Wednesday Evening, July 16—Cardiff By the Sea
Late this afternoon I ventured into a ‘protected wetlands’ area, as its woods and tangled dappled vines, shone gold and beckoned. The once upon a time path was overgrown and wildly beautiful, and the creature sounds mixed with wind rustling fed my heart with blissful wonder, and then….whoosh….something else.
Growing up in South India, my younger sister and I lived in a boarding school in the mountains for many months out of every year, HOWEVER every spring, for one month parents would come up from the plains, and we all got to leave boarding and live in cottages scattered through the hills. Ours was located over a wall, across a huge field, through a cow pasture, around the lake, across a cow trap and up though jungly woods. We two young tikes walked this every day, and as I was the older sister, and my sister was my shadow, I needed to always know where I was going and act as if all was well.
There were two spots on the trek that inspired emergency intervention, meaning I needed to fake my bravery. The cow pasture was actually cows AND bulls and the bulls paid attention to interlopers…hence ‘Whenever I feel afraid’ from “The King and I” made its way into my voice box and out into the pasture, all the way to the cow trap. Then, still humming and trying to walk slowly and calmly up through the jungly forest there was always a moment when a giant insect or slithering something crossed our paths and we went from dignity to speed scampering…and all music stopped.
Today…out of the blue…SIXTY PLUS YEARS LATER…a twig broke, a small snake slid out from under a bush and every cell in my body time travelled back. I scampered away like the dickens with my song trying to find its way out. . I wasn’t even consciously scared, but my body thought otherwise.
Oh to be human.