Almost a month has gone by and I’m still getting to know the neighborhood and parks nearby. Walking has become somewhat routine and finally I’ve a good route mapped out on the twisting streets that takes me an hour and doesn’t force me to look at my clock constantly to see if I’ll get back in time to log in for work. Settling into a routine again has taken time, though, and I barely even noticed that it’s been four weeks since I last wrote.
The park and greenbelt I was most excited about exploring when I moved here reminds me of the dryer parts of Texas that I grew up in. There are live oaks, sure, but there’s mostly scrub brush and non-native cedar, mesquite, cacti, grasses. Rabbits everywhere, little cottontails that freeze when they hear me walking, as to remain invisible. They leap and dash once they realize they’ve been seen, and I chuckle every time. The sign when entering the greenbelt says to keep cats indoors, dogs on leashes, and eyes open for coyotes. Thank goodness neither of my felines will ever have to worry about that.
A bit further away from the greenbelt, approximately a quarter mile down the main road, is a lush glory of an environment with trails winding through. Walking through the scrub brush in the closer greenbelt makes me feel desolate and dried-up, the sky is too big and hot white blue and oppressive. There are no breezes to soothe the sweat dripping down the back of my neck. But this lusher trail calls to me. I try to visit her when I can, even though walking along the road to get there is choked with traffic even early in the morning, and I can feel unwelcome human eyes watching as they drive by. I can’t stand how they feel.
There was a doe there napping in the early morning mist, casual as can be in this heart of green surrounded by houses and roads and harried humans.
The sharp iridescent greens of grasses assaulted my eyes, and I had to shade them as I’d go around the next curve and the fields opened to me. The rain this year has been generous, and keeps the trees and grasses vivid at a time of year in Texas when they’d usually be brown already, dust drifting with the pollen between cedars. The trees are ravenously barraging us now with their sex, giving everything a yellow haze and making my eyes dry and watery by the end of the day. I fall asleep early most nights, so that I may get up early in turn, and wander with a semblance of wild freedom before the human world awakens.
The first time I walked the lush greenbelt a freshwater spring opened out of the grass, brazen as can be, shallow and small, winding a little stream to the main creek. I squealed in the discovery, and dipped my fingertips in her small pool, it was icy cool so I wet a handkerchief and wound it around my neck. Carrying something so small and sacred and secret felt like hiding from the houses around me, a little communion with our Mother, and I thanked her for the moment and for revealing the spring.
I couldn’t help it that I sneered when people passed me on the trail, I wanted it all to myself. From childhood I’ve only found peace when alone with the trees and skies, and sought serenity alone as often as I could find it. Not easy to achieve when you share a bedroom with your sister until you’re 18 and are part of a cult that forces you to go door-to-door every Saturday morning instead of watching cartoons. School during the week, JW meetings on Tuesday and Thursday, door-to-door Saturday, another meeting on Sunday…every day was full of humans and I rarely had the peace I needed so badly.
So yes…I sneered when people entered my haven, and was happy to see them pass me on the trail and out of my energy field. I hugged the trees I passed and told them how strong they were. I laughed at the ducks at the duck pond I passed, and wondered at roots winding their way through layers of limestone. It was if the roots and rocks were in the middle of a waltz. Time passes so slowly for us they appear still, but I could see them winding in a dance that would last centuries, if the parks are allowed to last that long. So much necessary frailty lying in the hands of developers and contractors, defining the sacred with money and profit.
Sacrilegious. Profane.
And so I worship as I walk, touching branches above me, hoping the trees remember me when I’m gone. In this new home there is life and hope, a starting-over, a settling to let my roots stretch a little. Until I am on the road again to my next adventure.
A Burd in Flight 