A Story to Tell

Do the trees around here tell stories? I'm not sure. I keep waiting for them to speak to me, but, thus far, I have only heard echoes rattling around inside my own head. I often wonder if I should hurl my own stories at the trees in an attempt to start a dialogue, but I refrain from doing so. It seems to me that the stories have to emerge, unhurried.

I once read a book about horses by a woman who had named her horse Tabula Rasa. Tabula Rasa is Latin for "clean slate." I have tried that archetype out on myself numerous times since I arrived in North Carolina, testing it to see if it fits. It doesn't . . . not really. I have brought with me countless stories, seedlings of hopes and dreams, shadows, and defenses.

When I was younger, I fled from wherever I was, and arrived wherever I was going to, with mythic expectations. There were no experiences to be had, because the ones in my head were superimposed over every layer of reality presented to me. There was no ocean but the Ocean I lived in in my dreams. I never encountered anything on its own terms, but only suffered when the Real clashed with the Dream.

In the end, exhaustion wins the day. There are no more pots to be stirred, and I have not the will to believe I have escaped myself this time. The beauty of it is that I am not at all sorry that I cannot escape myself. Not anymore.

There is only surrender. The stories will tell themselves.