I meant to write about me...

Well, this is going to be a little stilted. I'm not very comfortable in a straight-forward, "just sit down and say it" style of writing. It requires too much concrete thinking. It's funny, people don't seem to understand how unusual it is to find a really captivating writer who can "just say things" without posturing or ornamentation. And it's unusual that such a writer could be said to write beautifully. I know a lady who's voice is so natural in her writing that it moves beyond honesty. Almost anyone can tell you how they feel in some manner or another, just like almost anybody is capable of inviting you into their house should they care to. Any lady with a living room can lead you into it, point to the wall, and say "consequently, it's blue." It's far more remarkable if that same lady is grounded, so wholly without pretense, and so inviting, so skilled as a host that you get to thinking beyond the wall, about how the house is set into the earth. And then, perhaps, you think how, by standing in this house, which is rooted in the earth, you are being born up in a little vessel, turning round the earth's axis. And maybe, just because your host is who she is and because she invited you into her house the way she did, you wonder who you are in the scope of creation, this turning and turning. And it is positively stunning, then, to discover how profound her thoughts are on the matter. That is, if your host is anything like the writer I know. She's not just welcoming, nor is she merely honest, something in her is of the earth in a way that allows you to let go of your own pretense and posturing for a moment.

I should think of a code name I can use to reference her in the future. I considered "Mother Goose," but I've known very few people who, given the choice, would embrace water-fowl related comparisons to their character. Also, I'm not confident in the history of Mother-Goose rhymes, nor am I quite sure I remember where the name came from. I'd never be at ease using it unless I knew it's full range of connotations. I could do what this lady does in her blog, referring to most people using a single capitalized letter... but my writing style IS a little pretentious, and besides, I like making up names for things. While I'm thinking more about it, let me offer a some background on who she is in my life (so she knows for sure who I'm talking about).

This lady, who we'll experiment with calling "lady earth" for a paragraph or two, and her husband are two of my parent's closest friends. I've known them since I was ten. Though I don't see her kids regularly anymore, I think of them each as being somewhere between a cousin and a sibling. Lady Earth was the first person, outside my parents, I remember talking to about my writing. I was in fifth or sixth grade and she read a story of mine. She said something about how I had an unusually distinctive (developed?) voice for my age. But this paragraph is intended to be about her. I recall having an awareness even at ten and eleven that Lady-Earth's roots ran deep. When she spoke, even when she was being silly, her thoughts seemed to come up from a different kind of place than other people's thoughts... like she had reached so far and so long to find them, she broke through that final layer of frenetic energy present in other adults I knew; that she had caught hold of something that existed beneath it. This isn't to say the adults in my life weren't capable of their own profound insights. Many were plenty capable and then some, but with lady-earth, it was in how she got through a sentence, and the moment before and the moment after. It seemed like she was drawing the thought up from someplace older, and more still somehow, than anyone else.

For the record, no, I didn't use words like "frenetic" back then. Still, her spirit really did seem more quiet or, more settled, than most other people's (in this statement, I am, of course, excluding people who I found to be dull as a child. Stillness is, at best, unremarkable in a wet-blanket. It was special in lady-earth). This isn't just my opinion, by the way. Mom and dad have often spoken of the thoughtfulness and rare wit that defines her. I'm not sure how well she'd agree with my characterizations here, but they are impressions that have been with me a long time. In the years that have turned since I met lady-earth, I've never been without an awareness of her importance in the story of my life. I don't just mean the role she played in giving me permission to own my voice. It's this sense that if I'm thinking anything new, if I'm writing anything at all, I'd like lady-earth to know.

It's official, I've decided to stick with "lady-earth," because I like it and because I'm used to it now.

We haven't lived an easy distance from one another for a while (particularly these days), and I'm no good at keeping in touch with people. All the same, if I had to make a list of the most significant figures in my life...and I mean currently, she'd be just beneath mom and dad on the list. Why? Because when I'm with her, I get to wondering who I am in the scope of creation. And I get the feeling she could tell me something about it.

Anyway, it's beautiful writing.