I’m beginning to think that there’s a relationship between winding wooded lanes and quality of rural life: the more wooded lanes that a community creates, the better its quality of life. Here you see a nearby lane with yesterday’s low sunlight filtering through the trees.
Brooklin has many wooded lanes, most of them hidden and privately maintained, but available for public walking.
Vehicular traffic on these lanes usually is minimal, often just people returning to homes that are further hidden in the woods or on the coast, with long driveways that intersect the lanes.
A typical dictionary definition for “lane” is “a narrow road, especially in a rural area.” The word derives from the Old English word “lanu,” meaning “narrow, hedged-in road.” In today’s conflicted world, a walk on a country lane is more about “hedging-out” than “hedging-in.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 24 [no people] and 18 [people], 2021.)