WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #3
WEST
I hike up the gravel driveway, cross the street to the asphalt sidewalk and head west. The sun has been up for half an hour; the air is dry and cold. The distant hills look crumbly. When will it snow?
A record clicks into place in my head as I walk, needle touching vinyl. Scratchy waves of sound preface a fantasized dialogue between my as-yet-unknown literary agent and me; her encouragement, my demure replies. I sent off my manuscript of DIZZY SUSHI this week to a recommended agent in New York, and the fantasy wants to flower. I am tired of listening to this record, but habit is strong. It isn’t until I turn north that the needle bumps clear off the grooves.
NORTH
Now I am walking on sandy dirt and gravel with broken bits of red scoria pumice. The sound under my white gym shoes floods my ears and brain: scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. It overpowers the running soundtrack of my own voice and cleanses me of words. The sound of walking and the feel of the earth underfoot bounce me back into my body. A cold wind touches my cheek and I know it could turn nasty by noon. Tiny grey birds flit from rooftop to fence edge to juniper branch. A woman walks out of her back door and pours steaming water over a frozen birdbath.
EAST
Turning east, the near hills are silhouetted by the morning sun—arranged like chocolate drops spread over a kitchen table.
Every time I take this loop around my neighborhood, I make the analogy between zazen and writing. To me, they are exactly opposite practices that accomplish the same goal. One is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and letting them go until the mind is empty. The other is sitting, meditating, watching thoughts race across the mind and writing them down until the mind is empty. Today, I add walking as another practice that is somewhere in between sitting and writing.
SOUTH
Scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. . . scrunch. I angle my steps to the edge of the washboard where the gravel is more plentiful, the sound enhanced. I am approaching the asphalt again, but before I make the turn, my mind breaks into a tease. Turn around, it says.
It is so amazing to me that for fifteen years I couldn’t listen to this voice inside my head. I couldn’t turn around; I couldn’t take fifteen more minutes before I raced down the asphalt street to work. But today I can. For today, sitting, writing and walking are my activities. I feel almost sinful, and this is such a welcome feeling—daring, bad, intoxicating—just to turn around and walk for another fifteen minutes.
And as the sound of scrunching fills my ears again, I pass my own footprints in the dust, the wind picking up the edges of them and polishing them down into nothing.
