Sometimes the hours weigh too heavily on my body. When desperation wraps itself around me like a living shroud, I flee. I stumble to the car and follow the winding levee roads, over draw bridges, past vineyards. I lower my window and fill my lungs with the heavy scent of the river. My gaze traces the wide arc of the geese as they rise into the tender sky over the flooded fields.
My simple lens cannot do justice to what I see, but I click the shutter again and again. I yearn for some small souvenir of all this splendor. Other drivers nod as they maneuver around me. They understand. They too have sought comfort on the banks of these timeless waters.
Eventually I make my way home. Later, as night falls and the winds rise, I listen from inside my tiny house. I close my eyes. My weary spirit takes flight on the strong sure breath of the mother earth.
It’s the thirteenth day of the eighty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.” — Rumi
