how peaceful the rain

Put me in a painting from Japan.
Hiroshige, maybe.
I'll be a figure carrying water.
I'll push back my hat.
I'll say how lovely the sunrise looks
through the clouds around Mount Fuji.
And all of my extra lines will disappear,
the lines of hope, tangles of fear.
I'll be in the tender brushstrokes of a master:
quiet and serene as he loads ink on brush,
a curl of steam, his companion,
rising from the clay teacup at his side.
I'll be his creation while he makes ripples out of rain,
and then I'll carry home the bundle tied on my back,
sandals flipping away,
shedding the waters of contemplation.

I love the Literary Book of Answers, compiled advice from great works of literature. I always consult it when I visit a certain friend.

Question: What do I do now?
Answer: Thou must gather thine own sunshine.
Question: How do I find my own way?
Answer: Be still.
Question: How will I communicate what I find to other people?
Answer: You shall not fail.-- Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

I forgot to cite the first two answers.

Take the Cake

Or, A Happiness Unquation.
an anecdote that may explain a lot.
I am a passenger in a car. My friend is sitting next to me. On my lap is a beautifully decorated vegan cake. I am twenty-one, and I am excited because I can eat it without feeling bad later, and because there are pretty flowers and hearts all over it. I am so very happy to be holding a cake on my lap. I feel very special. Like a five-year-old. Like a five-year-old princess. Make that a fairy princess. You get the idea.
All of a sudden, I realize SOMETHING IS WRONG. I am happy. I am holding cake. I feel special. WHAT IF my friend sitting next to me is not feeling special, or like a five-year-old-fairy-princess?
What if she is upset because she doesn't get to hold the cake?
More to the point, what if she is upset because I feel special?
And so I offer to let her hold the cake.
She is bewildered by my offer. She is not aware that I felt so very happy about holding the cake, and it certainly won't make her as thrilled. She has no desire to hold the cake. She says so. We both laugh, and I grin sheepishly, clutching the cake a little tighter.
I reflect on the enormity of my errors in the areas of subjectivity and the transferability of happiness, as well as my own sense of self-worth. I refer to this incident as a "Take the Cake" scenario. I use it to measure whether I am denying myself enjoyment in a fruitless attempt to make others feel happy. Is this a Take the Cake scenario?

Positive heart impulses

Tonight I forgive myself for holding on too long to what no longer serves me.
I forgive myself for fearing to grow bigger than my censoring ego can criticize, to shine so bright that I cannot be stopped by doubts.
I forgive myself for wishing to keep myself small and invisible rather than to walk with my radiance revealed.
I forgive myself for believing anyone else's opinions over my own judgment.
I forgive myself for placing the happiness of others before my own, and choosing what does not serve me in an attempt to make others feel special.
I forgive myself for seeking approval from others, because I did not approve of myself.
I forgive myself for a deep-seated belief that 'I must be doing something wrong,'or that 'I'm not good enough.'
I forgive myself for acting out of desperate fear and hurting others.
I forgive myself for staying disconnected rather than listening to the hard truths of friendship.
I forgive myself for filling my mind with worry and doutbt instead of peaceful solitude.
I forgive myself for remaining tense and alert when there are no longer stressful stimuli.
I forgive myself for undoing knots with my left hand even as I tie them with my right.
I forgive myself for tying knots with my right hand even as I undo them with my left.

Some things which are new

the month of July
blueberry bushes
a Subaru Outback
brakepads for the Outback
socks (I'm really proud of this one)
a checking account
more television than I ever normally watch
a hammock with accompanying stand
an herb garden
hibiscus iced tea
a haircut
bills
postcards from Amsterdam
a vase of flowers
the finale of the latest Doctor Who
a craving for corn tortillas
homemade strawberry jam
a notebook and mittens that Danielle couldn't take to NM
a teapot that doesn't leak!
space for spiritual matters
a journal where I write three pages, every morning
books that are not texts for class
a cool spiral knitting pattern
affirmations like: I create the world that I live in
a swishy red linen skirt
a blue sundress covered in tulips
semi-effective bouts of cleaning and organizing
lavendar soap
a leaf I am turning over

out-standing in my field

The plant that nightly makes meadows smell sweet is rightly named fragrant bedstraw, along with purple and pink vetch clinging to tall grass stalks full of grain, and daisies waving gently in the breeze, campion forming white pillowy clouds, and elecampagne sweet and low to the ground. Clover awash in white and red, and strawberry peeking from low-growing beds. Black-eyed susans and loosestrife, buttercups too, and parsnip and goutweed, goldenrod, alfalfa, dandelion, morning glory, aster, and the twinkling silver coming from the underbellies of waving leaves on the small aspens growing casually, five feet from the edge of the field, as if no one would notice their encroachment.

The sound of home is the rustle blue-green of these leaf beings on a summer night. A creature sound. They are tall and have stood there ever since I can remember. Can they remember me? I ask. I am a wild one, a small bark scrambler with barked shins, scratches where I scrabbled up the trunk, perfectly perching high above a burbling river bed. This is what the trees remember, my almost still gaze, blood pounding as I crouch, precious gasps as I wonder at the set of day, elated and pleased to be several dozen feet higher than usual as if I had gotten away with something.

My heart has always been in the heart of a certain field, a low point on the land but an open one from which the sky is apparent, and the nearby mountains make their presence known, the funny one shaped like an anvil. An itch that I've had since I was small urges me to run towards open sky, and standing here, I can see wide vistas. A glitter, the light reflecting off a metallic angel, that pilot and I the only ones who know the secret of this sky, its freedom. You and me, buddy. You and me. I don't envy him, whoever he is. He has to look at his instruments, and focus on work, and is surely above the brilliant color display. I in my field see it all pass before me. Like one of my trees, my glory is in watching the world passing by and furthering, becoming. Who else will take the time to notice? If I do not stand out in the field and gaze into this stretch of sky, my stretch of sky, with weather passing across the canvas in a brilliant ever-changing show of wonder, if I do not stand here, will someone else?

The colors of home are the light on hills at evening. How can green become so pink before it all goes dark blue? The clouds on up through the stratosphere each in their turn follow suit in a gentle blending motion. It is suddenly not fair that every sunset has been painted as if only in one moment, when sunsets are temporal events, changing from one moment to the next, now it is the most beautiful, no, now, now, now, until it's blue in gray or is it gray in blue? and I can no longer tell the clouds from the sky nor distinguish the patterns of the leaves and the dew brushes cool against my scraped shins and I turn my steps for home because the day is gone.

A Longer Trail for some

But I enjoyed the 30.8 miles of it that I hiked, in the best company possible. I had all sorts of worries and personal concerns that melted away with the first mile and a half of uphill incline. Nothing like straining at your backpack straps and wondering whether you will keep breathing in a minute or if your boots are actually crushing your toes to jelly, to drive away worries about things like what you're doing for the rest of your life. And oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, I found that what I was doing for the next few days at least was beating a pretty hot pace over and across the Long Trail with my friends, and it didn't matter what appointments I had made, or what I might think my parents might not approve of, or what serious thing I needed to sort; worrying wasn't going to fix any of that anyhow. My problems didn't melt, but I packed them away when I packed my backpack, and I conveniently left them on the shelf at home, along with other things that were too heavy or too useless to take with me. I needed to travel light. Getting things done turned out to be the order of business, and the first step to finishing is, well, the first step. The dao has never been so sweaty, heart-racing, rocky, and rewarding. All around me, every step of the way all I had to do was stop, and look around at the cathedral of the forest canopy and the velvet moss carpet and the weird mushroom priests. Any moment of the trail contained the whole of the experience and I wasn't afraid I'd miss any of it, because it was all around me. I didn't hurry because I thought I'd be left out, instead I took my time. What fell into place was my perception. I absorbed the mountain-ness from the mountains. I asked where my roots were, why did I choose this place, these structures and people, what led me to the path I now walk? I looked long into my own memories. I looked long across the view, and into the daydream of the mountain. The lighthearted dream of summer, and a deeper sense of well-being and purpose, a way of being, a -ness that grows like mountains do, older all the time. I laughed and bantered along the trail. I settled, like the mountain settles, into an understanding of myself as I am, as I am forming. The seed of the mightiest mountain is a single grain of sand. And if I build it out of weekend hikes, hands of cards, bunches of flowers, a really great porch and shade with the summer sun through the leaves, instead of church suppers and hook-rugs and big, sweet dogs and sweeter maple toast, I still might live to ninety like Grandma Frances. The secret is just living one day at a time. I just added a pebble today. I'm in the business of mountain-building, so excuse me if I don't take some time off. If I ever stopped, how would this mountain get built? I have the most lovely sense of not wanting to step out of my self and miss a bit of my life as it goes by. I deserve it and I will savor it. If every day can be as satisfactory, as filled with endorphins and fellowship and silent, quiet spaces in the cool and the green, I shall feel fortunate indeed.