You do have a place in the great winding river.
VerbTribe has been an extraordinary journey for me as a teacher, and for those who have joined it. As we close our first 37-day journey into writing, I am featuring writing from VerbTribe members here on 37days. On day 18, we wrote about distances between. Writer Susan J. Preston is a Santa Fe web designer and the creator of Banjo Bunny Ecards, home of a trickster rabbit intent on a world falling in love with itself. Why not hop over for a whimsical coyote visit?
Howl like an Indian drunk on the stars. Begin slowly and awkward. Unskillfully mark your territory. Bark at the moon–the unscrupulous you–the one searching for ways to steal words–waves crashing about like jetsam and flotsam, a derelict past pushed up against boundaries. And by the way, those weeds winding up along the old fence post? Glorious disasters, stop whacking them! And while you’re at it, stop whacking yourself!
Be the fool that you are, the half-witted trickster, goose-chasing uncatchable roadrunners. Leap toward those vapors, boulder-like, falling from cliffs into gorges. You do have a place in the great winding river, more so than ever before, so go ahead, float, then find your way up. Like aspen roots clutched into rock faces, climbing up, up, back up safe to your ledge, only to do it again! Fool that you are! Practicing chasing, practicing falling, practicing floating then climbing again, and again because that’s what coyotes do, and you’re a coyote.
Listen!
You’re the one hell bent on living a life in, and then through, and finally out of herself! So howl! Howwwwl at the moonlight! Sing like the wild bitch that you are! Laugh all the way home like some smitten Margarita when you finally hear the music you’re singing is all the world has ever asked for and needed, The Song of Yourself.
-Susan J. Preston