Her insides were a weak ruby red.
Today I burrowed into the courage sector of my brain in order to hike alone.
I usually avoid this, simply because I tend to be apprehensive of venturing very far, or leaving the suffocating square that is my shared dorm room, or showing the world that I truly move with my own feet and no other's unless on lucky or outgoing occasion.
But alas, I moved. I swung my water bottle by the ribbon handle I crafted for it, letting it drape beyond my knees and sway like a second-hand for my anxiety, ticking and beating. My face maintained its usual gloss of indifference. I do this, I've noticed. I can practically feel the chill of that anti-social shield covering me like a dreadful wet drape. I close off; I shut down. However, there's something constantly rattling within me that doesn't want this to be happening. As a friend commented last evening, as he has many a time before, "Camille, you second-guess yourself way too much. You need to let go." And, hey, I'd love to. How, though, is the pulsing obstacle.
So I stretched and breathed and psyched myself up for one of our most difficult trails. I did this by plopping myself down at the edge of the trail's beginning, absorbing late afternoon humidity, extending my gaze out over the bare soccer field until the slight shivering of the grass--the movement of countless insects--drew my attention. One or two tiny creatures wiggled their way onto the pale expanse of my right calf, and I remember warmly realizing that I'm not as quick to flick them away or jump with that icky-gross-get-it-away excitement as I once would.
Gardening, weeding, digging, and the lot has left an imprint. One deeper than the bravery to face worms and slugs, really, but that's not something I feel like working through right now.
When I hike, I'm always disappointed by my ability to slow my pace and look around me. In a group, especially, this is a pretty big problem; I'll turn my eyes on only what's beneath my feet as not to stumble all over the place. Eventually I feel as though I've been robbed of absorbing what was actually there. The root of it, the important stuff: sunlight shadows, echoes of wind, a decaying log.
This was an 'athletic' hike, but I still attempted to make room for eye-flickers. Funny, though, that I ended up circling stress that could be pinpointed as being scared of... bears. Yes indeed. There have been multiple spottings on campus and, having heard that if I were to see one, this is where they'd pop up, I was pretty nervous. Thusly, every dark stump in a patch of shade became a looming enemy ready to rip my head off.
At one point, I ran. I think I'd forgotten what it was like to run. It was elating, much easier than I'd expected, avoiding sticks and smiling ever so slightly.
I came to the first flat stretch and resumed a walk.
Then I entered one of our more frequented fields (understandable, of course, for it's beautifulbeautifulbeautiful) to find it deserted, save for two tents set up far from one another. I began my trek downhill, stomping through tall patches of grasses that glared with sunlight, twitched with disturbed bugs of unknowable origin. There were grasshoppers, however. Many, many grasshoppers. They leaped and fled from my rising and lowering legs. It was as if they were whooping, yelling, gleefully leading me in a royal procession. I goofily imagined it, putting phrases such as "Make way for the benevolent Giant Queen!" to the beat of their exodus.
I ducked underneath electric fences.
I strolled almost reluctantly to a swing that someone had (somewhat) long ago constructed underneath an oak tree. I swung shyly, then musingly, then somberly, then freely, then playfully, then to transcend. I pointed my toes to the clouds, let my neck hang backward, and grinned, my muscles straining, once I saw the sky.
A car's engine whinnied crystal-sharp from the road, and I attempted to imagine a unicorn unblurring its shape in the distance, diamond-white.
I thought once that, had the Earth begun to shatter at my back, I would not have minded dying with the field itself. (Theatrical enough, but I am not prone to such comfort.)
I left, breaking it, and picked a strawberry from the organic foodscape as a reward for myself, receiving a begrudging glance from a fellow student sitting on the dorm porch (next to the garden itself).
Its insides were a weak ruby red.
I usually avoid this, simply because I tend to be apprehensive of venturing very far, or leaving the suffocating square that is my shared dorm room, or showing the world that I truly move with my own feet and no other's unless on lucky or outgoing occasion.
But alas, I moved. I swung my water bottle by the ribbon handle I crafted for it, letting it drape beyond my knees and sway like a second-hand for my anxiety, ticking and beating. My face maintained its usual gloss of indifference. I do this, I've noticed. I can practically feel the chill of that anti-social shield covering me like a dreadful wet drape. I close off; I shut down. However, there's something constantly rattling within me that doesn't want this to be happening. As a friend commented last evening, as he has many a time before, "Camille, you second-guess yourself way too much. You need to let go." And, hey, I'd love to. How, though, is the pulsing obstacle.
So I stretched and breathed and psyched myself up for one of our most difficult trails. I did this by plopping myself down at the edge of the trail's beginning, absorbing late afternoon humidity, extending my gaze out over the bare soccer field until the slight shivering of the grass--the movement of countless insects--drew my attention. One or two tiny creatures wiggled their way onto the pale expanse of my right calf, and I remember warmly realizing that I'm not as quick to flick them away or jump with that icky-gross-get-it-away excitement as I once would.
Gardening, weeding, digging, and the lot has left an imprint. One deeper than the bravery to face worms and slugs, really, but that's not something I feel like working through right now.
When I hike, I'm always disappointed by my ability to slow my pace and look around me. In a group, especially, this is a pretty big problem; I'll turn my eyes on only what's beneath my feet as not to stumble all over the place. Eventually I feel as though I've been robbed of absorbing what was actually there. The root of it, the important stuff: sunlight shadows, echoes of wind, a decaying log.
This was an 'athletic' hike, but I still attempted to make room for eye-flickers. Funny, though, that I ended up circling stress that could be pinpointed as being scared of... bears. Yes indeed. There have been multiple spottings on campus and, having heard that if I were to see one, this is where they'd pop up, I was pretty nervous. Thusly, every dark stump in a patch of shade became a looming enemy ready to rip my head off.
At one point, I ran. I think I'd forgotten what it was like to run. It was elating, much easier than I'd expected, avoiding sticks and smiling ever so slightly.
I came to the first flat stretch and resumed a walk.
Then I entered one of our more frequented fields (understandable, of course, for it's beautifulbeautifulbeautiful) to find it deserted, save for two tents set up far from one another. I began my trek downhill, stomping through tall patches of grasses that glared with sunlight, twitched with disturbed bugs of unknowable origin. There were grasshoppers, however. Many, many grasshoppers. They leaped and fled from my rising and lowering legs. It was as if they were whooping, yelling, gleefully leading me in a royal procession. I goofily imagined it, putting phrases such as "Make way for the benevolent Giant Queen!" to the beat of their exodus.
I ducked underneath electric fences.
I strolled almost reluctantly to a swing that someone had (somewhat) long ago constructed underneath an oak tree. I swung shyly, then musingly, then somberly, then freely, then playfully, then to transcend. I pointed my toes to the clouds, let my neck hang backward, and grinned, my muscles straining, once I saw the sky.
A car's engine whinnied crystal-sharp from the road, and I attempted to imagine a unicorn unblurring its shape in the distance, diamond-white.
I thought once that, had the Earth begun to shatter at my back, I would not have minded dying with the field itself. (Theatrical enough, but I am not prone to such comfort.)
I left, breaking it, and picked a strawberry from the organic foodscape as a reward for myself, receiving a begrudging glance from a fellow student sitting on the dorm porch (next to the garden itself).
Its insides were a weak ruby red.