Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is Forest Stories. I'm the Poet in the Forest, a
children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
time that you get to know what has inspired me
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Welcome back to the forest.
Speaker 2: When someone across the lake is hosting a barbecue, I
mean it smells like they're cooking the full pig. Oh
my god, the scent of that hickory, the scent of
that meat in the air. Across the lake. There they are.
You can see them out there with the smoke going
in every direction. I don't know how I feel about that,
because sometimes I feel like it's an invasion of MySpace
because I didn't get an invitation. I did not get
a letter in my mailbox. I said, hey, you're invited,
but hey, come smell my meat. And you sit there
and you go, oh man, you're teasing the hell out
of me. And if I just go to a restaurant.
It ain't gonna taste as good as your smell across
that lake. And if I sit here and try to
do it myself, well that's work. And I don't want
to send my smell in your direction because your barbecue
is probably much better than mine. I'm gonna go the cheap,
cheap way of getting my barbecue in place. But you know,
that's what's great about living in this forest is the openness.
Everybody on this lake, this slow moving stream, within the trees.
Everybody has their way of sharing their smell. They really do.
I mean, there's a gentleman that actually burns wood every
single day down by the lake because those are the limbs.
He burns up the limbs of the trees that have fallen,
and he sits there and he patiently just washes over
the water, staring into the wandering mind of someone who
just believes and being present. In fact, I read about
that today. When you live in your past, it is
your past, it's already happened. Your future is your imagination
at work. The only place where life actually happens is
in the present. So when I step out here this
morning and I smell that barbecue, and I see that
smoke across the lake. I sit there and wait for
my smartphone to go ding ding ding ding ding, you know,
an invitation. Hey, come on over. We've got pork that
we've got on the grill and we want to share it.
You know what, that's living in that future. That's my
imagination going crazy. I need to be in the present
and I need to look at these trees, look at
the slow moving stream and the lake and know where
I am. I don't see them out walking with their dog,
feeling that light rain fall on you on a morning
that is calm compared to the storms of last night.
I'm probably the only one that's thinking like this, but
that's okay. Take that stink and plant it. Hey, thanks
for being a part of the conversation.