The trade-off

I am here, which is to say, not home. A cabin in the woods.

My job is transformed for a week.

Instead of our familiar routine, there are songs about bears and alligators, homemade bread, slugs and hawks, and muddy feet.

Everyone wants to cross the stream.

They know this is why they had to bring two pairs of boots.

There is beauty everywhere, from the tissue paper egg parachutes to the honey colored leaves falling from the sky.

There is a trade-off here. Some things we give up in exchange for this week in the dry, crunching leaves. For the life of me, I cannot remember what we are giving up, though, other than a little sleep.