When I was a kid I rode the sun in order to lasso the
moon. The dandelions were fireworks
and building blocks and fabric for clothing. A moth was a dream I once had and we flew and flew and
flew. Its wings like cotton
sheets, billowing my slumber and plastering my screen door like wallpaper.
At seven I learned that reptile skin all looks the same, but
it can feel very different, and that the bottom of the pond squishes through
toes like cocoa through a sieve. I
was constantly moving upward, my soles only briefly making contact with low
hanging branches as I used them to springboard toward my higher destination.
My skinny extremities would float like a water-bug, barely
breaking the surface tension as my mind grew weightless wings that carried my
body away on the prevailing wind.
I knew all the plants by color and size, and if I never heard of a rhododendron
I would still love my purple puff-balls just as much. Maybe more.
Seven o'clock cartoons were on too late in the morning. I was up 30 minutes earlier to make
sure my parents didn't miss them.
The afternoon existed, and it was outdoors with the balls and the trees
and the friendships. Dusk only
served to mourn the loss of play. I always ran out of day before I ran out of
adventure. Every time.
But now the sunrise punches the clock, beginning the list of
expectations for tomorrow's productivity.
And with the blinding needles of the new sun's light, I can't make out
whether those are Forest falcons or Turkey vultures hovering low, just cresting
my horizon. It no longer matters
that I know their shape and size.
Stillness has become a blessing, as is the absence of pain
and heartbreak. I often wonder
when I began to celebrate the missing in my life, to revel in avoiding the negative. Where are my sodden footprints? My trails in the sky? They aren't at the parties for memories – the damp
moss-covered driftwood that finally hung up long enough to crumble back into
the earth.
And as my night begins to fall, the snow gathering on the
evergreens like a Japanese woodblock print, more often than I care to admit I
find myself looking for things to do.
The weight of success and failure and uncomfortable ambiguity pushes my
worn shoulders down to the fire dancers and the warmth of their hearth. My book
brings breezes, but the wind doesn't carry me as it used to.
Profound young man. Now, I want you to go outside and play again. Go find a baby and smell him all over. Go find a waterfall and watch it splish and splash. Go find a newly planted tree and watch it grow and blossom toward the sun. Keep searching for that wind. You deserve to soar! Or, if you'd prefer, get your ass on a plane to San Diego and I'll kick your ass into happiness and joy. You have choices; make a good one today.... SlowMo
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