Take a hike
My dear friend, Susie, in Boston recommended WILD by Cheryl Strayed, which I read in a fever since I’m actually trying to finish up two books about race and kids, and another book published by Lavender Ink, and I couldn’t put it down. I changed my meds a few days ago and that has me a little feverish, a little antsy, a little out of my mind. Several times I closed the book and was envious, envious that this woman had the guts to go take a hike and prove her grit and then write a best selling novel. That’s my life, I kept saying to myself, I was going to write a novel.
And instead I got lost on the trail. I got caught up in California where life became more about making dollars than making sense, and my novel, my book, got shoved under a burning bush somewhere. Even now I sometimes set off for an urban hike and I find myself agoraphobic, unable to leave the confines of this bayou, drawn to it like life’s blood.
What about my torturous hikes along the way of my journey? What about the walk of lame that led me back to New Orleans to be near my mother and then watching her decline and die? Or the walk of shame back in 2005?
I’ve been scrambling over boulders, dodging feral spirits, wailing for my demon lover and messing up and picking myself up for a good long time. But what use is it to put that all in a book now, when I feel like every day I am still unwritten?