Wild Writing 10/100

Your job is the tending

The showing up each day

and walking out to the stables and taking a look around

Mucking out the ground, refilling the water trough,

Putting the hay cubes in the feeder

And petting the horses’ silky necks

Your job is showing up in work pants and boots,

To visit each plant, gloves on,

Pulling off the dead leaves

And filling the watering can, picking out the weeds

Talking quietly and gently,

The horses, your body

The plants, your heart

It is your job to feed and water yourself, 

But you’re not just a complicated house plant 

or a really good rescue dog

Your needs go deeper.

The need beneath the need beneath the need.

Not just for a hot shower, but a quiet and holy space

to let down your guard down,

completely

Not just a run at the track,

But a set time where

your body and all of its movements

are solely for you

Not just for an orgasm, but for the safety

of feeling

pleasure at the hands of someone else

Not just for sleep,

But for full permission to stop 

and rest

and be

So much more quiet required than we think

So much more comfort and softness and communication and honesty

and crying than we think we deserve

So much 

tenderness,

creativity,

resilience

in all of us.

That need beneath the need.

That one fussy plant that requires humidity and south facing light.

That one animal that won’t curl up and rest until you

sit

still.

The weird ways we try to tame ourselves

When really what we need

is to be released,

set free,

back into the wild.

(From Tend notebook, page 40 “Your job is the tending…” by Mara Glatzel. I am creating a timed piece of wild writing every day for 100 days for this year’s 100 Day Project.)