The woods in early fog

Everything an hour after sunrise looks like it was painted with too little water — the color present but thinned out, reluctant, like the world hadn't fully committed to being itself yet. I went into the woods early enough to catch it exactly at that point, before the fog burned off and the trees went back to looking merely like trees.

I stood there far longer than I meant to. What was supposed to be a twenty-minute walk turned into the better part of an hour of just standing at the same bend in the path, watching light do something to the mist that I knew wouldn't last and couldn't be rushed either. A few birds moved through it. Nothing else did.

There's a particular quiet the woods have at that hour that they don't have later, once the day has properly started and other people arrive with dogs and coffee and conversation. Early enough, it's just the fog deciding, tree by tree, what it's willing to reveal.

I didn't bring my phone out once, which felt worth noting only after the fact — an entire hour spent looking at something and only that, no photo to prove it happened. It happened anyway. I stood there far longer than I meant to, and I'd do it again tomorrow if the fog obliged.