by Caroline Funk (’24)
i am passing the father as i cross the bridge. he is holding his daughter’s hand as she zig zags across the old wood, humming a tune to herself. i gaze up at the trees and wish i was her, at that age where i had yet to be so conscious of myself, where i couldn’t see anything other than my two feet in front of me, so carefree i would not think to mute the melody that spun in my head and spit out my mouth.
my hands are heavy as i dangle them at my sides. i tilt my neck up and see through the sparkling sunlight that speckles in and out of the leaves. my eyes close. my lungs open. they breathe in more than i knew they had the capacity for, inhaling like plunging into the deep end after years of barely dipping my toes, skimming my ankles through the shallowest of waters.
my mind spins, wanders, complicates. when i reach the end of the path, i turn around and trace over my footsteps.
i am here, beneath the trees, beside the creek, over the bridge, and i am in the library slamming my fingers down on the keyboard to finish the last paragraph before the clock passes over the exact minute of the deadline (why are there always deadlines?), in the garden trying to write with the fuel of pressure and success (when did i lose the joy of it?), in the bar calming my shaking palms as the crowd gets bigger and my stomach coils and i forget how to slow my heartbeat (when did having fun start to feel like work?), walking to class with my phone clenched tight in my grasp, wondering how i shaped so much of myself around a rectangle of metal (how do i begin to disconnect myself?), trying to plant my feet harder on the gravel, trying to melt into the bright blue of the sky, trying to pull myself out of myself like a spoon out of the molasses jar, trying to know my bones and my blood like i know the grass and the flowers, trying to listen to the bubbling of the water and the chirping of the birds, trying to be that little girl, trying to release and slow and hum and skip and breathe and be. i stare back up at the leaves and feel i am learning how to walk all over again.
time passes. i look down and see the bridge. i am back at the start.
Author Commentary: This is a hybrid fiction/nonfiction flash piece positioning an internal monologue with seeking solace in nature. Walking and thinking are all part of one organism’s functions, and often, the intersections between the two in the piece blur the boundaries of mind/body and reveal the ways in which thought and emotion get enacted and worked through in the movement of the body. The flash piece also calls attention to the world beyond the body to blur boundaries even further, that of the individual/collective. Written in lowercase, the piece begins to abandon form and structure as the speaker loses themselves deeper in nature. The sky, ground, trees, humans, and all other co-inhabitants of the planet function as a reminder of our interconnectedness and a solution to the isolation of overthinking, a way to get lost and help “pull ourselves out of ourselves.”
Caroline Funk (’24) is an Ohio native focusing on English Literature and Creative Writing in MAPH at The University of Chicago. Her short stories “Maid of Honor,” “Hatchling,” and “The Leaves” previously appear in Windmill, Sequoia Speaks, and Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine.