Me and the Rocks

The last stone I placed in the wall said “Thank You.” I heard it clear as day. It was just a moment but there it was - the stone spoke. I had a sense it spoke for all of them. I’d been laying rocks in a dirt wall for several weeks. Filling in the spaces with small plants and moss. It was a job I was made for. Day after day of finding the right rocks, carrying them home and then fitting them into the wall. A lot like putting a puzzle together. Do your remember doing puzzles and how some times you would get on a roll and get a bunch of pieces right in a row and then other times it could take forever to find one piece that fits? Well it is the same idea here. Some days I would have a flow going that nothing could stop. And it would be hard to quit working those days because it felt too good to find one rock after the other that found its place. There is a feeling when a rock finds its home and I can just tell as my cells say “Yep, he’s home.”

Then there are other days when it can take eight or ten tries (or even more) of different rocks to find the one that works. This is not so fun as a lot of these rocks are heavy and putting them in, taking them out, finding another, try again all takes lots of time and energy. But when you find ‘the one’ it feels so good. I wonder if I’m combining my feelings with the rock’s. They have things to say, to teach, these rocks. I feel lucky, even though they are not the easiest things to move around, that they picked me to move them. Sometimes when I pick one up I wonder “How long since anyone touched you and really appreciated you?” I truly love them.

So as this one rock, the last one to complete the wall found it’s home the satisfaction found was not just mine. And the words that came though were really just an extension of the feelings that we’d both been sharing, day after day, me and the rocks.

Mary