Write It Out: Instruction Video
“Sitting in the bow, Kya watched low fingers of fog reaching for their boat. At first, torn-off cloud bits streamed over their heads, then mist engulfed them in grayness, and there was only the tick, tick, tick of the quiet motor. Minutes later, small splotches of unexpected color formed as the weathered shape of the marina gas station eased into view, as though it and not them was moving. Pa motored in, bumping gently against the dock. She’d only been here once. The owner, an old black man, sprang up from his chair to help them — the reason everybody called him Jumpin’. His white sideburns and salt-and-pepper hair framed a wide, generous face and owl eyes. Tall and spare, he seemed to never stop talking, smiling, or throwing his head back, lips shut tight in his own brand of laugh. He didn’t dress in overalls, like most workmen around, but wore an ironed blue button-down shirt, too-short dark trousers, and work boots. Not often, but now and then on the meanest summer days, a tattered straw hat.
His Gas and Bait teetered on its own wobbly wharf. A cable ran from the closest oak on shore, about forty feet across the backwater, and held on with all its might. Jumpin’s great-grandpa had built the wharf and shack of cypress planks way back before anybody could remember, sometime before the Civil War.
Three generations had nailed bright metal signs — Nehi Grape Soda, Royal Crown Cola, Camel Filters, and twenty years’ worth of North Carolina automobile license plates — all over the shack, and that burst of color could be seen from the sea through all but the thickest fog.”
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I am fortunate enough to have family and friends who, for the most part, I feel in alignment with. Being with them is not work – there’s an ease and simplicity that happens when we’re together. We have each other’s backs. When one of us is down, others step forward and lead the way for awhile, glancing back now and then to ensure all is well.
We allow for differences, and expect them. We sometimes even delight in them. Above all, we accept them.
When I feel out of alignment, often it’s something within myself that I need to resolve. That’s when I count on returning to nature to show me what I’m missing about myself, and help guide me back to alignment. Alignment within myself, first.
Thoughts? Feel free to share them here.
