At the end of a long day I cleaned myself in the back yard with Pablo Neruda, setting him down on my stomach, rubbing my eyes the way you would a catcher’s mitt, breaking it in. And I remembered a part of my day I otherwise wouldn’t: the morning, walking to the lake before the sun came up, catching the moon through the trees and making a wish, sitting on a log by the water in the dark hearing things, thinking, feeling lucky to be out on a summer morning with just the moon and the smell of an all-night rain, the first time in two months. Each day could be like this but isn’t. No matter how hard you rub, it takes time to break it in, to catch what most times we miss.

Photo by Loren Chasse, Mexico

Categories: Memoir, prose, writing

Tags: journal writing, mindfulness, Pablo Neruda, pacific northwest, prose, short form, William Pearse writer