We want so many things from life. We want our relationships to work, to be well-formed and nurturing. We want a work to do, an occupation that is innately meaningful and essential in some larger context. We want to be capable and self-sustaining, in order to be free of anxiety and fear. We want a place to call home, a resting place – and we want something to believe in deeply.
But tonight I take a break form all this wanting as I walk out into the chill of spring’s arrival. All my wantings are strangely condensed, distilled. I imagine that what I really want is a quiet, bending footpath – a place known only to me and the coon who has left his paw prints during the night. I envision this place unspotted from the road – unseen by the other passers-by. It is a place where, bending down, I can just make out its quiet invitation. I follow.
I comply with its graceful shape as it moves through scattered patches of dried growth, the chaff of the discarded winter, and over splayed pebbles, across pools of dried mud. It leads me under an arching tree and beside a heavy rock. I pause as my eye catches a robin fluttering among new leaf buds. The remains of a gray picket fence gently hold the slanting sun from slipping away too soon. I pass a tumbling rock wall and catch my shirt on a patch of briars.
I imagine this is all I really want – my quiet, bending footpath – where I follow its newness, its enticement to be alive.
But tonight I take a break form all this wanting as I walk out into the chill of spring’s arrival. All my wantings are strangely condensed, distilled. I imagine that what I really want is a quiet, bending footpath – a place known only to me and the coon who has left his paw prints during the night. I envision this place unspotted from the road – unseen by the other passers-by. It is a place where, bending down, I can just make out its quiet invitation. I follow.
I comply with its graceful shape as it moves through scattered patches of dried growth, the chaff of the discarded winter, and over splayed pebbles, across pools of dried mud. It leads me under an arching tree and beside a heavy rock. I pause as my eye catches a robin fluttering among new leaf buds. The remains of a gray picket fence gently hold the slanting sun from slipping away too soon. I pass a tumbling rock wall and catch my shirt on a patch of briars.
I imagine this is all I really want – my quiet, bending footpath – where I follow its newness, its enticement to be alive.
2 comments:
Read your new posting out loud with Mom, Dad and Emma. The subject came up of how you went to Power of the Pen and got 7th at state. Mom said that whenever you forget what place Matthew took in something, just say 7th. I guess that's what place you took in running at state as well. 7.... the perfect number. Not a bad place to take. Much love!
i bet you could make some pretty gnarly furniture out of those tree roots or just reframe them with your shutter.
this made me think of all the times C. and I would go out to a bog late at night and crawl on our hands and knees through the underbrush on little trails made by small animals until we found little clearings which were good for howling at the sky.
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