Five Minutes on the prompt “Exhale”

I am staring at the pines today. The tall lodgepoll, though the trees are not old here. Nothing more then 30 years I would guess. They reach straight up, like skinny boys at age 15 not yet filled up in the shoulders, like deflated balloons. The wind blows here at the top of Swithback Mountain and the trees lean to one side or the other, spun, drunk on mountain air.

I’ve been sitting on the porch each morning, returning each evening. I know the pattern of the squirrels, the birds, what time my dog calls it a night and retreats to the dog house. I’ve been writing too and feel my words rushing back like a rising river ready to breach the banks.

I’ve shut down social media on my phone…removed all of it (save instagram of course…I’ve got a…thing).

I can feel my lungs expanding too. Breath reaching all the way to the bottom lobes, exhaling in triumph the old must air. I’ve been holding onto it, I did not even know, but I think the muse just replaced the must.

It is the sound of wind in trees, Frazey Ford, the tick of irrigation, the fountain. It feels like a slower pace, lazy mornings, an absense of obligation. It is, each morning, asking what is new? What is new? How can I partake.  It is the ever changing response, the way I learn to listen, breathe.

(oh Hiiiiiiii Lisa-Jo and Co…been missing you all!)