Becoming a writer means learning how to observe. Not just seeing a butterfly settling on a leaf, but realizing it is a large, yellow Monarch expanding itself as it settles for long enough without flying away so that I can take a photograph with my iPhone, while on my morning walk today. Not just feeling hot and humid, but noticing how rivers of sweat are running down my back and into my shorts, trickling like rivulets along the outline of my face, down the sides of my neck and into the narrow sleeves of my white tank top - the one I used to wear fourteen years ago when I was 52. I feel proud that the shirt still fits me even now that I am sixty four. I walk out into the bright, muggy morning feeling light footed and confident. I even want to shout out to passers-by, "Hey! My tank top from 14 years ago still fits me, when I am 64!" Instead, I quicken my step and walk briskly along the hedgerows, past the Unitarian Church, and up the hill towards Carpenter Woods. I realize I am smiling. I remember holding up my arm tightening my hand in a fist and calling out, "Amandla!" when Madiba was released. "Power," is what it meant. I want to hold up my arm again and call out, "Amandla!" Instead, I smile to myself and walk on - three more miles to go, and the day is heating up. I notice a hardy hibiscus in a yard as I walk by. Lush, green leaves puffing out the bush full of bright red blossoms of a Lady Baltimore type. The flowers are as large as the palms of both my hands cupped out and upwards together as if to receive a gift from the heavens. I stare at the huge plant, and wish my own was as prolific as the one I am ogling at. As soon as I feel envy rising up within, a voice in my head whispers until I find myself actually mouthing the words, "... Just look at it for what it is, and not for what I don't have." Indeed, I surprise myself with that thought, that seemed to have come out of nowhere. I stop walking and note the thought in my status update on Facebook. I just need to share it out there in the Universe. It feels profound and touches something deep inside.
A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Chapters
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