Human, exactly human

I walked the dog this afternoon, on Mount Doug: parked at the bottom, walked the paths up, saw the lateness of the hour, ran the paths down. And for that hour I was wildly human, so much that my heart hurt.

Near the mountain-top the wind came up, and the maples drenched me with reserved rain that had fallen earlier in the day. At the bottom, Oregon grapes were ripe in sunny patches, oozing deliciously tart juices, not far from wild blackberries that no one but me ever seems to notice, much less eat. At the summit the grapes are still two weeks from ripeness, and the blackberries have for some reason failed to fruit. In the cedar grove I ate a whole handful of huckleberries, plucking them as I stood high on a mossy stump cut before the fire that went through the park many, many years ago, and at the parking lot the last slightly dried thimble-berries.

I've been reading Derrick Jensen, scaring myself with nonfiction dreams of apocalypse, but you know, on Mount Doug today I felt like I could do without civilization after all. I had to rush down the mountain to pick up a pizza, mind you, but oh, oh, those huckleberries....

Comments

I like this. You are a good writer. I find the beautiful moments in life are coming more and more frequently to me; somehow just being open to appreciating the moment brings more moments to appreciate into one's world.

Nice!
richard said…
Thanks, Zoot: gonna work on a longer version, I think....

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