24 Jun
2016
Posted in: Writing
By    Comments Off on It’s Wild

It’s Wild

160607_cary_writing_retreat_1-29NOTE: I’m scheduled for jury duty every day next week. Last time they let me go home after the first day, which I am hoping they will do this time too. If they do, I’ll post again on Tuesday. If not, I’ll post as soon as I can. Stay tuned.

***

For today, one last prompt from the writing workshop: “Let the creative process speak.” Here’s what I wrote:

Me: I love you.

Creative Process: Thanks! I love you too.

Me: OK. Good. Now what?

Creative Process: I don’t know. I guess we move in together or something.

Me: Wait. This is too easy.

Creative Process: Sweetheart, don’t worry. We’ve done the hard stuff. We saw the bear. We let him off the chain and yeah, he broke a few chairs and tore up the wallpaper, but he settled down, didn’t he?

Me: He’s still wild.

Creative Process: Yeah. I know. I threw the chain away. I let him run off into the hills and I said it was OK if he never came back–I’d miss him, of course, but it was no good to try to keep him–and that was all he needed because he hasn’t stayed away. He doesn’t come into the house anymore, but that’s because he’s too big, the furniture doesn’t fit him, and the rug makes him itch.

So he stays in the woods with the other wild things–and he marks a trail with his claws–so I can follow him. He draws me out of the house when the moon is dark and I follow the path that’s not really a path, more of a whisper that runs through the bushes. I follow the sound like a scent, which recedes, taking me deeper and deeper into silence. Sometimes I hear a snort, or the crash when he lumbers, rears up, then drops back down to earth.

But sometimes I hear nothing. That’s when the stillness condenses, turns liquid, forms a pool that deepens and darkens until creatures who never before existed begin to rise up, shining from within, luminous, phosphorescent, shimmering and trembling with awareness.

***

(photo by Kyoko Ide)         

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