The trails are getting muddy. Not the dramatic, rain-soaked mud of a downpour. The slow, quiet mud of a thaw. The ground releasing what it held all winter. Ice becoming water becoming earth becoming something soft enough to leave a boot print that will last until the next rain.
Nobody writes poems about mud season. It is the part of the year that outdoor culture skips. The social media feeds jump from pristine snow to wildflower meadows. Nobody posts the in-between: the brown. The gray. The squelch.
But I walked through it yesterday and something about the messiness felt honest. More honest than a summit photo, more honest than a golden-hour landscape. The forest in mud season is not performing for anyone. It is doing the unglamorous work of becoming something new. Roots are waking up underground. Buds are forming but not showing yet. Everything is in process, nothing is finished, and the whole forest looks like a rough draft.
I think there is comfort in that. We live in a culture that celebrates finished things. Polished things. Optimized things. But the forest right now is a reminder that most of life is mud season. Most of the meaningful work happens in the messy middle, and the only way through it is to keep walking and trust that the wildflowers are coming.
Get your boots muddy this week. It is worth it.
Steven
