May 30, 2017

how to make room for wildness

Begin with a road trip. Invite more people than can reasonably fit in your car.
Head south on the turnpike with a canvas bag of snacks crammed into the foot well.
When you stop for gas, purchase the chocolate bars of your childhood and a fizzy drink
that will make your teeth wince. Imagine the hours ahead as the rungs of a ladder
you are climbing down, and the miles behind you like years of your life sloughing off,
so that when you arrive you are almost pre-verbal, with a giddiness at this new world
you have entered. Marvel at the bird that accompanies your first breakfast,
its unfamiliar plumage and grace startling you with such wonder, you are convinced
there are wings stirring at your shoulders, and a strange, beautiful song at the perch
of your throat, and nothing - nothing at all - to keep you from sending it flying.