What is the landscape of your heart? Don’t think. Trust whatever comes up for you.
I love this prompt. This is now the fourth time I’ve done it and each time it’s different.
In 2017 I wrote, among other things, “The landscape of my heart is an open road in America, emptiness stretching before me for hundreds of miles as I whiz past cornfields, open plains, through mountains, deserts, forests and up coastlines. Nothing makes my heart glow like the freedom of the open road and setting out on the beginning of a journey that has no specific destination, no time limit, and no agenda.”
In 2019 I wrote, “My heart is a wanderer, passionately in love with the human experience, trying to drink up as much as possible, and connect to as many people as possible in the limited dash from the coyote under the cool desert night.
In 2021 things settled down: “Sitting here in my adorable house I’ve rented for almost 6 years, the landscape of my heart is firmly grounded in the details. Not the soaring adventures—but the simple, elegant moments that make up a day with the people closest to you.
The landscape of my heart is a cup of coffee in the morning, brought to me in bed by my husband. It’s Hope, bugging me for a walk or barking at me to play. It’s the sound of Maggie’s laugh or Sam’s latest conspiracy theory. My sisters’ voices as we talk for hours. It’s my niece and nephews smiling via FaceTime. My heart is the backyard at my aunt and uncle’s—chatting by the grill on a hot summer night.”
And now here I am, in 2023, the landscape of my heart has drastically changed again.
