With spring comes a remembrance of joyful, simple living. It is a meditation of sorts, to be in nature while reading an engrossing book. Mid-afternoon, I prepare my bag: water, freshly picked strawberries, a blanket, and a few books. Then I venture off into the world, find a grass field by the water and enter a state of bliss. At this moment, everything glows. I feel alive, alive, alive – overflowing with appreciation for having the free will to choose that yes, this is how I wish to spend a few hours of my day; to be able to read, ruminate, and feel held by the natural world.
I share this slice of the land with the turtles, the ducks, the wildflowers. An iridescent beetle, too, which keeps me company as I read the essays within Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose. Dragonflies buzz, bees search for flowers in the field. All the while, the sun beams; its warmth a reflection of my inner state.
I turn the pages with leisure, underline paragraphs with precision. In the Heart Museum essay, I am dazzled by this sentence: “Even when I’m caught off guard by a lathery shade of peach on the bottom corner of a painting at the Met, as if being reminded that I haven’t seen all the colors, and how there’s more to see, and how one color’s newness can invalidate all of my sureness.” I contemplate the recent moments that have made me feel like a newcomer to the earth. The discovery of peculiar words, learning a language, a new song that vibrates in the chest. Daily, we can maintain that sense of childlike wonder; newness is an infinite well of gifts.
I sit on the peak of a hill that overlooks the lake of my city. That glistening water, the magnificence of it, reminds me that I am worthy as a witness. I, too, am made of water. How could I ever pretend to be small again? Elena Ferrante is my companion this time–The Story of a New Name, book two of the Neapolitan Novels. I am transported to a summer in Ischia during the 1960s. There is drama there, tension, betrayal. I wonder if the sea has the ability to wash away all our impurities, despair, heartache, fury, and envy. No, no, it can only suspend them briefly, lift them up into the air while we become hypnotized by something holy. I want Lenù to remember her power, to know with conviction that she is a force to be reckoned with, like the sea. And yet, I think about how similar adolescent her and I were, before I discovered the weight of my voice.
I return to my place in the world, to presence. I am comforted by how the wind feels like a soft caress of a lover, and how the air holds the nectarous fragrance of childhood memories. My hands gently pass over each blade of grass, feeling the waxy texture as I gaze off into the water once again. I breathe into the stillness of the earth, slowly, slowly. As the sky blushes and the sun dances with the clouds, I sink back into my novel with profound gratitude for this tender life of my own making.
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I do my reading at either a coffee shop or a local library, and sometimes at home in a comfortable recliner. Your writing makes me wonder what I'm missing out on by not reading in nature: on grass or near a large lake or river. I will make a conscious effort to read outside this week. As always, I love your writing. I think you accomplish something incredibly rare with each post.