So, I felt this super super overwhelming urge to write. I haven’t written in ever so long! But, as other writers, I am sure, can sympathize with, I stared at the blank document in front of me without a thing to put down. So, finally, I put on music from Tim Janis, one of my new favorite piano artists, and, without looking at the screen, began typing what the music brought to my mind. This is what I typed. I have no doubt it is disjointed, makes little or no sense, and it badly written, especially since I have not even read over it yet, but I am posting it, nonetheless, simply because I want to.
Across a plain filled with wild roses, white, red, sweetly scented – waving in the wind that inevitably blows across the plains trickled a creek. Following the creek, one reaches a river, a river that tumbles it’s way over rocks, through mountains, and into a green forest. Wildlife teams through the forest, living, breathing, loving life just as it is. A dear runs alongside the river, veering from its side as the water gathers together in a rush to cascade down a mountain in a rushing waterfall. Calmer now, the river continues on its journey, until it reaches the open air, having made its way through the plains, the mountains, the forest, it streams out into an ocean. For now a softly rippling body of water, sunshine glints off of the salty water as dolphins leap through it, whales swim deep below the surface, and just as much life teams underwater as in the forest. Everywhere, everyplace, a love for life swelled the body of nature, bringing into climax the beauty and meaning of life as we know it. As the ocean swept along, it passed many manners of life. A city, also filled with a love for life, as people rushed to work, to parties, back home for a kiss and a meal. It passed ships filled with materials for land, or people who wanted to see what life on the ocean was like. It passed small villages, where another method of life took place entirely, people lived off nature, in dirt, in huts, but still loved life as entirely as the crowds in the city. It passed those forests filled with animals, it passed the plains yet to be seen by human eyes, the deserts untouched by fresh water, past sandy shores, with hundreds of people running through its tips, and others lying under the sun. Past sandy shorts where no one sat, past rocks and cliffs that only the eagle landed on. Alongside this love for life, however, the water passed souls who were no longer hungry for life, souls who didn’t notice the water, the sun, who didn’t care about or have friends, family. Lonely people, traversing the beach, sitting in a small apartment looking out over the ocean. Hermits, in huts far away from other people, men and women, lost in the woods, couples with hearts being broken sitting on the lonely beaches. All these, too, it kept company. For some, the water was their only solace, the only thing that talked to them, night or day, for others a reason to stay alive, to keep going, for some, just a body of water to sit next to while trying to heal. Among all these hearts, all these souls, all these people, all those longing for love, and all those who had it, however, the drops of the ocean, that had started way back in plains filled with wildflowers, came to rest at and touch the feet of a young woman, standing on a lonely beach, under the moonlight. She looked down as it touched her bare toes, and a small smile passed over the thin, pale, tired face. Her skirt was tucked up out of the way of the water, her shirt loosened to blow in the breeze. Her hair pulled back in a hair band, wisps of hair escaping to caress her cheek. Turning, she walked along the beach alone, letting the water follow her, ignoring the bites of broken seashells, until she reached a rock, one of many on that part of the beach. Seating herself, she let her feet down into the water, loosening her hair, lifting her face, and closing her eyes to lose herself in the quiet of the night. This was the one time of day she looked forward to – when everyone else slept, everyone but the water – the water that was always there to keep her company. This was one moment she could use the water to try to erase the hurt she felt tugging inside her all day long, to try and heal just a portion of the brokenness she felt inside. She sat silently, eventually opening her eyes to stare across, and then down into the water lapping gently at the rock. Deep sadness welled inside of her, as it always did at the the quiet magic of the water and the beach and the rocks surrounding her under a the light of a full moon. There was peace in the sadness, somehow – she felt as though she could let it express itself through her eyes without fear of anyone else seeing. Without being reprimanded – without worry of sympathy – without any repercussions for letting her feelings express themselves in her eyes. There was a sense of relief in letting the sadness come through. As though it could soak itself up in the water below her and the stars above her and leave her for the night. . for an hour she sat like this, barely moving, letting the water surround her and her rock, letting the stars soak up her sorrow, letting her face express what it willed. And then, slowly, reluctantly, she slipped off the rock, and made her way back up the shore, moving out of range of the waves, so they could no longer open her soul. As she moved further from her rock, from the waves, her countenance changed, it became almost plastic, with no frown or smile, no expression in her eyes. Almost methodically, she put her hair back again, and let down her skirt, picking up the shoes she had hidden behind another rock. And she disappeared, into the deep reaches of the night.
He had watched her every evening for almost a year. From his small apartment almost hidden behind the stretch of rocks she came to, he sat at his desk at the same time every night, preparing to write, and every night, he looked out at the same hour and saw her making her way up his beach. Always, without fail, he turned out his light, put his pen down, and watched her as she sat on the rock, so many expressions passing her face it was hard to decipher her mood. One moment a smile, another a frown, one moment gladness as she looked at the moon, another sorrow as she looked at the waves. Some evenings she sat, some she wrote, some she cried – once, she had had actually run up and down the beach, playing in the waves until she was soaked all over, not leaving until her eyes were sparkling, her face flushed in spite of the cool of the night, and, he had no doubt, her fingers and toes were pruny.
Forest Idylls 