Saturday at my parent's farm, I sat on a hill that I had walked and ran to with the white lab Bo. It was far off. I had to crash through brown leaves on an old trail to get there. I had to be distracted by the deer stand which I climbed and sat in for a while. I had to examine a rock pile for quartz. Finally, I crested the hill and the trail and found a view of a pond, a couple of stark trees, and the roundness of the old mountain range all around me. I sat there for quite a while, breathing in the air to drive the stale, contained, small air out of me. Something about doing this consciously makes me want to cry, an inherent great need of purification strangulates and messes me up until the clearer air begins to make entry. It becomes apparent that the ability to think and feel has been lost and again rediscovered. I sat without the common anxieties that bite at me. I sat watching the last of a dead leaf flutter dramatically from a tree. I sat looking at a faroff slope where the Penner cemetery holds my grandmother and grandfather. Many of my people have been across this land, this hill. It was amazing to even be breathing and alive and there in the day.

When Bo and I ran back home, I felt buoyant, glad, thankful for spirit,life and air. So happy life offers us pockets of treats.

Now for news on the cul-de-sac ....
After a day of intense life-questioning tossing and turning yesterday (post hillside), I casted and so far... one bite from an interested participant! Thanks to the discovery of a bargain book at a closeout sale here in town, I picked up a copy of Frances Mayes' "The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems", I hope to form a small group to read or write poetry here in town. My whole body / person needs this as badly as sitting on that far off hill. I'm hoping something comes together. (Btw, Jennifer, if you're reading this, you're invited -- prob meet every other week at a restaurant. I know you're crazy/busy, though!:)

A new view. A sitdown. Time to breathe. Ah. Tears and smiles.