Wanderlust

Lately I've been more enamored with the dreaming portion of life than the stuff of it. And all that dreaming is beginning to make me feel like we need a big change, that perhaps there is something on the horizon, something exciting and different and profound just waiting to be discovered. Maybe it's a state of mind, maybe I'm supposed to be looking inward instead of wanting to change external circumstances. That's possible. But I feel change singing in my bones, a Spring-soaked sense of discovery around the corner, a kind of transformation waiting for B and I and our sweet child. I don't know what that means, I just know that I feel like my thoughts of change are getting so strong I wouldn't be surprised if an onlooker might see them shooting out from my brow and spiraling into the ether and concocting a new existence for us, one that embraces everything and is constantly grateful and connected.

I just don't feel all that connected to stuff here lately. I look out our back window while I write, and I think--oh yes, I shall plant a garden. I imagine constructing the pieces for raised beds and tending to the vegetables with Cora, and it makes me happy. And then we visit Vashon with our in-laws and we go to the beach. Suddenly I am watching Cora and her cousin playing in the sand, dancing around merrily with arms spinning against a blue sky, and then diving into the sand to gather handfuls of rocks before throwing them into the water. I take a deep breath. I look out at the waves. I feel salt air on my face. I imagine weekends like this. I feel life zip through my veins.

Last week when I was feeling the most conflicted with our lives and in love with the possibility of an island, I read a beautiful March 12th post by Shauna Ahern. It encapsulates many of the things I imagine about Vashon.

I also dream of a farmhouse in the woods in Mendocino. Therein lies an alternate existence, one that makes me feel excited and thrilled, where we breathe brightness into our soul all day long, where we hike all the time and explore sunny days.

B has had asthma lately, I think that's a part of why I am feeling this way. I am convinced it's because he is stressed and feels constrained. I think he needs more sun. I think he needs a soulful life, and I'm worried he doesn't get enough of that in our current one.

I think many of us spend far too many days of our lives feeling satisfied but faintly befuddled, like we're wondering why the shoes we're wearing don't fit because surely they should--they're well made, they were purchased with care and thought, they are what everyone else is wearing, so what's the problem?

Sometimes there's an alternate life--a journey and a thousand discoveries--waiting for us, but we never listen to it calling our name. It's so much easier to keep on doing what we're doing. I question this.

And so today, for the moment, I am going to put on my running shoes and take Cora on a long walk along the Burke-Gilman trail. I am going to jog just a little even though my knee doesn't want me to (a longtime injury). And I am going to do everything in my power to conjure the sun for just a few minutes. I am going to meet B at Green Lake after he gets off work and we're going to pump cool air into our lungs and walk like there's reason to. And I am going to take all these thoughts of change and transformation and consider what it all means. Why do I spend my days considering alternate realities? There's plenty to keep me in the moment, that's for sure. I will allow the possibility that maybe, yes, maybe we are on the precipice of something new. Maybe our wanderlust deserves a hearing. Maybe it's time for a change: either a change in location, or a change in mindset, or a lifestyle switch that is significant enough to be noticed.

And I am going to be infinitely grateful for the influence of our beautiful little lass: backpack on, shoes on, charging forward with zeal, a huge smile announcing herself to the world.