Collective Human Experience

I stare at the green button flickering on the screen. “Submit Here.” Until this moment, I felt writing was like a playground romp, twisting rope on the swing until I unfurl into a kaleidoscope of blurred trees and sky. The child-voice inside of me shakes her head, she longs for scraped knees and running so fast bugs get stuck in her hair. I assure her there is a greater joy waiting for her once she steps out of the field. There is a huge tree, and she will be strong enough to climb, climb, up to the very top and hold the beauty of the sky in her hands.

Imagine the first human, pressing a gnarled notch on the great oak as he uses strong, hairy hands to pull his body high enough to see over the long grass. Then there was a violent, maybe desperate, hammering of stone on stone. The panorama of history was not yet a thought, but we grew and found what we pressed into. We built something that gave us both wonder and a thirst for something more. The computer hums, my tea leeches steam until it shudders and grows cold. 

I re-read the opening lines of my cover letter, “Dear Editors…”

The collective human experience exists in a space between birth and death. Dear editor, I will stand up and walk across the field. I will make tools to grow and change. Clicking the green button I sigh with anticipation.

Featured Image: early Sumerian pictograph of tu = ‘transformed, changed’
**See post The Sophistication of Sumerian Culture for source