1.Dear Mom, I found your house and your squirrels have been expecting me

Post No.1 First evening.

June Oakcrest. New Jersey. Written after two cups of your mystery tea.

Dear Mom,

I just got here three hours ago and I already feel like I've been mildly adopted by the place. I have so many questions...

First of all- why have I never visited before?

I pulled up to the house and just sat in the car for a second, thinking: what exactly was I doing all these years? Because this place is absurdly charming. Truly. I don't even know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't this little house on a hill in New Jersey that looks like it belongs in a folk tale.

When I got out of the car, the cold air hit me so suddenly I actually shivered- not from being freezing, exactly, more like my whole body was waking up. And the house has this specific kind of coziness that feels intentional, like it decided to become itself very carefully over time.

Walking up to the door, everything suddenly felt strange in a way I can't fully explain yet. The creak of the wood under my shoes. The cold copper handle. The way my hand hesitated before opening, longer than it needed to.

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The house smells of old wood and dried lavender and something else I cannot name. I had no idea you were so into plants and animals and all of that. But looking at this forest right outside your back garden—Okay, I get it. I completely get it. It is dreamy out there. Or it was, in the afternoon light. The smell followed me through the house and intensified in your study—I still can't place it, but it is grounding. I stood there and I breathed with my whole body.

On the hook by the door there's a coat. Yours, I think. I almost touched it on my way to the kitchen. I don't know why I didn't.

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When I was putting the kettle on—I found your special tea blend, I hope you don't mind. I feel watched. I looked up and there were birds on the windowsill and a squirrel. All just... watching me. Very calmly. Very intently. Not scared at all, which was either sweet or slightly unsettling, I'm still deciding.

Do you feed them? Did you teach them to do that? Because they looked like they were waiting for a specific person, and they seemed to be weighing up whether I counted.

I decided to take it as a Welcome.

After the tea I went outside—it was just after six—and the forest was completely dark. Dark-Dark, the way forests get when they are done with the day before the sky is. And yet so much life still going—birds calling back and forth through the trees like they hadn't noticed the light was gone, like they were finishing a conversation. I had a look around for a bird feeder, didn't find one. I was about to head back when I heard—okay don't laugh—I heard my name. From inside the tree line. Just once. Very quiet. Like someone was trying to get my attention without startling me.

My shoulders tensed. I stopped breathing, I stood there trying to see through the trees and see nothing.

I am sure I was just tired from the drive. Obviously. I turned to go back inside and that's when I saw it—on the road below, a car slowing as it passed a lane entrance. It didn't turn in. Just slowed. A wrong turn, probably. But my heart was still going fast when I came inside and locked the door. And then locked it again for good measure.

Both Locks.

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Seriously though, Mom—five years up there, alone, with the forest starting right at the end of the garden? I want to understand. I want to understand what that's like. The house is so isolated, and there's something about this place that I can't quite name yet—something that makes you feel both very safe and very small at the same time. I know you always love adventures but most of them involved traveling to new countries, meeting new people and immersing yourself in different cultures, rather than wandering in an isolated forest, or an isolated house.

I am going into the forest tomorrow, in the day light. I'm sure it will make sense in the sun. I'm sure of it.

Pretty sure.

Warmly, and with the kettle ready for the morning,

June