Life's a trip!: August 2016

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Summerfilled

“Be silent and revolve with no will.” (Rumi)

… driving along the Spanish Fork river, looking for a spot … winding down among the tall red rocks and juniper trees that jump towards the skies at every corner in a desperate feat to be seen … thinking road is too narrow for two cars, and we have a camper … driving by small pastures, not big enough for our outfit … keep on driving … finally the perfect spot appears, on the left, a wide meadow, at the foot of the mountain, with the river at its root, snaking around it ... the prairie grass swaying in the lazy breeze … sunlight draping over everything like a silky, breezy curtain – it looks like a painting, completely unmoved …

… we were to fill the afternoon and another day with lazy … get a cold drink, loaded with lime … get another cold drink, full of bubbles … and yet another one, just water, to cool off … eat lunch – cold, ripe tomatoes, in a salad … eat a snack … and another one later … walk around camp, shoot the mountains … open a magazine with a yawn … and another one … read the weird, 800 pages book, what else is there to do in a lounge chair when the sun is baking your skull through the awning above?! what else are summers for other than losing them in endless pages?! … look at the time... only half past one … the sun at its peakest … the heat, liquid in the buggy, dry air …

… a tickle is barely felt … right there... above the ankle... a bite and a twitch … must be ants … again … it will leave a mark ...

… for a brief second, looking up from the book … the air is littered with dragon flies, butterflies and no-nos … chasing each other, with so much energy, losing (perhaps not losing, but giving up) track of where they're coming from and where to they're going … the trees above, on the steep slopes are hinting of fall … shhh … don't say the 'f' word too loud, not even too loud in your thoughts... it's August still … we shall persist …

… another snack tastes like garlic … and yet another one like chocolate … just eating our minutes away … looked at the watch again … only 10 minutes have passed – feels like eternity …

… unnamed and unseen birds are squealing … maybe they're happy … maybe a snake ate their babies … or maybe it's just summerlust … shrieks and wings flutters above the water … ahhh, the water – the stream trickling like a broken faucet, over the rocks … crystal clear, inviting like a perfect host, the sky and forest to get lost into its reflection … beside the timeless water and the birds, there is an eternal buzz in the air, maybe the deaf sound of the time passing, but could very well be a cicada or a snake … it's splendor in the tall grasses ... we're swallowed ...

… the silky peace of the summer afternoon is ripped to shreds by gun shots … and then again … I startle … we're in the West, all right: rocky cliffs, prairie grass and gun shots … if Buffalo Bill would wake up from his eternal slumber, he would feel right at home … shovel nearby, to round up the décor …

... there is no smell ... the air so dry, it could break with a crunch - you can feel it in your dry nostrils ... but no smell ... no pines around ... only sage and juniper, crispy from heat ... prairie grass is odorless ... just dust ... not more ...

… eventually, the sun gets lazy, too, and slips itself, slowly, at first and then gaining more speed behind the mountain … dusk feels like someone left the fridge door open and a surreal coolness blasts at our warm, sun-tired faces, and the shade takes over the earth with a newly found loud shriek of 'a-aaahhh'... we get hungry ... yes, again … we make fire and cook like cowboys – beans, sausages, corn …finally, we smell like wood and bacon ...

… the next day, a morning hike to loosen our joints … take in the morning heat fighting with the dew … a baby rattler crosses our path, just in case there was any doubt that we're in The Rockies, anymore …

… we leave empty … empty of stress and empty of whatever humanity tried to put in us the weeks before … it all stays at the campsite ... we just dumped, we poured all our city stuff out there, with the rattlers, the dragon flies, and washed it off in the river … it will go down with the water, purifying us, into the world, and beyond that, into the oceans … it all recirculates … we head home empty of 'stuff' and ready to feel anew and crisp again … whatever life will have in store for us now, we're ready …