Giants and the Roan

I stood on the rock. The wind brushed my cheeks. I closed my eyes.

The breeze enveloped me, rocked me. Gently, yet wildly.

I opened my eyes.

I gazed across the Balds. I gazed at Roan one ridge over. I gazed over the ocean of mountains.

Again I closed my eyes. I allowed my heart to feel. Tears rippled down my cheeks. I entered within.

And there was my friend, John. The gentle giant gardener whom I first met years ago in my dream. I love this gentle giant.

He was glad to see me and that made me smile. We sat in a swing, a porch swing for two. But it wasn't on a porch; it was on a swing set stand like used to be in my parent's back yard when I was little. The one I used to stand on the side bar and pretend I was the Captain of a pirate ship. Sometimes I'd be the Captain. Sometimes I'd be a kidnapped princess.

John smiled gently. He assured me that it was o.k. to cry. Understandable.

"Understandable." Dr. McColloch used to say that to me, in real life. Not in my heart life..where my friend John the gentle giant gardener lives.

I looked around, across my heart, my inner playground, and the Tender was there. He looked younger than last I saw him. More agile, though he is still elderly. He was energetic as he oiled the gears at the water wheel. He performed his work with joy and was so glad to see me.

And Abe. And Nanna. And Gremlin. And Sally. All came around to say hi. All were glad to see me. It made me feel good...all these parts of me doing well. Maybe I was doing o.k. Maybe I wasn't a destructive person...a phrase from real life that kept looping in my head.

I opened my eyes. The sun warmed me. The wind still blew. The Appalachian Trail called. I hearkened.

The rest of the day was glorious. I saw sections of the Balds I hadn't witnessed before. Hump Mountain was huge. A giant bald stretching toward the sky as it led across other ridges of balds. Yerba loved the tall grass as we hiked up Hump. The overgrowth on the trail was up to my shoulders in one section. Yerba would run and jump...chasing butterflies or something.

I saw only a few people on the trail after Overmountain Shelter. Well, only three people for the next eightish miles. And two snakes.

In the 1970s I used to wonder why all the talk of over-population. I'd visit the mountains and bask in all the open space. I guess Josh is right that the issue really wasn't or isn't overpopulation, but rather over-concentration.

Sometimes I over concentrate.