land. All I see is dead trees. The other side of the divide is something different. It is marked as 'brush' on the map. I walk through it for a while, though the traffic is louder here. A destroyed forest, all the trees are young, trying to regrow. I fear it never will.

On my way back I get a view of the city. The Machine That Eats Forests. Later while writing this I hear a second bird. but the traffic never ceases, it is 11 pm and it's going loud as ever.

I will find my way home now. Home, where the traffic noise is replaced by seagulls.

go [home, where the traffic noise is replaced by seagulls](/)