desert heart

Medium

Digital

Artist Notes

© 2011 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved ________________________________________________________________________________ Reviving the Heart ________________________________________________________________________________ Falling in love: such a soft and easy phrase, like tumbling into a featherbed or a stack of newmown hay. ________________________________________________________________________________ But when one has been without – the heart a desert, dry as dust – falling in love’s akin to the violence of birth: everything’s narrowed, shut up tight, needing to be forced open – not to expel, but to accept the thrust of emotion. ________________________________________________________________________________ It’s not like riding a bike, you know. You can forget how to love, both in the giving and receiving. ________________________________________________________________________________ Falling in love – like birth – is work, not a cheap and easy talent nor a skill once learned that snaps right back the next time you attempt it. ________________________________________________________________________________ The heart has no muscle memory. Once neglected, the elasticity evaporates and leaves a barren chamber. You can’t jumpstart it. No storebought wire will send forth revivifying juice. ________________________________________________________________________________ Rather, the heart must be massaged, persistently but gently, from inside and out; coaxed back to life through effort, perseverance. Falling in love – after so long a drought – is work. ~ © 2011 RC deWinter ________________________________________________________________________________ Claret cup cacti in spring in the high desert of Pawnee Butte National Grasslands.