My Forest
Travelers’ Rest State Park, photo taken by Elaine Fraticelli, April 13, 2026
by Elaine Fraticelli
4/23/26
My Forest
The forest around me feels bordered by jagged rocks shooting up into the sky. There's enough in my spot here that I can survive relatively comfortably, but there's a call coming from up above. I used to be in an easier part of the forest with my peers, and I see them navigating the rocks with ease all the time. They can jump from boulders and reach the top of the mountain quickly, even though it still takes effort. Meanwhile, I'm here in the comfy moss with a rock for a foot.
I can walk, and climb even, but it takes more time and effort with careful navigation. My whole body was the bog when I first got here. Ever so slowly I grew limbs, hair, and legs, and dragged myself onto the soft mossy shore. My squishy bones started to stiffen and I could finally stand, but my right foot solidified too fast and became this rock that kept me stumbling and sinking for a long while after. The more I practiced and moved around, the lighter the rock weighed, but it's shape and clumsy size has remained the same.
Walking over rocks and rough ground requires all my concentration and making it out of this canyon seems impossible. I go about my days on a flat path I've cleared for myself. I can get all I need with ease, but there's still a familiar birdsong from far away. It might be coming from where I was on the canyon edge, or it might be from inside me, pushing to get out instead of pulling. Relatively recently I've decided to try harder to expand my pathways and go further than I have been. Enticing, encouraging, and forcing myself out of the comfortable moss, I've started to play on the rocks more and more and clear more paths as I go.
I mind my foot and rest when I need to. Much like birdsong I've been listening to my body with joy and amazement. I'm ALIVE after all, and what a spectacular gift that is after falling down here. When it get's hard, I relish in the experience of crying to the trees and feeding the forest with my tears. I have a BODY that is capable of creating life! It can give and receive pleasure and it can create so many wonderful things for the benefit of the entire forest! But it can only clear one rock and only take one rocky step at a time.
I'm MOVING; and I'm celebrating that.
Elaine Fratielli learned to love art from her grandmother Judy at an early age and used it to process difficult events through her adolescence. She got her BFA from the University of Montana in 2016 with lofty goals of someday exhibiting at the Venice Biennale in order to influence and heal the world with her art. Facing personal tragedy and grief soon after, her work and life became heavily political and she began applying psychological therapies to her art practice. After a year of personal activism and grief she was drawn to the question of human resilience and the human power of survival. Using the ability of art and media to access subconscious emotions, Fraticelli invites us to witness our own grief and hold it as proof we are capable of unfathomable love as we move forward; together. You can see her work at https://elainefraticelli.com/
Elaine sketching at Travelers’ Rest State Park, April 13th, 2026
