Under the sweltering sun in the Colombian jungle, I walk barefoot, learning to trust my feet sensing new textures. Soft sand parts beneath me, a trillion grains dispersing to allow my weight. I am a heavy, towering, long-limbed creature with thunderous steps. When I wade in the river, little fish bolt away in a firework around me.
So I am the great disturber in their ecosystem, I think aloud.
Why did you come here?
The capitalist in me speaks first. It reminds me of how little I have accomplished in the two weeks since I have arrived. I have laid around, slept in, and thought and thought until my prefrontal cortex hurts. In otherwords: nothing to further my career nor be productive in a capitalist sense.
No, I do not count the necessary rest my body begged me to take after falling ill from five red-eye flights — Vancouver/San Francisco/Miami/Cancun/Medellin — to get here. I rational all the reasons I shouldn’t be here: I am a cold creature, I love my bed, I can’t stop thinking about my bed, I love my own space, I’m bad at socializing, I’m always nervous. I think of a million reasons why I can’t.
I wander aimlessly, following stepping stones that lead me to the river.
Riverbug, I am.
It is shallow so I stumble further into the rivers centre, where gentle rapids run fast. I find a spot deep enough to submerge and take a deep breath. My friend Nico has been really into Wim Hof recently. She is a nervous-system superstar: I watched her run into the Pacific ocean in frigid January as I submissively ran out of it, feet numb, yelling “I am not Wim Hof!”
I think of her as I squeeze my nose between my index and thumb and submit to the current. Everything slows as the water rushes around me. I sink below, and I emerge anew.
Surrender. You do not have to be at war all the time.
The trees, despite the long creature I am, are taller and wiser than me. They protect me from watchful eyes and do not hold my body to impossible beauty standards. Here, rules I dispise do not exist.
The current moves fast but I am eager to seek what is beneath it. I hold my face at waters edge and wait for a pause in the current. It comes, a break of clarity amidst the agenda of momentum, and I am reminded even river must rest. Patiently, I wait to steal half-second glimpses of the treasures beneath.
The river is abundant with rocks. I love rocks. They glimmer silver metalic specks in the sunlight. Rocks with black stripes, rocks jagged in sharp points, rocks rounded into soft circles.
A swell of relief pours over me when I realize what I am doing — what I do without guidance or direction. The answer to my question rings clear through the haze.
To play,
I gather stones of sandy amber and dark grey sendiment, fresh from the river. I kneel. Beads of water stick to my skin. The sun dries what of me is land, the river takes what of me is water. In my left palm, I clutch my new found treasures of the Earth.
You don’t need to rationalize play. Drop the practicality act. Let’s just play.
Each time I play I am overwhelmed by relief. It feels free to let curiousity take reign, to let my sensations guide me, to let mother nature hold me. I bare witness to all I have survived when I was so wholly convinced, at moments, that I would not.
One sunset evening, the colours moved in parting in a way where suddenly, I grew quiet. It brought me tears becoming stillness: it allowed me to hear the sounds of the softening hour. Cicadas sang a siren signalling to the sun that it was time to rest. I felt awashed in presence all the awhile prior I was constructing, producing, manufacturing in my head: surmising descriptive sentences about the moment that I could preserve for a later writing work.
I have difficulty knowing when to cease creation, for my artistic practice and identity have become so complexly intertwined. I see things and immediatly race to form the sentences to describe them — a sunset of cool azul, a soft breeze swirling, circulating the valley.
Surrender.
I allowed myself to move my body. I felt the soft grass beneath my feet. I released myself to the winds and she danced with me. My movement was guided by intuition. I felt self-conscious but push on.
Here I am, and here you are. Let’s embrace, entangle in a dance to the song thudding in your heart. Listen close, do you hear it? It wants to tell you a secret…
You are alive! What a miracle it is to exist against all your odds. I am so proud of you, congratulations, how worthy of love and loving you are by your pure existence.
When I finished, I collapsed to the Earth in a heap. I let little ants walk on my arms on their way home. I thought, if I stay still, my body might biodegrade into the soil, and I could return home too, to Mother Earth.