Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Forest Stories Episode One Hundred Twenty Eight The Wild Blueberries
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, when it comes to podcasts listening, are you like me?
- 0:02Speaker 1: I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over
- 0:05Speaker 1: the place looking for that one thing that you can
- 0:07Speaker 1: add to your moment of now. Be it fest stories,
- 0:10Speaker 1: be it rockstar stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're
- 0:13Speaker 1: looking for. That's what ero dot net is all about.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Arrooe dot net. The searching is over. It's all in
- 0:20Speaker 1: one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a
- 0:25Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Welcome to foest Stories, a series
- 0:28Speaker 1: of short winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees,
- 0:32Speaker 1: stuck feet First and Georgia Clay right here in Carolina.
- 0:35Speaker 1: It's been a huge part of my daily journey for
- 0:37Speaker 1: over thirty three years. I Am the Poet in the Forest,
- 0:40Speaker 1: a children's series written and recorded in the nineteen nineties.
- 0:44Speaker 1: It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world,
- 0:47Speaker 1: and none of it would be possible without this forest
- 0:49Speaker 1: right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina, at the base
- 0:52Speaker 1: of Heartbreak Hills. It's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well,
- 0:56Speaker 1: it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations
- 1:00Speaker 1: long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized
- 1:03Speaker 1: around this beautiful lake, slow moving stream, flatland swamps, and
- 1:07Speaker 1: array of natural animals. There were families and business owners
- 1:11Speaker 1: who are said to have raced into this area for
- 1:13Speaker 1: the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and
- 1:16Speaker 1: wild grapevines. Those before me either forgot to write about
- 1:20Speaker 1: it or it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey,
- 1:24Speaker 1: thanks for being a part of the conversation. Welcome back
- 1:30Speaker 1: to the forest. The wild blueberries. We have talked so
- 1:35Speaker 1: much about the wild flowers, the wild grapes, the lake,
- 1:40Speaker 1: the slow moving stream, but I don't think we've ever
- 1:43Speaker 1: talked about the wild blueberries completely one hundred percent natural.
- 1:50Speaker 1: Maybe maybe fifteen feet away from the slow moving stream,
- 1:54Speaker 1: at the very very bottom of the ninety five foot.
- 1:58Speaker 2: Drop on the hill. There they were just taking in
- 2:03Speaker 2: as much sunshine as one blueberry can And did it
- 2:07Speaker 2: feed the birds? Of course it did. Because we as
- 2:10Speaker 2: human beings. One of my strictest rules has always been,
- 2:13Speaker 2: this is not for us. It's for those who live
- 2:16Speaker 2: out here. We are just a visitor. But these wild
- 2:20Speaker 2: blueberries serve such a beautiful experience. In chapters that were
- 2:26Speaker 2: just starting to take shape. In the way that I
- 2:28Speaker 2: had come into this forest as an outsider. I was
- 2:32Speaker 2: a man of interest, is what I was. I wasn't
- 2:35Speaker 2: the father of this child. But it's not that I
- 2:38Speaker 2: didn't want to be. It's not that I couldn't be,
- 2:41Speaker 2: because my own stepfather proved to me that he was
- 2:44Speaker 2: a better father than I've ever had in my entire life.
- 2:47Speaker 2: But these wild blueberries, at the bottom of the ninety
- 2:51Speaker 2: five foot drop, that's where she, my daughter, would go
- 2:57Speaker 2: to read. An avid reader, which she still is today,
- 3:01Speaker 2: but she would take her own little place out there,
- 3:04Speaker 2: in her favorite chair, inside the center of those wild blueberries,
- 3:10Speaker 2: because I think this is what I think. The birds
- 3:14Speaker 2: came to her. She could hear the songs, the chirping,
- 3:19Speaker 2: the fluttering of the wings, the connection to nature because
- 3:24Speaker 2: just to her right was the slow moving stream. Even
- 3:27Speaker 2: though it was so slow, you could still hear the trickling.
- 3:33Speaker 2: And then and then she would turn the page and
- 3:37Speaker 2: continue reading next to the wild blueberries. Now, I wish
- 3:43Speaker 2: that I had the hands of time under control. And
- 3:46Speaker 2: the reason being is is because I would like to
- 3:48Speaker 2: go back to that time period, because they don't exist anymore.
- 3:52Speaker 2: The only place that you'll ever hear about the wild
- 3:55Speaker 2: blueberries next to the stream at the bottom of the
- 3:58Speaker 2: ninety five foot drop is right here. Now she might
- 4:02Speaker 2: remember it, and if she does, will it be as
- 4:06Speaker 2: beautiful as what I feel inside my heart to see
- 4:09Speaker 2: an imagination growing inside the pages of a book. Who
- 4:15Speaker 2: would have ever thought that one day there would be
- 4:17Speaker 2: a recording studio in this house that she and her
- 4:21Speaker 2: mother had, And in that house, and in that studio
- 4:27Speaker 2: are the stories of this forest. Maybe inside my imagination
- 4:33Speaker 2: that's my blueberries, And inside those blueberry bushes is the
- 4:38Speaker 2: imagination connected to a page, which becomes verbal vocalization, which
- 4:45Speaker 2: becomes an image inside your heart. Where are those places
- 4:51Speaker 2: that you had all those chapters ago, whether to watch
- 4:54Speaker 2: your own children run and play, or whether you took
- 4:57Speaker 2: off and had the adventure of a life time dressed
- 5:01Speaker 2: up in adult shoes the wild blueberries at the base
- 5:05Speaker 2: of the ninety five foot drop. Hey, thanks for being
- 5:08Speaker 2: a part of the conversation.