Today.

Today I am crying so many times.

First, out of guilt.
Once from a talk I watched by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Twice from this book I am reading.
And once because I realized a very big question I have.

What you're imagining is not right, I don't cry that way.
Each time lasts about 4 seconds, my eyes get sad and watery,
but nothing falls down my face.
I am almost overcome, but then, it's over.

Why?
Why so often?
And why so short?
How am I so immediately back into normal?

I am getting a little sick today. Steph let me take some of her herbs. This was strange. Little plastic medical capsules-- full of something that once grew straight from the earth. Is this what it means to be "organic"?
Is this the best I can do?

My Dad used to pick blackberries in the woods. He'd bring them back on his horse, and his grandma would make pie. Sometimes he would find arrowheads from the indians-- the land was that untouched.
One time him and his cousins made such a mess in the creek that the added dirt acted as a damn and re-routed the whole thing. Someone down the line who depended on the water had to follow its outline upwards, trying to find the reason why his creek had flowed elsewhere.

I know what a blackberry looks like, but have never picked one myself.
I remember how to find poison ivy, from when I used to play in the woods.
But I never play in the woods anymore. I don't know the way.
I wish I could find the herbs and crush them myself.
I wish I did not depend on someone else to package them for me
into eerily labeled bottles: All Natural!
The plastic fixation of the new-age hippie.
All I need now is a hip new shirt with the word GREEN on it,
maybe one of those reusable grocery bags that feel like airplane pillowcases.

I wrote a story about my Dad and a horse.
I read it in front of my class with his picture on the overhead projector.
I want to tell you I'll post it. No promises.
I have written many stories about growing up with my Dad.
Though I now find I am more interested in when he grew up, without me.