A single dirt path sets out from the bottom edge of the photograph and walks off into the fog. Down its middle, thin dry grass has sprouted, splitting the two wheel ruts apart, and the surface is scattered with fine gravel and bits of broken pine needles. On either side stands a wall of fir trees.
The branches on the left have settled low in deep green, covering the dry silver grass at the roadside, while the tree on the right nudges the tips of its small branches out over the path. Beyond it, three or four hazy trunks stand half erased by the fog. From the way white light warms the space between the trees at the far end, it is early morning, the sun just risen.
Standing on a path like this, the change begins at the soles of your feet. The fine gravel rolls a little beneath your shoes, and the earth, damp all night, holds your heel back by about half a beat. The more it holds you, the shorter your stride grows, and following that shortened stride, your shoulders come down on their own.
Your eyes loosen, focus hooked on the white light far ahead, and your hands, out of your pockets, swing lightly beside your elbows. Your breath bends cool at the tip of your nose.
Because the fog has erased the end of the path, the mind that kept measuring how far it must go briefly loses its work.
There is one thing that takes only three minutes. Step outside the building and walk twenty steps from where the shade of the street trees begins. When the shade ends, turn around and retrace those twenty steps.
While you do, it is worth counting, one by one, the sound of your feet meeting the ground. One tree is enough, and the width of the shade that single tree casts becomes the whole of the forest path you walk today.
The same steps can be carried into the night as well. With the lights off, lying down, while you tread some twenty steps along that dirt path on the inside of your eyelids, take one look at your jaw. Just check whether your back teeth are touching or apart, and let it pass. There is no need to fix anything because they were touching, nor any reason to think something has improved because they were apart.
Fog is never in a hurry to lift.
