Thursday, July 24, 2014

Hemingway once told me. . .

". . .all you do is sit down at a type writer and bleed."

Summer 2014 started off with a bang.  I was with energetic high schoolers excited about being in the woods, learning about God and making s'mores merely 48 hours after getting off my flight from Glasgow.   It was hot, it was tiresome, but it was so fulfilling.  Now that I'm back on home base after a few months of galavanting, it's almost more overwhelming to have loads of free time in the evenings when I arrive home from work.  Going from living out of a suitcase to having three fully filled closets is enough to make someone re-evaluate their life decisions.  A little dramatic, but the quarter-life crisis has gotten the best of me recently.  So I took Hemingway's advice.

* * *

The twilight air smells electric, encompassing the pines and maples looming over the gravel drive.  Veins of leaves are exposed as the Northern wind ripples

through the forest, begging for rain’s accompaniment. Outside her window she loses herself in the breeze, forgetting the soul-drenched sadness that comes every so often.  The earth is her medicine.  The dew drops an elixir in the morning, the stars a stoney prescription for the restless evening. The wind and nightingale echo her message, her prayer.

Queen anne’s lace pepper the hills, patches of clover peaking through the tufts of kelly green grass.  One glance outward, one breath inward, erasing the fear.  Maybe we are only supposed to wonder, stashing wisdom and insight in our back pockets as we continue through the woods.  Maybe answers can never be found, but common understanding help us connect and help us love.  


Softly moving a fallen piece of hair behind her ear, she sighs and rests her head against the bed frame. The trees stare back in silence as the fireflies teasingly glitter in the approaching darkness outside. Thunder softly rumbles in the distance; another storm, another night.


xo 
Hillary