Here. Now.

A flutter of anticipation races across my chest as I turn to face the expanse of woods before me. It lures me into its stillness, laying out a velvet carpet path spiraling downhill into the damp, living darkness. The leather binding of my journal presses into my palm. Its weight reminds me of his words, my task. "Go into the woods," he said, "find a place, and listen to it. Let it tell you its secrets."

My eyes close, and my feet lead me silently over the loam. The birds serenade the sky, and ignore my presence here. I begin to let myself wander. I know these woods like my grandmother's house. They are safe and familiar, yet are filled with countless corners, each one housing an ancient mystery awaiting rediscovery. The path I set out upon becomes merely a suggestion, and the soles of my feet, finally free from the confines of both shoes and mind, lead me around and through, over and under, weaving my thread into this place.

Toes grip soil, legs lift body, mind travels upward. I see it: my place, my destination. It calls to me like a siren to a lost sailor. I pull myself up onto this stone, my new place of meditation, this stone that has been here longer than an eternity. I will be a visitor to it, resting upon this stone for only the smallest part of of one inhale of one of its epic breaths. I settle in to sit, clearing away sticks and pine cones, suddenly conscious of my animal movements.

I begin to sit. A stillness descends that unsettles me to the core. I confront my stillness like a cat that has just noticed an unfamiliar creature in its territory. My mind prowls around the silence, circling it with chatter, deciding whether it can be trusted. Slowly, my mind begins to relent, to widen its circle, and I suddenly notice the stream that burbles below me. It chatters away, echoing with the chorus of voices that it has collected on its cyclical journey through the millennia.

As I settle into my own silence, I am filled by the orchestra of sounds around me. The birds continue their love song to the air, unseen things rustle and scurry, and carry. A rivulet of sound breaks off from the stream, and starts to forge new territory in my mind, recruiting my own long-forgotten sounds. The river-chatter sounds like the crowd in Grand Central Station, it sounds like children on a distant playground. A baritone note splashes against a rock, and suddenly it is my father's deep voice, accented by duet of mother and sister, as their late-night conversation echoes up through the floor into my not-quite-asleep upstairs ears. Now the sound is the subtle rhythm of palate knife on canvas, leaving autumn trees in its wake.

I am now fully immersed in the sound. My head has gone under, and the shock of cold water has passed. A new sound enters my head. It is a singular voice that I have since come to learn as my own. It gives me words that circle around the confines of my head, refusing to relent until they are released into writing. The creamy pages fall open, and I take my own hand, a utensil currently foreign to my body, and write words that resonate with truth:

I am.
I am here.
I am sitting here.
No matter where I am,
I can always say,
I am here. Now.

I exhale, and the words, satisfied, stand boldly on the page, strong in their simplicity. The forest releases me from the hold of its gentle spell. I walk uphill, sometimes on the path, sometimes not. The words swirl and echo in my head, forming eddies of sound and thought.
I am. I am. I am here.
I am here now.

May 19, 2008

This event took place at
High Meadows School in Roswell, Georgia
1997