When I was four years old my mom put me on a plane from Sacramento to Los Angeles, where I was picked up by my grandparents, then the next fay we took a flight from there to visit his family in the region of Morgantown, West Virginia. I went again with them when I was about six; this time by car. It was fun to run back and forth between the speakers in the back window as Dueling Banjos played, but it was especially fun to belt out “Almost Heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, blowing with the breeze. Take me home country roads to the place I belong…”
I have been on a lot of roads in my life, from Pacific Coast Highway along Big Sur, across Montana, down Florida way, and all the way in the UK. We have put down roots, but the breeze is blowing, and it is catching us again. In the coming months we may find ourselves in parts as of yet unknown.
I came to my room tonight to write this, and as I did, I could smell the smoke blowing through the window, presumably from the fires in my beloved California, where I was born all those years ago. I have been smelling that almost every night at bedtime for some weeks now, and it is heartbreaking.
The roads of the past are obscured by smoke and the roads of the future are invisible to see. For years now, we have both looked at properties every July as the summer gets too hot and the days are long, and we both seemed to long for someplace where we can consolidate our dreams into a single piece of land, and move our feet along our own road of life. This year I finally agreed to just give it a go. I have been here long enough, and have tried and tried on our hobby farm and I just need a space that is more suited to what we are trying to do. We could try to transform the space we are in, but it is a lot cheaper to move to a place that is already set up for what we want. Further, this house has got ahead of us and needs so much work. It alone would cost a fortune. We need a reset, and the house does too. It needs someone who can come in and work on it with fresh eyes and fresh hands and fresh thoughts. We need a clean slate and more room to stretch out our arms and not worry about running into someone. Not that we do now, but it is getting tight here with every new foundation poured and every nail driven home.
Well, we are going to give it a try, anyway. Don’t yet know where we will land next.
I have a few dreams to work out, and they are not working here. There is so much baggage and so many ghosts for us. They are inescapable. They are and I am tired. I am tired, yet I still feel alive and like I have a lot left to do in life. I am wildly in love with the woman that lives here with me and I want to see her smile the same kind of smile about her whole life as she does when she smiles at me.
I am tired of smoky skies and the smell of California burning. I am tired of the same old weeds growing in the flower beds, making me pull them again and again. I am tired of busting by back doing what I should have a machine doing, and helping me to do a lot more of. Changes need to be made while I still feel as young as I do, and before the tiredness and the ghosts push me over.
So, I am going to assume there is another fifty years for me to go. I want to see a lot of changes for myself during that time. I am not done living and growing. I have not read the classics yet. An audio book reader will have to be put in the hand tooling part of my workshop in the near future. There is no point in letting the time go by without getting two important things done at once. I want to get back the optimism I used to have when I was younger. I need to put the spring back in my step, at least a little. Life is to be lived.