Small, Black Letters

Write! Right!  The opened new document is the color of new fallen snow.  The clouds continue to roll in and the sky darkens.  The hammering of the handyman outside is a reminder that life is not static.  Not static like the empty page in front of me.

The snow continues to mound and the canvas is whiter than ever.  So much to say.  But nothing really.  That broad leafed tree is still elusive.  It doesn't fit in the southern Appalachians.  Maybe it is also a transplant.

The snow disappears and small, black letters fill the once empty space.  It is becoming more fluid now.  Like the people coming here for more reasons that they know.

It has been a large influx of folks from all over these past few years.  Many are escaping their once homogeneous lives in the burbs. But unlike the southern Appalachians, their communities are multi-cultural.  Their lives are filled with engine sounds, fluorescent lights, ambulances rushing in one direction or another.  Beeping cars.  They can't remember the quiet and they yearn to know it.

Mornings in the forest are filled with birdsong, insects hoping for breakfast, squirrel sounding alerts, branches swaying.  It is anything but quiet.  It is a different kind of quiet. There is no need to speak for all that is needed is to go within.  Quiet the chatter.  Storylines.  Labels.

A baby bird is seen on the ground.  Alive.  Nothing learned in graduate school prepares you for that moment.  Or on Wall Street.  You want to help.  To save it.  To be a part of its continuance if even in some small way.  Gently, you lift the bird to join its nest mates.

A triumphant feeling warms your heart.  Better than any Dow Jones Industrial Average soars.  You feel connected and wonder why you stayed away so long.  You are glad to be here.

You missed the Queen Anne's lace that doesn't grow along the concrete jungle floor.  The rushing water that twists and turns over the cascading rocks.  The feeling of the waterfalls splashing your face and back.

You missed the chipmunk scurrying across the forest floor, hoping to find a morsel of something to eat.  You remember the time you had all of this just behind your house.  You wonder why you left the forest.  No reason makes any sense any more.  You are grateful.  Peaceful.

You are glad to be in the forest.  You are home.