in the shape of a woman who seeing the sun decided to no longer dim the life bursting in lungs
Eyes open see braided grass swaying in plains
forests turn into locks of love,
bleached the light brown bark of my grandmother’s youth.
I once wrote this and forgot that I was the author until, after googling it, I could find nobody else who claimed it.
“If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.”
Victoria Erickson
It would be many years before I began to understand that all of life is practice: writing, driving, hiking, brushing teeth, packing lunch boxes, making beds, cooking dinner, making love, walking dogs, even sleeping. We are always practicing.
