10/5/08

Chasing a Breeze

A series of randomness from my journal today.

i opened the door and heard something familiar on the breeze call to me, some kind of home or memory so i left our apartment and roommates making pancakes.

i walked through autumn scattered around my feet. Each step forward a crunch and crackle or the scattering dance of leaf on pavement that is fallspeak. And in the muted light of a sunny day and approaching storm, the stark brightness of oranges and yellows fall slowly against the dark grey-blue clouds. i felt more than heard again the voice of my eyes in the sadness of a furrowed brow.

Long trails of willow waving in the breeze, the faint hint of October and forgotten orange yesterdays by the ocean drifted to me from trees unlike the ones i knew. And then i noticed a lone tree, shining an almost silver in the autumn light, starting to shiver and lose its leaves. Silver feathers floating slowly. The lone tree isn't alone and i walk through row on row of silver, through light and dark leaves i wonder about where my youth has gone, where the innocence where i once slept careless and carefree had blown away to. When did it become crushed under foot like so many leaves painting the ground in splashes of orange and red?

i crush a cedar leaf in my hand and smell a memory evoked of home. By the hospital in the distance the American flag waves proud in the wind, but its not my flag. Where is my home? It's not this place where i cannot smell the water in the leaves spilling all around.

No, it's me-- this soul so hungry for some kind of of emotion in the breeze that i must wander to an open park and sit under smaller versions of giant cedars from home. i wonder then why, why my heart feels open and naked even though no one has stripped the armor away from it, or taken the time to watch it cry again like a little homesick youth.

As i watch my heart unfold i realise why the wind in the trees seemed to call my name. These autumn days of coldness was when i first awakened, saw the world and began to feel a something in my heart that no word can describe. These are days that feel like home, the real home inside, more so than any summer or spring. These are days after fencing class. Back when maple leaves that were wider than the span of two hands carpeted everywhere.

This was where i, a little free, began to wander the streets of Lynn Valley--golden wet in yellow sunset. Wander around cedar trees of Lynn Valley, lost in the hand numbing cold and light filtering through a Sunday afternoon. Those trees though, are not these October trees after conference, where i alone on windy Rexburg afternoon, step between the shadows of spirituality and shades of myself.

-Ivor

6 comments:

S.Morgan said...

Nice.
"between...spirituality and shades of myself"? Will those two sides move into one "whole" soon? I try to take the good from the past with me. Maybe it means relaxing into your changes. Or maybe it means we will always be homesick until we return to our Father.And only working hard to keep the His Spirit with us will dull the ache?

Brad & Emily said...

Ivor, this is beautiful. I opened the WC blog during the last few minutes of my prep today, and I didn't have time to read this, but I couldn't close the window, either. So even though I needed to be reading and correcting my students' writing, yours is better, and I chose yours.

Shannon said...

Thank you, Ivor. You've given me a taste of fall, and a taste of multiple homes where I've had similar autumn wanderings/wonderings. It's beginning to feel a bit chilly here, but in a city in the middle of China it's definitely a different smell and a different feel than any autumn I've ever before experienced. Thank you for letting me share a bit of the familiar one, right down to the wistful, haunting atmosphere which fall has always possessed for me.

S.Morgan said...

Shannon. Any chance you're coming back to Rexburg? If so, you're hired back immediately.

Shannon said...

I'm coming back for Winter semester, and I can't wait to be back at the WC! It will be so nice to work with people one-on-one instead of in a group of seventy... Not always easier, perhaps, but definitely something I enjoy more.

S.Morgan said...

OK, I'm going to kill you, Shan. Here I am scouring the campus for a few promising writers (as in we've been hiring freshman to coach 400 level classes), and you could have told me sooner, so I wouldn't be pulling my hair out with stress. I'm SO glad to hear you'll be working for us. Whew.