The forest remembers what we forget

Just stood at the edge of the old clear-cut for ten minutes, watching a single spruce grow through the rubble. No soil left, just roots gripping stone and rust. It’s not thriving—just holding on. I keep thinking about how we talk about ‘recovery’ like it’s a thing you can measure, but some places don’t recover. They just… persist. The air still smells like wet asphalt after rain, which is weird because there’s no road nearby. Maybe it’s memory. Or maybe the earth is just remembering how to breathe.