The Birthday Wish

Photo By Geo Gellar

It has been a long time--too long--since I have written here. Today might be as auspicious a time as any to do so; it is my birthday today. Since my last journey story there has been much--too much--happening. Shades of light and darkness have become overwhelming almost.

I am old enough now that birthdays are a time of reflection. I'm not sure how well or true I should feel about this, mostly because I feel that something is.....missing.

Sure, every year is a story of highfalutin', ramshackle adventures. Four years ago, when I started this crazy journey, there was a whole arsenal of surprising events that would leave one breathless. In some ways, that has never changed.  However, behind the scenes, there was another truth the story. I was leaving a life, and a man, that had broken my heart.

My life wasn't working. I was too sensitive and too tired to be working in an expensive an punitive city as loud and as brash as New York City. While I carried a torch for performing arts, I was having a devil of a time figuring out how to make it all work for me, while having to answer to someone who had changed from a helpful life partner to someone utterly a stranger.

So I was leaving.

Along the road, I had met a million beautiful faces: the sort of folks that I could imagine calling on the phone, getting together over Saturday potluck, and doing the random fun things that a kinship of friends do.
But I was leaving them, too.

I had seen a hundred different beautiful sights, epic sunsets across hundreds of pastures in a dozen states. Forests so old and elegantly haunted as to inspire a million children's wayward fairy tales, denizens of houses so old and beautiful they could make you cry--or make you curious as to each history that whispered within their walls. I have waterfalls, and heard owls in the mountains, and seen swans and herons in peaceful lakes. I have held baby sheep, goats, small donkeys. I have ridden and hugged a million equines. My soul has been full......
But I was leaving.

And pretty soon, there was that slight twinge of acknowledgement: every single person I know or care about is, almost universally, a long distance phone call. Every experience both a reward and an immediate puff of memory.  I have no particular place to park my shoes and, while that sort of life would seem to spark envy in some--for the vagabond, "the grass is always greener" would likely be simply someone to meet them at the end of a long day, in a humble little house. It will be a place where someone will listen to their stories, or hold their hands, and where good food and kinship is struck.

And indeed, if you thought me a fine and fair independent maiden, think again. Sure, I'll wrestle a horse and get myself dirty and bruised in the name of adventure, but I would park myself (and almost did) for a fine writing or farming or performing arts dream job, and a kind and funny person to love. A passel full of warm and creative friends wouldn't hurt either.

I suppose it came full circle--back to writing--that the notion of it all hit me.See, when you are writing a book about your family's third generation beekeeping, do you see all those old stories written out in front of you. And when I did, all I could keep thinking was "who do these stories get passed down to?" I sometimes stare at people with small children and indeed, there is a strange twinge there, and a place where the heart cracks when I think that there would have to be a bit of repairing to do if I am to mend a heart torn by relationships.

Until then, there are other interesting stories to pursue, and other goals to start. Perhaps it is time to find a foundation for this old tree woman, whose roots are far too stubborn to rig themselves too deeply into the earth--which is a strange notion, indeed, for a child born under the Earth sign of Virgo. Then again, I've always been the contrary, unpredictable sort.

But know this much is true: when you ask a vagabond what they want for their birthday, The Birthday Wish is likely this: a place to call home.