Quintessential Landscapes

We write from quintessential landscapes within us.

In Ubud, every day was an adventure. I asked fellow writers, "Have you had time to write?" -- and almost always, I plucked a withering satisfaction from every bashfully unwritten shake. "Not a word since I got here."

Ha!

Ubud traveled through the length of our thoughts and bodies. The mountainous terrains squeezed our lungs and legs, filling our wakeful minutes with decisions: Our own or hers. Trains of events, talks and showmanship forced into our most private spaces; shattering every shudder of retrospect with waves of instant responses. Unapologetic. Abrasive. Impassive.

At home again, for only a week or two, I bandage myself in reflective veils. Sweet, fragile calm; nothing pokes in, hence it begins to flow outwards. Before movement and travel takes me again, I can show you in fleeting glimpses, how bruised and toughened it's like in here, in my quintessential landscapes.