walking in this world

Just back from my AD. I set out not sure where exactly I would go but knowing I wanted to walk outside a little. I headed in the general direction of a state park I can see as I pass on the highway but which I've never visited. I guess it's not on the road I thought it was, though, as it never materialized in my travels.

As I drove, I listened first to a mix my brother made me this winter which I love, and then to one of R's rock records. I have heard this thing many times. I helped with the ordering of the tracks, come to think of it, and have been listening to it since before it came out nearly five years ago; yet it continues to deepen for me. My friend's songwriting is truly creative. Some of his stuff sounds like nothing else I've ever heard anywhere, but it's unusual without sounding like it's trying to be something. The expression is just clear, natural and unpretentious. And his singing comes straight out of the depths of him. I had forgotten that I'd put this record into my CD changer a month or so ago; it was a real treat to have it with me on my date.

I ended up taking the scenic route to a town I lived in for eight years and remembering some easy walking trails I could make use of. It was chilly outside today, but clear with lots of pale sunshine. I love this time of year. The level of beauty in nature in March is of an intensity I can handle in larger doses. Everything - including the sun - is muted, dun colored, watered down by winter and still slightly frozen. The smell of the dirt waking up under my feet is yet restrained from its future vigor. In April that aroma will vine around my ankles, tripping me up, binding my limbs and winding straight into my poor defenseless heart. In April the buds will burst and I will feel weak with joy and sadness, sensually stimulated to the point of pain. Today there is only a suggestion in the air of the coming ferocity, and I can taunt it with reckless abandon, walking freely in the pastel afternoon.

I walked, I breathed. The last time I was on this trail I had been with a hospice patient, as a first-time volunteer. For about seven months, I showed up for her once a week for two hours and I helped however I could. The first time I visited her, that meant straightening and rearranging her literally overflowing closets to her unreasonably exacting and completely futile specifications as she called out directions from her perch on the edge of the bed. I believe my actual assignment that day had been simply to remain good-natured. I passed. My crazy-making patient adored me from that day till her last. On the occassion of our mountain walk, though she was pale and thin as a reed, her hairless head wrapped in a big purple scarf and her breastless torso looking already like that of a drowned child, I struggled panting and sweating to keep up with her as she strode triumphantly on, defying death on a summer afternoon. I thought of her often today. I thanked her for her lessons in living.

When I returned to my car I wasn't sure what to do next. I needed a bathroom. Should I stop somewhere for tea? My car was headed away from town on a road I couldn't do a U-turn on (huh!), so I drove on a bit. A moment later, I realized I was practically in the neighborhood of a positively magical used book store I'd been meaning to visit. I'd even written about it as a potential artist date early in the program but hadn't made it down there. Welly well.

The drive and the music continued to enchant me on my way. I love love LOVE New England. I stayed off of all the big roads and just drank it in. The drive alone would probably have been a great AD. But then there I was, in the parking lot of Used Book Nirvana (not its real name). I paused to take in the rushing river - glorious - and in I went. It smelled good. Some perfect new-to-me music was playing at the perfect volume on a great-sounding system. The sun poured in through the tall windows. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I browsed. I found a collection of Irish ghost stories, a small sycnronicity since it's St. Patrick's Day and all, and remembered how much I LOVE ghost stories. Resolving to add them to my "touchstones" list (from the tasks this week), I settled into an easy chair in a sunny window overlooking the river, and gobbled one up on the spot. It was only maybe ten pages long, but just packed with intriguing characters, puritan guilt, murder, peat bogs, and the tragic apparition of a dead bastard infant. I loved it.

I also found a copy of Julia Cameron's Walking in This World. I wanted to not care. I wanted to eschew the attraction of further structure. But I picked it up (hmm, perfect condition, probably unread), and I turned it over (hmm... a new photo of the author... I sure did hate the one on the back of The Artist's Way... in this one she looks kind of cool), and I cracked it open. (What's this?! I like her writing in the introduction, and I love what she's saying about walking and talking. Am I misting up?)

Then I flipped back a couple of pages and read the following. It must be by her. (It had better be, since there's no other credit. )

Jerusalem Is Walking In This World

This is a great happiness.
The air is silk.
There is milk in the looks
that come from strangers.
I could not be happier
if I were bread and you could eat me.
Joy is dangerous.
It fills me with secrets.
"Yes" hisses in my veins.
The pains I take to hide myself
Are sheer as glass.
Surely this will pass,
The wind like kisses,
The music in the soup,
The group of trees
Laughing as I say their names.

It is all hosannah.
It is all prayer.
Jerusalem is walking in the world.
Jerusalem is walking in the world.

I love this. This sounds like me. Even the reference to Jerusalem - a gleaming gem of a metaphor that frequently gets lost through literal readings - goes straight to my core. I bought the book. And I gather Ms. Cameron will be comandeering another twelve weeks of my life sometime very soon. This comforts me as we head into week 11 of 12. I guess more structure is just another way to love myself at present. I'll go with it. I'm learning.