She is a storm. She came in like a burst of flame. It’s seldom he.
We walked together for miles. Conversation: light. With texture. We’d notice together the big, dark, gnarly oaks; tried making out what the elbowed graffiti said; the would-be-squats, where glass once held out the weather & now created passage for breeze, flying bits of garbage, & eyes in search of shelter; which tracks looked to still be in use, & which looked overgrown. Basic detective shit.
I’d show her a special shadow that mimicked a different type of life. I’d ask her if she saw subtle rainbows in clouds too. Private super-power.
She’d point out different ways to walk to experiment. Subtle & effective to awaken different muscle groups; how our bodies might shift shape if we’d walk in such a manner for a whole week, month. In such a manner for another.
I cannot say that water ever harmed me. It’s scared the hell out of me. It’s forever changed me. It’s brought me -also- the greatest of peace. If I had to pick an element to trust to bring me home…
I had a 4 hour drive home last where I remembered someone telling me how their mother was an unstoppable swimmer. Any body of water would do. As her health began to fail & a chair took over the job of her legs, she’d still insist on going to the water. She had a caregiver that had taken too long a break & she’d wheeled herself out somehow to the ocean. This was what ultimately claimed her. The memory is fuzzy now, but I think that’s right. I remember feeling like that was the saddest, most beautiful, poetic way to die that I’d ever heard in 1st person. I wanted to say so, but instead -held space.
On the freeway that had been smooth- red lights cropped up & suddenly traffic appeared thick around the bend. A heavy plume of pitch-gray smoke. A small-town-fire truck pointed, determined. Water on its way.
I took the reroute & bypassed through the country.
There’s a lot of life in the country. There are people everywhere. This brings both fear & comfort.
I cannot tell you how many times I have wished with my whole molecular structure that we could live in a society that were trust worthy. How different being would be.
There is no office to write this appeal to. Who would sign this campaign? Who would practice in authenticity? There still would be room for drama. It’d just be an alternate variety. Still room for excitement.
The rain curtain will again fall but it will fall less & less. We no longer can shack up in the desert without a smart plan. Have the rates of lightening strikes increased? There is a name for the person who studies this phenomenon: fulminologist. Juicy search history over here. Getting paid to study specific types of natural devastation; & -due to familiarity- eventually to inevitably align with at least some of the good in said devastation. This is our human nature. We are not so unpredictable after all.
There are ample opportunities to take to the forest & wander in wonder, noticing how little birth is accomplished without someone/ something giving way for it.
People that were born during a storm: raise your hands. Are you a different breed?
Water births or early swimmers: can you be categorized together too beyond your early years?
Must we be cut from similar cloths to have the joined desire to roam? The fulfillment that walking brings.
Do we leave something similar in our wake?
What's on your mind?