My Retreat

It's been good and I think it will continue to be so, spending time out in the country with my parents...

• Mom and I exercise in the mornings, discuss the day's plan and talk about life.
  
• My half-sports-stretch half-yoga in the yard, with the wind blowing through my hair.
• The silence.
• The wildlife.
  
• Eating better, since Mom loves to cook.
• Less apt to crack open that bottle of wine for a glass that turns into four glasses.
• No wireless Internet, which has me reading a heck of a lot more.

Tonight, we're planning a campfire on the back-40 with friends since we are going to get such a great November evening. Will post pictures if I can remember to do so!

Hope that you're all well.

O Fickle WInd

I stood there, breath measured by steady count, listening to what the wind had to tell me. It was the first time that I'd ever heard what it had to say. But why? Had I never listened before? Maybe I didn't know how to listen? What was so different that my virgin ears finally crossed over?

Image by Pandiyan via Flickr

I've felt free these last few months since I decided to become a writer; when the world knows that you write, it wants you to tell its stories. Speak to me then, I say. My mind has been free to build a new country, with little influence and of its own volition. It travels light, no cart or horse, flying over new lands and painting with its fingers the stories I concoct. My freedom has given me license in the real world to uproot, cast my arms wide, and feel the warmth of the sun on my face. With eyes closed, breathing deeply, I can feel my growth, and I have everything I need for it. If there are no other material examples, you need only look at the deliberate abandon with which I've grown these wavy locks.

What's on your mind? Nothing. Perfect.

And maybe, it is this hair that has caught the attention of the wind. Does it revel in the opportunity to cast me as wind-blown? Perhaps. Until now, I've been unable to hear the wind's tune, but with these locks I hear the symphonic whistle; all acts layered into one endless tune. My wings catch flight, my curls shimmy, my wisps waver, and my strands submit to the will of the wind.

I can hear it when I don’t concentrate on it; concentration restricts me to hearing nothing but the howl across the ear. Listen. Inside of that howl, there is a whistle. It starts when you close your eyes and imagine nothing, there you can find the high-pitched hum that begins your search for the right station on the dial. Many tune out when they hear the piercing, which just might be its intent, but as you’re connected it fades into sweet elemental notes. Once you have it, there’s nothing you can do to stop it from enveloping you; mixing your sound with a billion others that it has touched since its inception.

The wind carries stories that prickle the skin, cut through bone, stories of cyclical evolution, and of energy and power; millions of years of shaping without tools. Persistence. It runs its fingers through my hair, and leaves it a mess. It offers to take me wherever I wish, while flirting with my clothes and giving them such excitement that they flap at the though of being carried away.

I listened, and heard, and understood; the wind tells no lies. It carries upon it the tales of the past, but knows nothing of the future, aside from the confidence that it is headed there. If you’re willing, it will lift you up and take you for a ride, exactly what it wants to do for those that take the time to learn its language. For others, those full of nothing but hot air, its gale force can ruin a day. Beware of making the wind angry or it will deafen you for your indifference.

Face the wind; it will reward you for being bold and its stories are best heard in stereo.

Respect the wind and it will tell you which way to blow. You will hear it in nature, creating visual and audible art across tall grasses, in the sails, and sternly pressing upon the leaves an instruction to fall. It will knock at your door, then sneak in through the cracks, causing you to seek comfort from a loved one or a blanket--its own way of promoting the existence of true love. At the other end of the seasons, it will marry your perspiration and comfort you like no other.

The wind is motion. The wind is for action, not for thought. We think when there is no wind; we think "if only the sails were full" or "I wish I could fly this kite," but when we have wind, it urges us to come out and play, and play we should. Why? Because the wind is persistent even though its only constant is its unpredictable nature.

O fickle wind, will you blow for me today?

A Man, A Move, A Mission

It's a strange time in life for me. Though I'm avidly pursuing a longtime dream to become a

Image by Jasmic via Flickr

writer, I have to leave everything behind--a lifestyle that I once knew--in order to put myself in a place to realize the dream. I've rented out the condo, packed and placed most of my worldly belongings in storage, taken to a quiet life in the country... last night, I sat in the hot tub, jets off, listening to a sundown party of yelping coyotes, an owl repeating to me, "Who-who? Who?" and watching night creep up a nearly leafless tree, bright yellows and oranges slowly turning to muted, sleepy colors.

The beans need harvesting. We can't burn scraps from the woodshop for fear that an escaping spark might ignite the field. The road that winds through the country has recently been repaved. "We tried an experiment," said the road worker, because you can stop and talk to them out here. "After we drilled a core sample, we found thirteen inches of old road, so we ground it up and recycled it by mixing it with concrete before laying it back down." We wonder how long before the dump trucks going to and from the quarry will mold this "experiment" into the bumpy ride that we knew before. A man walks through the woods a quarter-mile away, two dogs by his side, surveying the tree line. We wonder what he seeks. Yesterday, we were given a basketball goal by a friendly neighbor, and my stepdad dunked for the first time in his life.

The Internet was my mission today. I had to answer the question, "Where can I find it?" Mission accomplished, though the woman walking around this small town library in bare feet (it's forty-something degrees outside) concerns me only slightly less than the librarian who is re-stacking books, but breathing with such intensity that it sounds as if he just walked twenty fights of stairs.

I overheard...
"Do you ever get a song stuck in your head?"
"I was listening to Sha-Na-Na this morning and now I can't get 'With Doctor' out of my head."

Two massive tomes rest on the desk next to me, MOTOR: Auto Repair Manual, 2002.

I woke up this morning to find frost, and it made my question whether I wanted to go out in such temperature to exercise. But, what I realized was that it wasn't the temperature that dissuaded me, it was the urge to write, since I haven't been able to do so for many days.

So, here I am.

The Place of Dreams

When it comes to finding true love, the best Dream Girl to have is one who doesn't require you to be someone you're not. There is a place for love; where the world around the two of you provides love, respect, support. It is a place where you can feel alive, where you have choice, where you are free, and where you know that you'll tackle the responsibilities that come with loving together. And, when you reach the end of your tasks, you have the time to bask in the energy of each other.

Energy is an important word, I believe, because each does it in their own way. Some recharge with others and some recharge on their own. A True Love knows, or accepts, when you need to recharge on your own with a book or a walk. A True Love also knows when the electricity needs to be generated, and strengthened, by the magnetism that is found through mutual touch.

My home is where I find my True Love... where I walk into the house, into a room like an airlock, that helps me to transition from there to here; from a place where there is no oxygen to a place where I have everything I need to breathe. When I hang my coat on the hook, I leave the problems of the world, as yet unresolved, hanging with it. When my hat joins my coat, I no longer shade the Light that radiates from me. On the opposite side of the room, off with my right shoe and then my left, I leave the dirt that I accumulated from my day, so that I can slide across the floor in my socks and into your waiting arms. It is my transition, my rite, from there to here, ultimately out of the airlock, and to you.

And, when she says to me, "This is the place where you're supposed to be," and pulls my cheek towards her chest, I will know that I'm home. As she strokes my hair, all the world stops, and she takes in great, deep, rhythmic breaths because this is the first time since I left that she has the air that she needs to live, as well.

Hey Dream Girl, tell me when it's time to come home... I'm ready.