Forced To Nature

I wrote this in the spring. Just a few musings from my head. I needed a “me” break on this blog. I have so many outfits to show, but that is not all of my soul. The pieces of clothing are just the simple coverings that will eventually be dust in time. I wrote the following for myself with no plans on publishing it, but it brought me peace and calm when I found it yesterday on my iPad amidst funnier stories. Let’s just give this Thursday to the daydreamers, shall we?:

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The other day found me in a setting without internet service. Without cell phone service. Service being a sure-vice of mine. I had an hour to kill. My hair flew from the confines of my braid with the wild abandon that the head it is attached to has never felt free enough to follow.

My neck began to burn from the sun’s interrogations and I contemplated running back the short distance to the car to grab some sunscreen for it. But once again my laziness won out. And two days later, my neck began its transformation with the shedding of its former self. Another trick that the head it is attached to has never learned. Perhaps it should be said in life that no one need listen to their heart. Nor their head. But rather their inbetween parts. My hair and my neck have much wisdom to impart.

The woodpeckers were relentless in their invasion of the nearby tiny field and trees. I dare not call it a wood for a wood calls to mind a dense thickness of trees that this clan of trees surely did not represent. Nevertheless, they had attracted (whether they had wanted to or not and surely I assume it was the latter) a fair number of feathered suitors whom had not waited for an invitation in, but rather had begun incessantly knocking and had not bothered to stop to see if a door had been opened for them. They were making their own way in and the trees were powerless to stop them.

My feet began to sweat into my flats and I cursed my decision to remain stationary. Although to be fair, I do not think walking would necessarily cure my feet’s decision to sweat. In fact, I imagine that it would be quite the opposite.

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I decided to do the most productive thing I could think of and I grabbed my small blanket (my hoarding arsenal is vast) and quite gracefully (for me) laid the blanket down underneath the only shade to be had. A sad tree still covered (or uncovered as it were) in bare branches. I hate to be insulting to it by calling it a tree made entirely of twigs, but that is what it was. Perhaps due to the incessant chatter from the small grove of trees nearby and their unwanted houseguests, the tree had not heard Mother Nature’s call that spring had arrived. The base of the tree had split into two and this led me to determine that perhaps this tree was in constant battle with itself.

“Grow this way.

No that.

It’s time to bloom.

It’s too hot.

It’s too cold.”

And when in constant battle with one’s own self, it is no wonder that nothing was getting done. And that this tree, a tree surrounded by green, could not make itself conform to its surroundings.

I know a few people like that. Maybe someone who brings a blanket instead of a folding chair.

Who would rather sit in quiet than sit with others.

And who knows exactly what the woodpeckers are saying to the trees. And what the tree’s response feels like in return.

The tree mutters and moans as it splits itself in two.

We are the souls who prefer the solitude of our thoughts.

While the rest of the world is knocking.

Blooming.

Staying whole.

We are the ones who choose to stay in. Even as our outsides and surroundings betray us.

We search for another door out.