It Calls to You

As a misty blue morning sways in through the open bedroom window, I blink awake and once again every single fiber of my being silently sings a soft song of infinite praise for the wonder that is melatonin in little white pill form. My sleep had been so jagged and restless for so long that I had started to accept it as a given. It was crazy making. But sleep with a proper dose of whatever this miracle hormone is is the most sound and beautiful, blissful sleep I have ever known since I was a little kid. I had all but forgotten the incredible glory of the feeling of waking up snug and rested and feeling like a fully elegant, hot-blooded thing.

The rain is falling steady and hushed upon the lush summer grasses, each manicured lawn soaking it up while growing greener and thicker by the minute. I rise and grab my coffee as well as the watering can, sipping my dark French roast as I water my indoor plants which have grown into wondrous little monsters right before my eyes over the past two years. Long dangling tendrils, heart shaped leaves, spiky stems, fanned out elephant ears, every kind of treasure you could imagine, all here together crowded around the sanctuary which is the one gigantic wall of glass which the sun rings through for a good portion of the day, no matter the season.

None of this is here nor there for you, of course, is it. For me, though, this is sacred ritual. My bare feet on the cool tile. My well-rested mind conjuring stories, fantasies, imaginings of every kind. I wonder how many would understand what it means to feel excruciating yearning for words. The right words. The best words. The most coveted and sensual words ever written or ever to be. I have written so many bits of things over the decades. I am not sure what they amount to, if anything at all. But all my energy, it seems, is always reaching, searching, craving for, excited for what comes next.

Watching as the fresh water seeps into the dark soil that cradles one of my very favorite leafy creatures, I imagine being drowned in the wide eyes of the ancient poets, collected inside the tears which have fallen since the beginning of time from beneath the eyelids of those precious, tortured souls who seek, as I do, to write anything that could dare soar toward the heavens. My mind becomes a darkening sky, menacing and uncertain. My heart is beating from beneath the earth. Sometimes I get like this, spiral into the storms inside. I don’t know where I belong; above or below or inbetween.

Shaking my head to clear my brain, I pour a second cup and empty the remaining water from the watering can into the sink. Soon I will pack a few bags and make my way to the sea for a mini-holiday. I smile thinking of those tiny newborn baby turtles running toward the gigantic waves. Erratic and hurried, for fear of predators they’ve not yet encountered but sense intuitively with palpable trepidation. Brave, blind, and naive. But something in their brand new bodies remembers the tides they have not yet plunged into. The map they fumble for is already sketched upon their insides.

There is something much bigger than all of this. You can feel it breathing with the sound of the silence. Something so unfathomably grand as to fit inside of us entirely and burst forth when we least expect it. We may not think we know our own way. We may not think we remember the words, the rhythms, the answers – yet they call to us all the time, just the same.