In the city, I used to look for it, and so I got by. The copse of trees at the end of a forgotten street. The cultivated flower gardens around the golf course. The tiny patch of grass that lived beside the parking lot outside my apartment window. Nature lived there. And when I looked harder I saw other things, too: the coyotes on the highway before dawn; the many moons reflected in the river water past midnight. I lived with the smells and the noise and the strangeness because these things were there, too.
Yet every morning on my way to work – every day that I would carry my computer with me to some office, some coffee shop, some park to type under the sun – I would stand at the top of the stairs leading into a patch of forest nearby, and I would dream: dream of a day when I could walk down those stairs and not have to come back out again. For work. For anyone. For anything. It began to tear at me, each day, having to pull myself away from the trees and back along the streets of a city that I loved…but couldn’t find myself in. Because somewhere, off in the distance, I heard somewhere else calling me.
I’m just thankful I had the guts to go. To let go.
Because these days I wake up in the morning and go sit in fields of wild flowers, listening to the birds and the wind. These days I collect rocks from the beach, take them home, and then bring them back again. I weave grass into bowls and tangle string into bad hats for my friends at Christmas. And you know what else? With so many arms uplifting me, I’ve made reality out of a dream. I’ve started saying yes instead of no. I’ve stepped into the forest and haven’t come back out again, even with everyone calling.
And I caught myself this morning – out for my usual walk, a steaming mug of hot coffee quickly cooling in my hands. I caught myself in my own future. Standing where I once dreamed of being, I saw myself from the past. As if I were the coyote on the highway, there, looking back.
I’ve made messes. I make them still. I’m not so different from who I was before. But at least the outside matches the inside now. At least I can feel seen in a place that sees me.
And if I can, you can, too.
Enjoying these impressions from my every day? Enjoy another one here!
Jessica Barratt 