Wilderness

The original:

It was nice to come up here to the wilderness just to take a breath. No one ever made their way up here, and when they did, they were always gone once the spectacular sunrise was over. No, these summer midafternoons were mine, all mine. I could relax, listen to the creek and the wildlife that surrounded me. If I closed my eyes, I could hear the whispers of the cattails gossiping or the creak of the trees as they discussed the virtues and drawbacks of different philosophical ideals. By the time the pine trees brought up Descartes, I was fully invested. This was my place, my home, the place I could go to get away from my humanity, where I could feel more connected to the mama moose and her two babies that splashed and played in the creek than my superior officers and their regimented structure. I could just breathe.

Using only the 1000 most common words in the English language:

It was nice to come up here to the not city just to take a breath. No one ever made their way up here, and when they did, they were always gone once the good-looking sun-come-up was over. No, these summer afternoons were mine, all mine. I could relax, listen to the water and the animals that surrounded me. If I closed my eyes, I could hear the whispers of the short not-animal living things talking or the sound of the trees as they talked about the good and bad of different ways of thinking. By the time the green-in-cold trees brought up one guy, I was all the way listening. This was my place, my home, the place I could go to get away from me being a human, where I could feel more together with the mother death-horse-with-head-fighting-sticks and her two babies that played in the water than the people who tell me what to do and what they wanted me to do. I could just breathe.