wanderlust

I think I'm getting sick. I've been wiped out all week and today my glands are starting to hurt. I hope to have this out of the way soon, though. No good being sick during the holidays!

I stumbled across a new blog the other day: dailycoyote.blogspot.com -- this woman lives in a one-bedroom cabin in Wyoming and had an orphaned 10-day old coyote come into her life. She's not attempting to domesticate him, but allow him to grow and develop -- and of course, leave when he's ready. This read lead me to her other journal, about her cross-country road trip on a Vespa. I love reading travel memoirs and books about the wild...which leads me to wonder: can our hearts be judged by our book's covers?

There is an innate beauty, at least to me, about the northwest of our country: Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon (and Idaho has to count, although it doesn't hold the same appeal to me). Maybe it's the difference in lifestyle, or the enormity of the sky, or the wealth of Native American history and folklore surrounding the area. I read Into the Wild, books by Barbara Kingsolver and Nicolas Evans and my heart yearns to travel, to live that life, to be on the open road, if not on a Vespa, then on a motorcycle. With a camera in hand and my husband at my side as we go towards the road not traveled. Not just for a day or two: but an extended trip over a month or two. Looking for unfindable monsters and wonders, exploring this country before we get to be too tied down.

Of course, I am already tied down. I'm not a country girl -- as much as the books I read may want to speak to the opposite -- and I know that. I have a job, committments, a limited amount of time off. Motherhood and further education are in the not-too-distant future (though, thankfuly, not yet.) An exploration of that sort would come on the cusp of some other life change. And as fabulous as I imagine it to be now, in reality it would be sore muscles, no creature comforts, riding in bugs and rain and more of those things that put you in touch with your personhood. We don't go on these trips not because we can't find the time or place to go...but because we are afraid of who we will be when we return.

What I do know, is that at least today, I want to go. I am taken back to whipping across the Montana highways, seemingly unchanging despite our 100+mph velocity. The state stretching out vast and wide. The impending storm bearing down on the bleached brown land and a pure white horizon line running along beside us. There are adventures yet to be had and places yet to explore. I know I will get there, that I don't go alone, but when I haven't a clue.

Dan keeps telling me that I overthink things. That life will happen and things will fall into place. I've never not had a plan, I've never not known what was going to happen, not had options and a safety net in place. Today, surrounded by snow and swollen glands....it's hard to not think to planning. To not think about where life will take me...to not plan for the detailed future, but keep what is coming in mind. The wanderer is shelved for another day, another time, another dream.