A Life Of Lyrics

When I was a child I was enchanted with my dictionary.

During the summer and when I came home from school I would reverently turn the pages, my pencil tap-tapping against the notebook while I skimmed the columns of words. 

With my pencil I filled lined notebooks with such earnest that the grip of my fingers nearly punched through the paper. 

On the back of each page it was like braille for the blind.

This dictionary opened up a whole new world to me.  

The lyrical world of words.

With all these words floating in my head, my mind was akin to a wood chipper. 

Put a thought into one end, and out the other end came soulful thoughts manufactured with my newly learned words.

Example: Snow falling...

The silent misshapen snowflakes dotted the ground like sprouting dandelions in the spring.

Crystal bits of icy snow fell softly, burrowing in corners and framing window panes with frigid lace.

The snow mesmerized me as it daintily fell from the sky like ballerinas in a well-choreographed ballet.

I guess I was sort of an old soul in a child's body, for I never really felt like other children. 

I was more comfortable with the old women living close by. 

Gray-haired women long changed by their child-bearing years, the soft swell of their ample figures shaped like apples or pears underneath their aprons.

I loved chatting with them in their sweet-smelling kitchens while they were cutting apples for cobblers or sifting sugar over freshly baked cookies. 

In school I became bored easily and spent much of the time staring out the window, alone with my thoughts, not hearing what the teacher at the front of the room was saying.

I was busy winding words on an endless reel in my head.

I learned so much more from nature. Climbing up trees and looking down at the world from a different perspective. 

Being outdoors in the big rectangular garden during summer, the sun warming my head and the sound of cicadas buzzing in the distance. 

I would pick berries and watch the sweet sticky juice darken my fingers and trail down my arm where it settled in the crook of my elbow.

I grew to love the earth because I could dig a hole and plant a seed. And soon a seedling would sprout up through the hard red clay and grow toward the sun.

I was smitten. Which led me to being the gardener I am today.

I don't need a heavy dictionary anymore. 

I can simply type a few letters into a search engine and the internet instantly gives me what I need.

That wood/word chipper is still there in my head. Steadily spitting out lyrics when I push a thought into the other end.