Chasing a Dream til it Came Chasing Me

Two nights ago, I spent my evening after work talking about "mummy brown" paint. Trust me, unless you have a penchant for the macabre, just don't. Then I climbed into a hammock as the sun moved just enough to leave it in the shade with a perfect breeze, overlooking a little lake with a hundred birds talking amongst themselves until I was serenaded by a different song.

I was visited by a purple marlin and a rust winged blackbird, "uncommon" and "rare" if you believe the Cornell Lab app, Merlin. We also had the usual suspects: an Eastern towhee, cardinals, sparrows, finches, grackles, crows, wrens, a tufted titmouse, a downy woodpecker and a red-bellied woodpecker, chickadees, blue jays, bluebirds, robins, and those damn Canada geese.

I lay in the hammock under that perfect spring sky and the oaks and pines with the sounds of the wind and the birds and the gentle motion of the water close by, sipping a gin and tonic until the breeze was too chilly. I can't remember ever being happier.

I know there hasn't been much writing lately. I've been out on a boat seeing a bald eagle stir the wind and watching an osprey dive for a fish and learning about Weary Willy and the  Hartford Circus Fire and poring over fifty year old botanical and bird prints, musing over how all of Etsy would salivate. I've been drinking vodka cranberries and winning 5ks and drinking coffee I didn't have to make and holding children and eating midnight burritos and laughing until my ribs hurt the next day. I've been painting cherry trees and watching Kevn Kinney sing "Broken Hearts and Auto Parts" and picking up rocks from stream beds that I later find in the pockets of my shorts going in the wash. I've been watching the sun settle over the horizon and studying the way it moves over wisteria blossoms and working on one hell of an embroidery project.

I've been listening to Bukowski (your secret is safe) and watching TV in bed, a luxury I have denied myself most of my life. I've been allowing myself an afternoon nap from time to time. I've been letting Blanche climb onto my chest at night and stay there until I can't breathe anymore. I've been accepting gifts of flowers and tree frogs and laying in bed after I wake up just so that I can think about how lucky and grateful I am. I've been allowing myself the almost sleepy feeling of contentedness and remembering how easy it is to feel safe if you're where you should be.


I've been letting go of the dandelion fluff of a wish-turned-dream because you have to let go of the pieces if they'll ever settle where they should. I've been listening to amazing music and meeting amazing people and getting mud all over my feet and too much sun on my face. I've been planning trips and getting dirt under my nails and eating food that I can tell you exactly where it came from. I've been hearing my grandmother say "don't do that" when I use my teeth as tools and hearing her say I'm too skinny and that she's proud of me and seeing her smile in my mind with every blooming azalea and violet and buttercup and knowing she'd know every bird call and every tree and fruiting thing I see. Knowing how tickled she would be to hear the scientific names for them all, which we never knew. She gave me that need to learn new things. That wonder in the knowing. Grief is a fickle thing. Where the hell is that tissue?

I've been grieving a little boy who's all grown up and celebrating what a good human he is, even if he's still lousy with youth. I've been watching him and seeing myself at that age and the choices I made that honestly weren't any smarter than his. I've been setting boundaries instead of biting my tongue and I've been speaking my mind, but being as gentle as possible.

I've been letting myself be playful and curious and eternally enthusiastic. No one teases me for it these days. I've been taking baths and hiking national forests and taking pictures of blooming buckeye trees and crunching Chex Mix on a car ride. I've got at least one bartender who knows that if I go to the bar before dinner time, it's a bloody Mary for me. I have been wholly unproductive and entirely happy. Maybe that's what all this work has been leading to. Rest. 

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