Journey
I think that if I could only determine which direction I was trying to
go, it would be much easier to begin my journey. We all think we know
where a particular thought or character trait comes from in ourselves,
but I think that most of us are mostly wrong, most of the time.
I have never put
my finger on the cloudy soup that has me constantly dreaming of moving
off to some foreign land where the hedge rows are straight and pure,
and the culture is clean and full of adventure, but then I never go. I
ask why, and even the mixed feelings, that flow over me when I
recollect the many times that some distant adventure never came to
pass, seem turbulent, like the swirling mist rising from a hot cup of
coffee in a cool drafty French farm house. These feelings take on
little lives of themselves, coming and going like brief waves of fear
or loneliness or anticipation of something about to happen. These
swirling transparent waves, as they wash back and forth against the
sides of my skull, all boil down to a general anxiety about the
unknown. I never have known why these dreams of distance come so
strongly for a moment and then fade away so smoothly that they really
leave unnoticed. A singer once said that "if you understand, you know
too soon, and there ain't no sense in trying," and it stuck to me many
years ago when I was just crawling out from under the certainty that I
knew everything and really needed to know it was okay to lie
floundering in the dark as long as I was still looking for some kind of
light. The key seems to be that we must keep looking.
The Island
Some years ago, my wife and I had a friend that moved to a small island
in the Antilles where she would write back to us with juicy stories of
paradise. When the pictures arrived in the second letter we had already
made plans for the disposal of most of our possessions. This in itself
was a real task, in that we probably own enough valueless stuff to
cover this poor tiny island. The animals alone, depending on how many
we had at the time, could have easily grazed this little atoll bare
inside of several hours. The pictures added greatly to our momentary
determination. The place was easily as beautiful as we had dreamed.
From the way this little place seemed to snoot up out of the ocean like
a tree covered pig's snout, to the fairy tale like houses that were
scattered in small groups anywhere the steep landscape permitted, this
quaint island immediately became Eden to us both. We obtained detailed
maps from the library, Liz found enough books on this small Dutch
possession to cover the kitchen table, and we staked out a little plot
of the island as if we were the first settlers. In our minds we were
there basking in the warm breezes and collecting our meals from the
beautiful landscape all around us. The place was perfect. There weren't
any jobs as far as we could tell, and that in itself had its good
points.
This all took
place in January and February, where, in the Northwest United States,
we can assume the weather was cold and nasty at the time. Well, as
would have it, about the end of February the temperatures warmed a bit,
the sun came out, and that wonderful little reprieve from winter, that
often occurs about this time, let me out of the cave long enough to
trim a few fruit trees. I think Liz managed to engage herself in a bit
of barn cleaning, and we both spent most of a week out and about our
small "farm" puttering.
Puttering, by
the way, is one of those things I think of whenever someone asks me
about my career. Puttering is also one of those things that is way up
there on the "success chain". That is to say, that to be engaged in
puttering is to be involved in something innately good and quite
successful. There should definitely be far more puttering in our
culture, what little there is of it, culture that is. In fact the
character of American culture could be vastly improved with several
centuries of conscientious puttering and a few random acts of kindness.
Kindness may seem like a completely different can of worms, and it is
to some extent, but there are some obvious similarities that may crop
up later, but it is entirely too early to discuss these for the time
being.
At any rate, we
had a very nice week or so dealing with the realities of our chosen
life style. During that week we were much too occupied to plan much in
the way of resettlement into the lush jungles of the Lesser Antilles,
and by the end of the week we were planning a new chicken house and
several other major changes around our own place. Needles to say, our
migration just faded away like evening light, we resumed our local
putterings, and we were fine until the next winter, when we began to
get letters from the Caribbean again.
It was cold, as
usual, and the snow was actually pilling up. We hadn't made it out the
driveway with a car for some time, and heavy stuff like beer was
getting to be a real pain to bring in on skis. We really benged on the
idea that we would truly pick up, sell out, and jump the next flying
carpet headed for a dream. We even called our friend that time to tell
her that we had finally decided to do it. Of coarse she encouraged us,
and of coarse something came along to veer us back toward that peaceful
way we drift through the brief time we have been allotted. Why we dream
of the far off, I can only guess at, but those dreams seem to keep us
going through the depths of winter.
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