WALK Back

We walk together on November 3rd, his birthday—and in so many ways, mine.

I don't know much about the day he arrived, but imagine he came into the world a complete and centrifugal force, somewhere around dawn. So, that’s when our walk begins.

Today, his hair is wild needles of blue-green spruce, and his embrace is the sun’s arm slung around my shoulders. He sighs, a steaming breath from leaves sunning on the black top. And I sigh too, wondering if any day in history has had such a beautiful beginning.

The smiling dogs smile, basking perhaps, as I am, in his magic.

It’s funny how the people who go, never do. They travel miles and ages on the foggy morning breeze to meet us. They dawdle, asking us to pause at the scent of eucalyptus. I can hear him.

“What’s that smell, Lib?”

Reliably, he knows the answers, but asks anyway.

I’ve been walking with my father my entire life and long after his ended.

I love him. I love him so much that he’s the tender earth, the laughter of particular birds, the moon and sun’s needless squabble over the sky in the last true minutes of morning. I love him so much that I started walking, by chance or design, on his birthday.

One long forest shadow, and I return to fourteen, standing 5’12’’and wearing the platform shoes he bought me, which were white and covered with happy giraffes. “Go on. Be your big self,” he says.

A stag in the clearing, and Big Bill has entered the room, his presence an adventure of its own.

The fisherman in the rain, “Do the things that scare you, but wear good socks.”

My portrait in the oils of a parking lot puddle, “Embrace every wrinkle. Celebrate every birthday. Eat the cake.”

I always do.

One day, someone will find me in a field of golden poppies or smooth rock on the beach. I could be a diving bird or a moonbeam. Someone will walk with me, too. We will walk back and on and through together, always.

Prompts

• How can I make space for my own rewilding?

• What do I know to be uncultivated and beautiful?

• If I could walk with anyone, any time, any place in history, where would I be, and with whom?