Sunday, September 12, 2010

Embarassing Henry David Thoreau

It's mid-life crisis time! Yay~~~~~
I'm retiring from the world of volunteering and participating, and diving into the reality of my own back yard. There are worlds out there, between the rustling leaves and swaying branches, characters in the eyes of my children. Why, oh why, have I been looking in the city, when there is so much to find at home?

I'm going to take some advice from Leaves of Grass. I am going to leave the busy world behind. I have my own Leaves of Grass to write...among my own leaves.

Does this happen to you other writers, around about October? Is it just the change in the weather? Is it that damned Mercury in retrograde again? Is it the instinct to increase the bulk of my fur, to prepare? Gather berries and nuts maybe? I want to bite apples and chew weeds and taste what's going on around me. Hell, I'd even smoke something if I thought I could taste it better.

Yesterday, a friend and I got our cardio in by walking a lovely wooded path. I think I came home with a new addiction. Air. Fresh, organic, air. How could I ever find happines in a boxed, packaged version for so long? I want to break out my own windows--knock down the walls and get a good pure look at the sqaure of space we've wrongly imprisoned for the past 15 years!

But then I walk out into the dark night air, look at the stars I so rarily notice, and feel a chill. Moments later, I'm back inside, grateful for the warm imprisoned air that takes the chill away. Grateful I won't be sleeping out of doors tonight. Grateful for all those things I thought I could give up earlier in the day.

Spoiled. I am a child. Gimme freedom. Keep me warm. Let me jump off the cliff, but catch me. Gimme gimme. Dear Lord, I have raised the Entitled Generation. My bad.