(3/29/14)
2:56a – I blinked and March finished in a succession of quick minutes as winter instead of spring.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
As the lion that began March roared solidly through the last weekend of the month with flurries and rain, puppies and I traded concrete and real estate for fields and trees – multi-story city parking lots for the peaceful oasis of Martin Gap Road – where we holed up back in central Pennsylvania again, bleating as contentedly as little lambs. There, we were warm in piles of blankets and couch pillows, full on tacos and Texas chili and cornbread, happy with friends and old companions and baby chatter.
We played in mud, filling our lungs with the damp scent of soaked and dripping pine boughs. We ran in grass, willing our legs to forget the memory of asphalt for soft, squelching ground. We slept in late, stilling time into slow hours drinking coffee with bedhead in pale morning light. We talked in turns, spilling stories that mixed with crumbs on the candlelit tabletop deep into the night.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Winter is finally settling into warmer drizzles, and I’m ready for the next phase of things. Similar to when I left New Mexico, lately I’m wondering where I belong – what I should be doing with my time and my energy, my life – and so I think on it during long walks with puppies or late night drives from Brooklyn to Huntingdon.
“Where, where is the town?/Now, it’s nothing but flowers” . . .
Though I’m questioning things and am unsure of my place once again – grey city or blue mountains, wide horizons or high rises – I’m more at ease this time with the mild disquiet that comes along for the ride over the criss-crossing cruxes on life’s roads. Paths run unknown from dirt to gravel to highway and back, all of them alternately alarming or beautiful, in slanting light with the right mind, with good company and a banana for the road.
Seasons change, and places change, and we change, moving and growing and rising like a creek after heavy rain – threatening to flood and overflow the banks – but often not. Like ducks in a muddy pond, we swim in and out at intervals. But so long as we keep quacking and floating, giggling our way together, I think we got it, we got it.
Je vous aime. Be well, my favorites.
– Sarah