Aki and I are way out the road, visiting a riverside forest for the first time in months. It’s sunny, hot, and windy. The sun brings drama to the poor cousins of the woods, illuminating with back light spruce-bough moss and spotlighting a flowering twisted stalk. Wind articulates the broad, thorny leaves of devil’s club in slow movements of the Bon Odori.

Unfortunately, the wind doesn’t cool Aki, who pants as she trots through the old growth.