Lucky

Note from the author:

Words travel through my veins, intertwined with my blood cells. They flow through my fingertips, carefully finding their place on paper, but when they leap from my mouth they fall to their death and that is why I hate to speak. But I was born twenty-nine years ago with thoughts and words racing underneath my skin, beating inside my rib cage, and ever since.

Writing down really hard, traumatic events that happened and then displaying them to even just a few people has had such an interesting affect on me.

It’s like bleeding a little bit into my writing.

It’s been such a crazy experiment.

It’s helped me have more compassion on myself and become more self aware. It’s helped me battle judgmental thoughts about others. Like, I feel humbled in a way that I needed? Or maybe I’m just insane.

In a way, it is a lot like therapy and I’m grateful for the people who are reading my stuff.

Because who am I, really?

That’s what I am trying to discover, or rediscover. To truly love my family, I must face myself and love myself even with all of my shortcomings. It’s more important now than ever.

I am going to take the next few weeks to try and follow another trail of inspiration.

I am giving myself a deadline because that will help me

: March 8th with is Isaac’s one year old birthday.

Let me take you back to your childhood.

It’s almost the end of a hot summer day. You don’t care about the heat; you would let the glorious sun bleach your hyde like the skin of a lizard squashed on a black top.

You pick up the garden hose and drink from it, the cold water is refreshing even though it briefly tastes of hot rubber. Garden hose water: you know what that tastes like, you can taste the dirt and metal. It’s the best when you’re so thirsty and having too much fun to go inside for a glass.

All of your senses are alive and paying attention.

The feel of grass against your bear feet, the smell of smoke from a grill or campfire, and in the distance there’s the sound of a lawn mower. You deeply inhale the smell of the fresh cut grass, it’s sweet and earthy.

Maybe you can remember more vividly now: a cherry popsicle is melting over your fingers in the late afternoon sun. You are standing, staring out of the carport towards the street, a dog is barking somewhere. Your eyes zone out, feeling the warm breeze on your arms.

There is nothing worrying you, nothing you need to do.

The sun will set in about two hours, you will play in the dirt until after it goes down and when the fireflies begin to flicker on and off.

Life hasn’t had enough of you, and your fun won’t end for a long time. The most important thing is playing as much as you can until bedtime.

Sometimes you feel the sudden urge to jump, and so you do. You try to climb the chain link fence and scrape your knee but you don’t care. You have so many scrapes and bruises all over your tan, bony legs, you will sit in your bath later and count them as the water turns murky from your day.

You try and swing as high as you can on the swing set; you get as close as you will get to flying when you jump off. It makes your stomach briefly feel like it’s buzzing with angry wasps.

Dirt doesn’t taste that bad, but it feels weird on your teeth. Seeing a toad is a burst of excitement, you chase it and catch it like you always do. And it always pees in your hand. You watch it’s white throat bubble pop in and out. You wonder at the gold flecks in it’s tiny eyes.

The feeling of dried dirt on your legs and feet and hands makes you feel heavy with contentment. You breathe an unworried breath of satisfaction as you watch the sun burst into bright orange and red flames before sinking behind the trees, slowly pulling all the vibrant daytime colors along with it like a blanket. Shadows get long and bend, you climb to the top of a tree trying to get a glimpse of where the sun will settle.

You want to go, too. You don’t want this day to end.

You are always hunting for the never ending day.

From the highest point you can climb in the tree, you stand firmly on a thick branch and feel it’s cool, smooth bark against the bottoms of your feet. You stand there in silence as you survey the land below from your leafy throne. A few evening birds are calling, frogs are croaking, Cicadas are shrieking in their crescendo: the warm hum of life in this moment has your full attention, just like they planned it. It’s all for you.

You are a child and the earth turns for you.