Autumn

Like this little, crooked, golden tree, Carrie inspired me today. It's been years since I've seen her, but on Thursday, I noticed a link to her blog and I spent a few hours flipping through the pages. It was then that I remembered my blog, a poor, lost space tucked away into the past.

I filled that little blog with a single entry in 2009, then, following my return from Italy, I abandoned her. My Italian rendezvous inspired a book, and I committed myself to a manuscript. I spent all of my free time assembling thoughts inside the confines of a Word document.

I wish I would have kept my blog alive throughout that time. My brain was buzzing and it would have been nice to preserve tangent thoughts that didn't quite fit into the manuscript. Unfortunately, I struggled to accept the raw nature of blogging. I wanted to fine tune my ideas, and I couldn't find the time to focus on both my book and my blog.

Today, Carrie helped me to view the process differently. She told me to think of this space as a journal. My manuscript can still be my manuscript, and I can still wrestle with it inside the privacy of my own mind. My blog, however, is where I can play, explore--grow. It is where I can grant people access to my imagination, allowing them to play inside my world too.

I left the table knee-deep in thought. Wandering to Gooddale Park, I took refuge on a bench, pondered my plans and graded a few papers. Shortly into the venture, I looked up and saw my little golden tree.

She stood there boldly, a speck beneath two lush monstrosities. Bending upwards, basking in a beauty that could only precede death, she boasted an awareness of an answer, a necessary ticket to the place that comes next. A few tomorrows from now, my little tree will invariably lose her luster. Today though, she glowed. She glowed knowing that when she's bare and cold and small--a tiny collection of bark cowering beneath and beside far grander trunks and branches--she will be churning out something wonderful inside. Something green. Something complicated and simple. Something absolutely brilliant. This knowledge will give her the strength to stand, to push against the sharp, bitter wind and dream big dreams about spring.

And so, just like that little tree will shed her leaves in a few days time, I'm shedding my leaves today. I'm getting rid of the me who was so bogged down by my desire to compose tidy text that I failed to return to a forum intended for frequent visits. I'm shedding the fearful blogger--the perfectionist who struggles to accept a page with typos and occasional disorganization, the part of me chanting "I'm-too-busy-to-write," the part of me declaring, "I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing."

She's gone, leaving me somewhat naked as I dismantle my insecurities one by one. As my bare branches invariably shiver, I will keep pushing against the wind. I will keep braving the cold. And I will keep churning the green inside, dreaming that I, too, will get a spring.