Rocks

Rocks are like the mountains of childhood. You can’t move one -- a boulder. You can’t see over them. Sometimes you climb a rock and feel on top of the world. Sometimes you climb one to get away from the world and sit above it, watching as the rest of the life interacts and you’re no longer part of it.

Rock, big hard, giant immovable mountain-size monster rocks can be a place for imagining, or detaching, or just sitting. They always made me wonder how they got to be where they were.

I could sit in the sun on a huge boulder, especially one that was alone in a field far from any stone that could be spied. Did someone push it here? Did it fall from the sky or slide up from the earth? Why this rock? Why here? I would worry like a mouse with crumbs in a clear plastic wrapper of thought.

I might even think about whether other folks think about rocks.

Would anyone be thinking whether I was thinking about rocks at this moment? If someone saw me would that someone think I was thinking important thoughts or would that person know I was just thinking about, wondering, tossing about the idea of . . .rocks.

I would wonder whether that person was wondering what I was thinking. Suppose I became her. Would I still be wondering about what she was thinking and if she became me would she still be thinking about rocks?

This must be what they mean by saying I have rocks in my head.

−me strauss Letting me be