I leave the house at about ten o'clock in the morning, wearing my sweats and hoodie. I have a sporty purse slung across my body just big enough to hold a 3.5" notebook, my favorite Pilot pen and my I-phone I figure I'm in no hurry, and start at a leisurely pace down the road towards the park close to our home.
Suddenly my neighbor pulls up in her red Jeep on the other side of the road and rolls down her window when she sees me. "Where you walking to like this?" she asks in a tone of surprised concern.
"Um ... I ... just had to get out of the house for a while, you know? Um ... husband making me crazy ... needed space." I stammer, finding myself feeling strangely guilty immediately and unable to state the true purpose of my mission.
"Oh, honey, I know. Sometimes you just have to get away," she says. "I'll have to take you shopping with L. and I sometime so you can have a little company next time. Maybe next week?" I smile and nod weakly.
"Sure N." I say, "that would be nice, thanks."
She pulls away and I continue with my meander towards the end of our street. I appreciate my friend's kind intentions but I can't help but sigh as I walk the path that cuts through the elementary school. My mistake, I tell myself is that I should have been jogging with a look of intense purpose on my face, at least until I reached the park limits. Or perhaps I should cave in to my husband's wish for a dog. Nah. I shake the thought aside. I'm not willing to pay the price for freedom in poop. But just perhaps for once I could have been honest with someone about my dreams, "N. I love to write. I need to write," I could have said. "I love having solitary time to reflect, to dream, to 'fill my well with images' as Julia Cameron would say. I crave it like most people in St. Louis crave to see the Cardinal's home opener, like other people crave food, air, water or ... God!" At the play-park I pass a lady on a bench watching a pair of golden-haired children playing house under the slide. She refuses to return my friendly greeting as though not having a child by my side has rendered me temporarily invisible. I took a picture here, hoping she would not think I was crazy:
What is it about St. Louis that makes taking a solitary walk feel so self-indulgent? It still feels strange after all these years to be living in a city that views the activity as cause for pity or even suspicion. Is it truly the unrelenting message of American culture that "time is money" and that we as humans have no right to waste it? Or is it more likely that I feel self-indulgent for daring to nurture my inner artist, for celebrating her, for making her a priority?
The morning sky is a perfect blue, filled to the brim with sunshine. It is windy but the air is warm and soft. My eye and breath were caught by the beauty of the first blooming trees of Spring. I marveled at the way the underbrush always comes to life first; the fresh green spreading upwards into the waiting arms of the winter-weary oaks and sycamores. I took photos of the unfurling buds and delicate white blossoms with my camera phone.
Although I was aiming at first for a bench at the top of the hill, I suddenly abandoned the paved walking path; the predetermined course set out for me by kindly park planners and began walking over the lush grass. I surveyed my little kingdom from a high vantage point, with the sun warm on my back, breathing the scents of Spring deep into my lungs.
I took off my shoes and socks and wiggled my toes. Every day is such a precious gift. As much as we would like to believe that we are immortal, the number of days we have on this earth are all-too finite. I for one don't wish to reach the end of my days and wish I had "wasted" more of them like this. I don't wish to die without at least trying to create something beautiful out of the life I was granted. This is how I was made, for better or worse; too sensitive, too serious, too much in love with the world and its ordinary, everyday grace
... and too much in love with writing to ever stop.
The purpose of an artist's date:
"In order to function in the language of art, we must learn to live in it comfortably. The language of art is image, symbol. It is a wordless language even when our very art is to chase it with words. The artist's language is a sensual one, a language of felt experience. When we work at our art, we dip into the well of our experience and scoop out images. Because we do this, we need to learn how to put images back." ~ Julia Cameron
