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Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Friday, June 11, 2021

into this window

I don’t know what to write. 

I’m sure it has all dried up once and for all: 

no more ideas, no more words, no more inspiration – 

because I’ve already used far too many words in chapters and letters and emails this week. 

 

My words are spent. And so am I.

 

And then the fat breeze wedges its way through the narrow opening of my office window and suddenly I am renewed. 

 

I look toward the location from which I feel sure the breeze has come and,  

instead of finding some answer about the wind, 

my eyes hit the wall of “yellow-green” 

(an actual color according to Crayola) and 

 

I become somebody else. 

I become somebody brand new and flourishing in the late spring breeze. 

I turn my face to catch that breeze, to see if the breath of out there can become the breath of in here

And it works. 

 

My plans got scattered around and dislodged yesterday: 

 

the Internet was inexplicably out for more than a couple of hours just after dawn;

I opted to attempt to catch the Wi-Fi signal from the local Starbucks – from the quiet of my car – 

            so that I could proceed with my first client appointment of the day;

I encountered a stranger passed out in her SUV near the bottom of our driveway – her vehicle 

            still running and in gear, no emergency brake in use, her sleeping foot on the brake pedal,  

            her head flopped like a rag doll atop her steering wheel – and it frightened me because I 

            didn’t know the origin of her unconsciousness or the state of her wellbeing, and I helped 

            her;  

an hour before I was supposed to leave for an interesting, two-day creative class, I learned that it 

            was cancelled…and I was then at a loss as to how I would spend the rest of the day,

            motivation for serious work long since transformed into inspiration for learning a new art

form: an energy that cannot be reconverted back to productive work projects;

the focal point of all my nonwork time over the past few weeks has fledged the nest, or been 

            consumed by a predator: both are plausible options

 

Into this window of my home, of my heart, of my life

that fat breeze arrives; 

it just keeps on coming, and coming, and 

falling into my waiting arms like a beloved friend. 

 

The scatterings of my day get sewn back together.

Glued. Collaged. 

Woven.

 

The birds keep flying into view and saying, “Look at me. Be intrigued. Learn and get inspired.”

 

And I see that the words have arrived too. 

They are not all gone, they still flow and curl and spiral into patterns that become a more complete story. 

They have wings, and they take flight.





                                                                                          

(Orig. posted in June 2018.)


All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2021 Jennifer J. Wilhoit/TEALarbor stories. All Rights Reserved."