Stews and *Swims

It's 7:21 in the morning, but I've been awake for a long time now. Did I wait too long to start writing? Today I'm going on a quest, but I don't know where. I need to get a taste for quests again. It's the cold time of year when questing becomes more of a planned event. I also want to go out west on a real adventure. I want to start at the Black Hills then vanish onward in any direction westward. Like mist. 

Something is calling me. It's loud this time and hopefully loud enough to include my son. That's a whole different book, now isn't it? Much like a mystery novel, I've seen myself through many problems lately that were all resolved by an answer that's been in my face this whole time - I'm a traveler and it's what I do best. I never meant to throw in the sweaty towel of wanderlust, I've just been focused on other things. I waited for the call again, and now it calls loudly. 

So, where do I begin?

There are a lot of variables to consider when traveling with a young one. Besides the most important matters like health and safety, it's very important to me that this is also an adventure that favors his experience just as much as ours. I want him to be excited about where we are going, and I want there to be attractions along the way that we are looking forward to. Perhaps these are dinosaur museums and dig sites. I'm very cool with that. But, we have to act according to the seasons, and it's currently nearing min-December in Michigan.

What do we do now?

We head to the UP. My wife has a lot of history there, and through a bizarre twist of fate, I recently ran into a friend at the airport with his uncle who offered us a place to stay. It's far though, not as far as going out west, but Michigan is dauntingly long from top to bottom. You have to plan around snowstorms and all sorts of other northern situations. 

That part of the state has always been special to me as well, in consideration. We passed through the UP during the early days of our massive road trip my wife and I took about eight years ago. It's been on my mind ever since. I only wish we could proceed and continue onward this time as well. Maybe we should.. oh, right.. the snow.

I used to call this period of time 'stewing'. It's like I'm slowly adding ingredients and patiently watching a delicious broth come to a soft boil. I have always liked that analogy because it reminds me that sometimes I have no choice but to be patient because any other option would be an uncooked meal. The traveling version of stewing is what I typically refer to as 'swimming', and I guess that's just due to my fishy nature. Yet, travel is a different world to me now, and I don't know how those titles hold up for me anymore. 

Dry Erase, intact

A few years ago, my wife and I moved into my aunt's house. She had suffered a stroke a few months prior, and it became evident she would not be able to return to her house in the foreseeable future, so we rented it from her son while we searched for a home to buy one day. She left behind a lot of things that were important to her, and for the most part everything was eventually put into various storage locations throughout the house and garage, but there were a few simple things that I hesitated to disturb.

One of these such things was a tiny white board she kept on the far end of her kitchen near the coffee maker. It contained a dozen or so scribbles of appointments and phone numbers including the visit she had planned to the doctor's office the day she ultimately had a stroke. For some reason it felt like a cryptic reminder to me that the things which concern us are very temporary, and just as new owners of your house will one day decide to wipe the previous owner's white board clean, so too will our slates be cleared as well.

Then I come to look at my current white board, and it's a horrid mess. There are scribbles on top of hastefully written phone numbers, addresses, and to-do lists that never really got done anyway. It's almost illegible, but it's somehow a very accurate description of how things have been for me lately. The fact is that I haven't felt very intact, and that's somehow the most perfect word I could find. I even mumbled it a few days ago briefly after waking up and noted that it was the first word I uttered all day. 

It's getting better though. The semester is almost over and I have most of my Christmas shopping done. How cliché to write that. Christmas shopping is one of the last things on my mind, and I write it down on my list of grievances like it's somehow that heavy on me at the moment. 

Manifestation: I want to go out west. I'm going to go out west again, but this time with the family. We are going to drive with some direction but let our hearts be our guides. I need my son to experience that. 

Something is calling me again.