When we last chatted, I was tripping over the keys to tell you about all the thoughts and ideas and fora for more thoughts. You were in the throes of emotional drama, you said. These past weeks have been quiet because I too was ravaged (savagely, I might add) by the drama that stalks us sensitive souls. Now the tears are all shed, I can peaceably lose myself in my thoughts. Bring a picnic, come along!
Walking through the park in the evening, I feel all the trees. It's hard to describe exactly how I feel the trees. But there - how to describe any sensation? I have spent a good many hours thinking about this part of myself. It seems so alien from contemporary Western culture. I have no vocabulary for it that doesn't make me sound a complete flake. Consequently, it's something I almost never speak of. To date, the best I've come up with is: it is laughably easy for me to have an intimate relationship with anything. Anything. Trees are favourites.
Trying to describe it in my head, tonight, staring up at the leafiness, it came to me -- that it has to do with taking things on their own terms, approaching them in their own way. Like the horse I befriended in Colombia. It was wild, but bound in by a farmer's fence. No-one could get near it. It would watch us walk by every day. It didn't have the lazy look of a tame horse. It was alert. From a half-field away I could sense its curiosity. So one day I stood a long time by the fence, not moving. When I left, a half-hour later, the horse was noticeably closer. This went on for a few days, each one she came a little closer. Then there was the day I could have reached out and touched her. But I did not. I pulled a few handfulls of long grass, from outside the fence, and turned my back to her. I rested my clasped grass-filled hands between two fence slats. Casual, as though I had forgotten she was there. And crunch, she carefully took a mouthful of the grass. Right out of my hands.
So--does everyone have such moments? Because it seems like it's just me, who nightly wanders the streets in a semi-elated state of sensual union with every element of my natural environment. I hear echoes, when people speak of ecstasy trips. I am too concerned with my delicate emotional balance to try it myself, but truly I don't think there'd be much point. Truly, all I need is a tree. Instead, I frequent raves with a bottle of water and a big smile. I actually feel comfortable interacting in this heightened way because everyone either is doing it too or doesn't care that I am.
Some day I am going to find an explanation of all this, or at very least an expression that makes sense to a portion of the population. Then I will carry it about in my head and take it out and point to it and say to people -- THAT. Welcome to my world. It's all like THAT.
And when I do find it -- you'll be the first to know.
I hope the sky clears, the seas calm, and you enjoy some smooth sailing through life soon. I am thinking of you.
