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Going Off on Mother Nature: An Idiot Male’s Guide to Cathartic Expression
Yesterday, on a walk with my friend in the Pocono woods, we came upon a dead, rotted tree that was, somehow, still standing. Leaning, yes, but standing.
“Let’s put it down,” I said to him. Together, on 1, 2, 3, we shouldered it and down it came, snapping at the base. He picked it up and threw it into a rushing stream to our right. I had boots on, and I eyed the stump as if it had just called me a punk bitch. Without even thinking, my boot soared through the air, connecting with the rotten, pulpy detritus — over and over and over and over again. Like I was curb-stomping the guy in American History X.
Remember that scene?
My friend, who knows I’m going through a lot, watched me foot-pummel this dead, nature-thing with the heel of my boot, the toe of my boot, the side of my boot. I was getting out of breath — asthma. jewish. exertion. — but I still kept going until the stump area was nearly as flat as the surrounding ground.
“Look,” he said, pointing to another tree that lost its battle with… I don’t know; tree cancer? “Do you wanna take this one?”
I ran into it with the full force of my shoulder, as if I were on an episode of COPS bringing down a door in a South Florida mobile home.