An Amazing Experience

Today I had the opportunity to participate in an experience that took me back several years to my childhood and really brought back some talents that I had lost over the past several months.  This "reawakening" is just what I have been striving for for a long time.  Though with this experience I feel a lot of pain and loss, it is who I am, and who I must be.  So, here is the experience.

I had recently learned that I really do like outdoor work.  There is something wonderful to gain from working with your hands in the field.  My favorite jobs is mowing and weed-eating, as there is something meditative about the work as well as work you can do alone.  So today I helped my sister clean her yard by weeding what the mower couldn't get.  I wasn't looking to get anything out of it, I had just finished with my house and thought that she could use a little help with her yard.  At any rate, I had finished and returned home where my other sister was mowing my yard.  I had walked out to the field to wave at her and show her my appreciation.  While I was out there the sun had started to set and I decided to just enjoy the cool day and watch the clouds and the sun set.  It had been very windy of late and the clouds were moving quite fast.  And that was when the amazing part of the experience began.  While looking at the clouds, I had noticed just how beautiful they were.  It was just amazing to see all the different layers, folds, and ripples within each.  The sun was setting and looked like gold shining through th etrees.  I watched the sun set and the dark clouds demand presence over the higher white cotton clouds.  A couple of times I could feel little rain drops falling and would start to giggle (in a manly way), and immediately decided that if it rained, I would stay out here and enjoy it.  I quickly took off my shoes and socks and took them inside where I left everything else that I didn't want to get wet.  It never did rain, but the gods like to tease me.  I watched as the sunlight hit the very tops of the trees behind me and as it lost its gold luster and turned more orange as it descended beyond the horizon.  I must have stayed out there for at least an hour just watching, listening, feeling.  When it finally got too dark, I went back inside but sat in the sun-room with the typewrite I had recently found and began typing.

This experience is important to me because it took me back to my childhood where I would have these wonderful experiences that ultimately decided for me what I would do in life.  Over the past few years I had lost this artistic excitement and would lose a lot of focus and motivation.  Writing music became a chore and did not contain that necessity I had as a child to explore and experience.  What I experienced today is a great reminder of who I had chosen to be as a child.  Things have been quite tough of late and I hope that I don't lose this experience or the ultimate meaning of my life again.

There is one thing that I wonder about.  This experience I had can happen frequently if I look for it or allow it to happen.  I ever wonder if other people, the "lay" people out there have these same experiences, or is it just us, the artists (as it is these experiences that move our art)?  If everyone can or does experience this, then I would implore them to seek it often.  If not, then I truly pity them.  At any rate, I am very thankful for the home that I have and my childhood that brought me to where I am.