The wind blows
through the trees a few feet away and words land on my page, apparent leaf
litter of the soul. My body is more connected to what is going on in the out of
doors than to my fingers’ taps across the plastic keys of the computer. I gaze
across the yard, hair brushing against my cheek as the breeze wills it, and I
am smitten with the hummingbird, or the waning light of late afternoon, or the
brave little green thing newly arisen from the rockbed. I continue to type even
though my eyes are softly focused on the yellowing sycamore in the distance.
I am
hyperattentive to the way in which the wind’s voice drowns out the humans’
nearby; I consider this the greatest blessing and say an impromptu phrase of
thanks and praise. My toes feel dry and dusty with the dirt of my barefoot
foray into the yard earlier today. This is welcome too, reminding me of my
childhood in a hot place where naked feet read braille messages in pebbles,
sand, nubbly grass, tree roots.
Even – or
especially – as a young girl, my body’s expression through air and outdoor
spaces trounced its ability to listen well to grownups, to sit still in girly
clothing, or to remain inside without an insatiable curiosity about what might
be happening outside the windows, walls, doors. I wrote messages in mud, drew
crayoned trees in every picture, constructed villages of mud huts for snails
with pass-throughs so they could “communicate” with each other, composed words
from my blood, sent notes in bottles out to sea, made SOS entreaties from
branches and rocks and carefully poured water.
For me, writing
has always taken the shapes of mountains, crashing waves, rainforests and
icebergs. Words are comprised of organic materials, and detritus is as much the
soulstuff that informs my compositions as is the marvelous beauty of all things
natural.
May the ecotone
of inner.outer landscapes fill you today, this moment, and for each blessed day
hereafter as you write whatever it is you have to write across the landscape of
your life.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2014 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
