Dena Judah
I have a confession to make. I have not read a book for the last six years – since I had my thyroid removed and I began taking daily doses of high octane thyroid replacement. So book groups have been attended, conversations and opinions shared, but no books have been read.
When I hear about the new sensational must read, Fifty Shades of Grey, I reconcile myself to being minus a couple of shades. I am ok with my non-shaded status despite what I have heard about the book and it’s juicy jist and what it is doing to and for my sisters of women.
I, on the other hand, am opting for a greener version of grey, here in the wooded environs of Boston. I am embracing the spoils of an early summer. The open windows allow for the magical sounds of the woods, the wind caressing the fleshy virgin, newly unfurled greener than green leaves. The sounds of the birds calling, communicating in language exotic. I sleep with the slider of my upstairs deck ajar. My room is infused with the damp darkness of the woods at night, the trees holding their watch spots, the warm earth steaming their trunks. The tree frogs and the cicadas chirp and grind, the hooting owl sends a tingle down my spine.
This is summer. Finally I am stripping down to bare skin, bare feet, my body ready to feel itself again, lying on my deck absorbing the sun, surrounded and serene. Nature reveals herself to me. As I slow down I can almost hear the in and out breath of photosynthesis.
The smell of the peonies, the shape of the petals, the beauty and perfection of it all. I give my body over to the pulse of the sap rising up in the trees, the roots pushing and arching into the warming earth.
I become conscious of the almost audible sound, the throb of creation, the innate energy required to bring this majestic show to bear. I sense that inside my body, the same symphony is being played, blood pumping, valves opening, hormones delivering, my own throb.
I begin to close my eyes as I surrender to the tides and flow of my natural self. Breath in, breath out, sigh, swallow, blink, all connected, inner to outer, bones, organs, tissues, cells, opening, closing, beginning, arcing and ending, wavelike, here on my deck in the early summer.
My upper lip is a little sweaty, my eyes half close from the sheer pleasure of it all – aware of the gradations and shades of all my senses – taste, touch, smell, sound and sight….. a sensual mix, here on my deck.
My body aligns to the rhythms of what I experience around me, warm wet, earthy, deep and unnamable, shades, pulsing with light and pleasure.
Here now are my fifty shades of green and how I found my summer hum.