Enclosures

There are times when a writer cocoons—pulls silence over head and tucks chin into contemplation. She hides away on a post-Christmas day when others bustle about returning gifts. The hours seem endless as she meanders along lazy rivers of the mind, never leaving small spaces—a cozy bed, the nook of a couch, an office chair.

Enclosures

When I was a girl, my mother tried to train a wide-eyed filly. The horse snorted and pranced, pulled against the lead rope that restrained and forced her to walk in circles. Around and around the arena she danced, pawed the ground, and reared towards the sun. Mom loved, (yet I suspect feared) that filly for the horse would bolt with only the rustle of burnished leaves. 

Enclosures

Often my words feel like that horse, untamed, difficult to manage, going nowhere. Yet I write even though the results seem small and confining, like that rope the filly fought against.

Enclosures

How do you know if you are meant to write? Smallness doesn’t matter. Whether your soul craves transforming thoughts into seamless sentences or indulging in mindless rantings to release tension, you write because you must. You compose, because not to do so would leave an ache in your soul more painful than being tethered to the end of a rope. You write, in small places.

Enclosures.