I have lived in the forest since long before I learned to name the seasons. I do not know how many summers I have watched go by from my corner among fir trees, damp rocks and dirt paths, but I do know how to recognise the exact moment when the mountain changes its rhythm. The air grows softer, the river runs lighter and the whole valley seems to breathe differently. That is when I step out from among the trees and quietly watch Llorts wake beneath the warm light of summer. At that hour, when there are still no voices and only the sound of running water can be heard, I feel that everything is in its place and that the forest, my home, beats slowly alongside me.
There are days when I lie beside a warm stone and let the sun reach my back. From there I watch the wind move through the tall grass, the clouds brushing the peaks and the river drawing its own path without asking permission. My life may seem simple, and perhaps it is. But within that simplicity lives something profound: the certainty that I belong to this place. I know the smell of rain before it falls, the exact shadow of every tree at dusk and the sound the mountain makes when no one interrupts it. Living in the forest has taught me that calm is not the absence of life, but a gentler way of feeling it.
Sometimes the humans arrive. I hear them before I see them: footsteps on the gravel, laughter rising along the path, children asking questions, adults stopping to look at the landscape as if they had just discovered something important. I hide among the branches and watch them from afar. For a long time, I did not understand why they came. They seemed like strange creatures to me, always in a hurry, even when they were walking slowly. But over the years I have learned to recognise something in their eyes when they stand still before the valley. A kind of relief. As if, here, they remembered for a moment a part of themselves they had left behind somewhere else.
I am especially fond of those who wake early. Those who step outside while the village still sleeps and the morning air surprises them on the face. Those who sit by the river without speaking, who lift their eyes to the mountains with respect, who seem to understand that this place does not belong to them and yet still welcomes them. There is a woman who, every summer, opens her window very early and stands motionless looking at the forest with a warm cup in her hands. There is a boy who always tries to discover where the sounds among the trees come from, though he never sees me. And there are couples who walk at dusk wrapped in that comfortable silence shared only by those who do not need to fill every moment with words. I recognise them. They are the humans who, for a few hours or a few days, manage to live as the mountain lives: without noise, without urgency, without wanting more than is necessary.
It has not always been this way. I have also seen people arrive who pass through the valley without truly looking at it, as if the mountain were only a beautiful backdrop for their holidays. Those people sadden me a little. Not because they cause harm, but because they fail to hear what the forest is trying to tell them. They do not feel the murmur of the river as company, nor the creaking of the branches as a welcome. They leave with photographs, but without memory. And I wonder whether they will ever understand that there are places that cannot be visited with the eyes alone, but with calm as well.
When evening falls and the sun begins to hide behind the peaks, I make my way back into the trees. The forest cools slowly and Llorts is wrapped in a golden light that lasts only a few minutes. It is my favourite moment. From up there I see a few lit windows, hear the river continuing on its way and think of the humans who will sleep in the valley tonight. I like to imagine that, while they rest, something of this mountain stays with them: the silence, the clean air, the feeling of having found a refuge. Perhaps that is why their visits do not bother me. Perhaps because, although they come from worlds very different from mine, I sometimes see them arrive tired and leave a little lighter.
I will remain here when summer comes to an end. The first mists, the cold, the damp leaves and the long silence of winter will return. But in the meantime, in these days when the forest smells of sun and fresh water, I like to think that we share the valley. They from their balconies, their walks and their conversations at dusk. I from my hiding place among the pines, watching in silence. And in that brief crossing between their world and mine, I feel something close to tenderness. Because perhaps living in the mountains is precisely that: learning to live alongside what is small, what is wild, what comes and what goes, knowing that true home is the place where one can continue being, in peace, exactly what one is.