Something that I learned from someone who is gone
by Darsie Bowden
A guy named Will taught me how to stand out in right field with my baseball glove hanging loosely in my hand. He showed me how to turn my attention away from the other players duking it out in the infield. Instead, he told me to listen to the sound of air in the encroaching dusk, to take small, lazy steps around the outfield with a blade of grass hanging from my lower lip, and to feel my hair lift slightly off my forehead in the waning breeze at the edge of day. And should the ball unexpectedly come flying toward me in an exquisite arc, to gently reach out my glove without a care in the world and let the ball fall squarely into its pocket.
Darsie Bowden is a writer living on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, USA. Previously, she taught writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where she published two books, one on the concept of voice in writing. She has also published creative non-fiction in the Young Ravens Review.