On our first visit to the farmhouse we both felt something stir in our souls.
For Cain, the pecan trees in our wide-open side yard reminded him of his childhood home.
For me, the tiny outbuildings behind the barn felt like an invitation from my Pa-Pa urging me to answer the call and step into my lifelong desire to live a happy homesteader’s life like the one he and Ma-Ma modeled for me.
Months later, I find myself living in this amazing place and working hard behind the scenes to set up an LLC, a new bank account, all new social media handles, etc. to bring this healing arts/heritage skills/retreat center dream to life.
Surely I didn’t uproot our family so I could bury myself under a mountain of emails and zoom calls with lawyers and accountants.
This morning, I walked down to our pond with Clyde. When we got back I could feel the inkling of a poem swirling between my heart and my mind. It felt like it was in the room asking me to write it.
I tried to brush it off, because, well… I’m not a poet. I don’t come by it naturally. I didn’t want to invite it in and squeeze the life out of it with my perfectionist drive. Plus, I had a workout to squeeze in before getting back to my laptop for another long day of phone calls and research.
For the past six months, I’ve been part of a writing salon that meets weekly. It’s a powerfully simple format that has really shaken up my writing practice by allowing me to approach my writing from a place of curiosity versus mastery.
I don’t think I could have sat down today and allowed this poem in if it weren’t for the openness these writing salons have given me.
So I did it. I sat down and played and wondered, “what if I could write some sort of poem about what I’m feeling?”
I came here to live more creatively in alignment with what I want out of life. For me, that’s more time in nature, more time to write, and the opportunity to share these gifts with the world.
I’m so grateful to be on this journey of curiosity, discovery and creativity.
I was pretty pleased with the imperfection of what now feels like a very healthy and fulfilling way of more deeply absorbing the beauty of my journey…
Dog Walk Poem #1
We tromp slowly through golden grass
Mindful of those wine-colored brambles creeping closer and closer to the path we keep
They snag us anyway and stop us in our tracks, calling us back
Back to the rain-soaked grass where our feet plant our bodies
Back beneath these full wet clouds rolling like a blanket above our secret pillow fort
They break the spell of my phone and call bullshit on my “nature walk” until I put it my technology away
They break the spell of his nose where it kisses the ground like an earthbound magnet, reminding him that the edges of this place belong to them.
I wish I could see and know the way he does
I trust his olfactory obsession and wonder what we might be tracking
Rabbits? Deer? Foxes?
Or just the neighbor’s dogs come back to romp in the muddy wild that their manicured lawns do not offer
He will never tell
Together in this mystery I look for clues like scat and hoof prints or the peekaboo fluff of bushy gray tail slinking under the barbed wire
Perhaps we are simply tracking the joy of wonder
We walk on
