34”x34” Pt. 3 © Nadia Daniels-Moehle. 2020. Acrylic on wood.
Chapter 10 is a pause. The COVID-19 lockdown has just begun. Today the world is in uproar, the future feels more uncertain than usual, many of us are isolated and overwhelmed. When I was little, as a neurodivergent child, I felt everything, my unusually deep thoughts and heightened sensory system often overwhelmed me.
To ground myself, I would plant my feet into the forest dirt surrounding my house, feeling connected to the creatures, communicating trees, and history packed beneath me. In these last days of winter, days when the sun comes out to chase the snow away, days soaked in solitude, I listen to my inner child who knows how to stay grounded and connected, who will one day learn that “[t]here are more life forms in a handful of forest soil than there are people on the planet.”
Stay safe out there.
34×34 pt. 3 illustrates “portraits” of my loved one’s toes “sprouting” from the soil as we went through the first lockdown together.