Earth Girl

I don’t know if I ever was an earth girl. Of course, I’m an earthling, born and raised here, but the earth itself was never my favorite place. There’s a lot to be wary of, here on the blue planet. Growing up, my favorite place was my closet. The old-school closets the home builders of the 70’s constructed, long and shallow, with sliding doors. One side held my clothes, the other side held me. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a shy kid. Ever. I’m the first book I ever tried to write, sharing page after page over my 47 years here with only a few footnotes still kept to myself. They’ll likely come out at the end though.

Earth has always been a tricky place for me. Beautiful and dangerous at the same time. Lush and liquid here, baren and broken there. Careful where you step, careful what you touch. Everything is tricky when you have hay fever. Allergic to everything called a grass or a bloom. The linden trees my dad loves, the marigolds meant to keep away the mosquitoes, it all brought out my love of winter, when it’s easier for me to love the earth. When the tricky things all die. Well, the tricky plant things. People are still here in the winter.

Of course, I don’t mean it. I didn’t want the stuff to die. I don’t want the earth to die. It was the easy way out, the excuse not to look at what was happening. I grew up in an ancient lake bed, dried up and carved up, the mountains around me like walls. Inside my mountain valley it was easy to think we were loving the earth. The green lawns and mountain escapades. Climbing the red rocks to the arches. Look at how much we love her, our mother earth, don’t you see it in our pictures? We didn’t know. We really didn’t know.