Whoa or Woah Woe

The quest for wonder.

I.

“Whoa or Woah Woe”

There’s a fine line
between whoa and woah.
One’s a hard stop,
an end to the flow.

The other means wow,
a double rainbow,
the sky full of stars,
the aurora’s glow,

fiery speeches,
a twist you didn’t know,
celebrity sightings,
an unexpected tableau,

an uncanny shot,
a real-life Van Gogh,
music that breaks you,
a line of Thoreau,

a dinosaur bone
from time long ago,
launching a rocket,
so far to go.

There’s a fine line —
we can go to and fro —
but if you’re seeking wonder
don’t whoa the woah.

II.

Creative inspiration often comes from the most banal places, like being confused about how a word is spelled in an early morning text conversation. I actually love spelling mistakes, because they make me wonder about why words are spelled as they are, and where the words came from in the first place. Words are threads you can follow towards a greater understanding — of language, of culture and history, of what it is to be human.

III.

I have a milestone birthday coming up in a couple weeks, and as a treat for myself I am heading off for a writing workshop in one my favorite places — the central coast of California.

Big Sur is definitely a “whoa” place, and I’m looking forward to spend a few days there, stepping out of my ordinary world — stepping out of myself — in order to find a deeper sense of who I am. Perhaps I will find a piece of myself, there between waves and redwoods, that I lost track of a long time ago.

It’s a little scary. The day after I booked my trip I dreamt that I arrived at the retreat center without any notebooks to write in. I’m worrying now about how many pens refills I should bring with me to avert the possibility of running out of ink the middle of a revelation. (The answer is: all of them.)

The truth is I don’t know how much personal revelation I can accomplish in three days time. If I come away with a roadmap, that will be enough.

And at the very least, I will wash my soul with wonder, traveling through my beautiful state in the spring time, with wildflowers springing up along the roads and hillsides lush in carpets of yellow-studded green. That alone will be woah enough for me.