This is an example of free flow writing which came as a combination of prompting from Dian Reid's authentic realities June Blog challenge and Bindu Wiles 21*5*800 Yoga/Writing experience.
Phew and Yay. I am exhausted and exhilarated all it once so I simply MUST share with you here.
Discovering wilderness within walking distance is a sort of specialty of mine. I can find the places that stir up the soil, that trudge back through ages and generations of seeds and plants and trees and buzzing around on the wings of insects and the loud cacophany of frogs belching and cat paw prowling and wind rustling the trees free, leaves applauding in that sacred God sound which, quite frankly, scares some people and leaves me in silent delight and praise and shouts of "Woo hoo! There is wilderness within walking distance" no matter where you are, right now, there is wilderness.
I feel the wilderness within me heat up at the attention. They are lining up, those characters, waiting for me to point and explain, let them do a little curtsie or bow or the like. My spell check doesn't like the word "curtsie" or "curtsey" so I am trusting you will know what I mean.
The wilderness inside me makes my fingers move into places they don't want to go with the words, places that might make "regular" people squirm with discomfort because what I need to say, what my wilderness needs to say, isn't polite or isn't what is expected or hoped for or what conventional wisdom lines up to say.
My wilderness pushes me into the "I have to do it, I can't leave it unsaid" wind and I fly along it, words falling in nice, conventional looking lines but sounding completely unconventional and sometimes I can't remember writing them in the first place but the message hits me someplace in the solar plexis. Today, my friend choked through gutteral sobs when she read a poem I wrote that felt so impolite to write.
My wilderness called me last Thursday, when I was supposed to be going to Angela's house for girl's night and I was more than an hour late before I even left and the wilderness said, "The sun is setting, Julie - go to where you know you will find me..."
It is irresistible, this wilderness.
I followed its call to one of my favorite tucked away spots most people here in Bakersfield don't know about, well, unless you are a crack-head or perhaps cruising or maybe, just into creative ecstatic moments, like me, who when she meets crack heads or cruisers talk to me and say, "Oh, yeah, you don't need any chemicals to get high because you sort of always walk around... nearly high or very high, anyway."
So there I was, following the call of sunset and I found wilderness. At least three times. I found it as I made my way towards the quickly rushing river. In Bakersfield, where those words "quick" and "river" don't usually go together because our town is jokingly referred to as "Bakersfield - A Riverbed Runs Through It."
I have often written about the river bed. I love it, devoid of water and I love it, filled with water. I love its presence and I love the absence of water, too. I am looking forward, today, when the wild water leaves and its wild aromas are left in its wake.
The other night, though, what I found was wilderness under my feet as I walked to my favorite spot and realized the river was underneath my feet, which looked like they were on stable ground, sandy and stable. The beach was gone and the river was reaching its fingers underneath the soil, like an older person reaches its fingers underneath the babies chin to get to it.
It was surreal. I stood, giggling a bit hysterically, feeling the mad-racing river underneath me. It had seeped through to my left and was full raging on my right. I stood, and laughed and stood and shouted, defiantly and joyfully. It was as blissful as any moment has been. It took a while to leave, but after the sun posed for a photo I had to move along, I knew my friends were waiting.
I walked slowly away from the river toward my car, toward civilization when a bunny friend hopped to the edge of the path. She saw me and looked me up and down. I stopped and stood completely still, breathing "Namaste" toward the bunny. She nodded back at me, or seemed to, and nibbled the leaves without caution.
She seemed to understand that I was a wilderness being, too, no need to fear, and along came a friend of hers, who saw me, too. He ate a bit, nodded to the first bunny, no sound whatsoever.
I was near tears at this point. "What about me has changed?" I asked the bunnies aloud, "That you would be willing to be with me like this?"
The threatening tears became a river of tears, coursing down my face when a third bunny approached and stood, closest to me, and just stood. Enjoying the moment of togetherness.
I have seen bunnies before, they are common in my favorite local places, but I have never seen wild bunnies be completely present with me as these bunnies were being.
It was too quick when we heard other humans approaching. My tears evaporated and the bunnies hopped away, but not before my third bunny friend pointed me to the first moon blossoms of the season. Moon blossoms - my favorite wild flower - were spotted right when two horses and riders ambled up the path. The riders were smoking and talking loudly, their phone ear pieces poised for that oh-so-important call that couldn't be missed when visiting the wilderness, after all.
I smiled and greeted them, still on cloud 27 from my wilderness experience of the river, reclaiming the soil and the animals, reclaiming me.
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