Uprooted Roots
I was the kind of kid who climbed trees. Back before I learned how to be afraid of things, I would stuff a notebook and pen into my back pocket, climb with bare feet, and write poems from the safety and seclusion of the highest seat in our sycamore tree. I liked being able to see farther, the breeze making the branch creak and bend underneath me. I also wrote down by the creek, sitting on large boulders my siblings and I called the King and Queen rocks, because they were thrones to us. I would see the water bend and bubble, keeping watch over my small kingdom, scooping up baby crawdads for fun until they pinched me. Whatever I wrote in those journals was garbage, but I remember thinking I was an artist, and that's what matters. All kids should feel like artists. And the earth made me feel that way. To this day nothing inspires me like the wild of an undeveloped landscape, and spending enough time in one makes me feel like a created and natural thing, mortal and real and ear...