Starting Over...(again)

I came back to myself recently. It's a long story. Perhaps it will take shape, like this blog, over time.

I kept thinking of what to write and what to say when I started re-writing early this morning, but I kept getting distracted. The girls kept calling for me from the breakfast table, and I realized I couldn't concentrate. So we went for a walk and we went to the playground; we just enjoyed our time together.

It's like life. You have intentions of starting something or doing something, but life keeps throwing distractions at you. You have to take the time to adapt and breathe, and make some allowances for what you want to make happen, but you still need to make those things happen...especially if they make you happy.

Every morning I make the bed and straighten up the disordered pile of sheets from the night before. Like my bed sheets, sometimes life can get chaotic. Sometimes in that disorder we lose sight of the things in our lives that we forgot we treasured. One of those things, for me, was writing (amongst others).

So here I am, starting over...(again). I got sidetracked by the distractions of life and forgot to make allowances for lots of things, and writing got pushed to the side. I don't want it to happen (again).


The Forest

I walked in the forest when I was young, 
I smelled the earth and the trees,
I felt the breeze on my face,
I tasted the water in the stream.

I thought it was beautiful and pure,
I saw it for what it was,
It showed me new things,
I learned from it.

I grew a bit older and stayed inside,
I stopped walking,
I stopped thinking,
I forgot.

One day I remembered the forest,
I went back to walk her paths,
But things had changed and were overgrown,
The forest had been forgotten for too long.

I wanted to return,
I wanted to remember what I couldn't recall,
I wanted it to be like it was,
I was sad.

And then the fire started,
Slowly and then it spread,
The forest was engulfed,
And the fire raged on.

When it was over the forest was quiet, 
The earth was singed and the trees still smoked,
I tasted the ash in my mouth,
I could feel the bile rise in my throat.

I left the forest and cried,
Everything was ruined,
Everything was gone,
Everything was changed.

Until I realized that the forest had been choking,
The underbrush was too thick,
Ripe for a fire,
Ready for a new start.

Because until the forest burns, it can't truly grow.

© Erica Day McCarthy, San Antonio, Texas - 8.22.18



(Forest in Estonia from -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_Estonia#/media/File:Tarvasj%C3%B5gi.jpg)