Wanderlust

I listened to a guy named Lyle sing about riding his pony on his boat. I think I know what he means… it has something to do with portable satisfaction, perhaps presented as a romantic longing to ride off into the sunset. I’ve been oppressed by rain and snow and blowing winds that don’t whisk me off toward a balmy horizon, and mostly by my traitorous metabolism. A sunny beach on Costa Rica could be symbolic of happiness for me, but mostly, happiness is currently symbolized by an unattainable 32” waist. Sometimes I feel so far removed from happiness that I don’t even know in what form it comes anymore.

Dissatisfaction stirs many things within me. It’s not all bad, as it can drive me to do better. But when I get better, it’s still there. Sometimes dissatisfaction comes to me as wanderlust. I get it in my head that I have to leave, that I’ve taken a horrible wrong turn somewhere. How did I wind up with this creaky mortgage and a leaky car with a fiancé and a rickety pickety fence? When did I ever want any of this? How can I go on night after night, not learning what it is to sleep in the Mexican rain with the mountain night air thick and green around me? What are the grits like in Georgia? I could do dishes to pay for my breakfast. I want to have coffee in Seattle with strangers and tell them all about my pen-pal friends I never met, and when they leave, pick up a book and not read it, but listen instead to the lapping of waves outside, as they wash away any memory of where it is that I wanted to go next. Then I could hitch down to Malibu and spend a day in the sand and at sunset kiss a girl that I would remember for her scent of coconut on her skin and her silky golden hair that draped over bronzed shoulders. Maybe later I could backtrack to Alaska and kill a wolf in the blinding snow. I want to spear fish on the sun-baked beach of an island that can only be pronounced in its native language, then dance around the fire before sleeping under a million stars. I want to earn my voyage through Indonesia as a crewman aboard a 30-foot fishing skiff. I want to drive my motorcycle through the Rocky Mountains from Durango, CO to Banff, Canada. I want to go bass fishing in the land of 1,000 lakes and chase the dawn from North Dakota, where I’d work for a week as a ranch hand. I want to meet my brother for hush puppies and a beer down in the Carolinas, rent a car to Florida, and sail to Jamaica where I’d climb a waterfall and drink something potent from half a coconut. I’d burn everything buy my boots and favorite jeans, then leave for Arizona and spend a week backpacking in the Superstition Mountains, looking for gold. I’d hitchhike to New Mexico and buy a beater bike for two weeks’ wages as a line cook and take off through the desert, up the Western Slope of the Rockies, then sit on top of the continental Divide, facing the sunrise, trying to decide if I should slide back down into Denver. Maybe instead of returning, I’d go west to L.A. and hook up with a struggling band in need of a drummer. I could drop them for a Chicago-based blues band and drop on down to Mississippi to explore some of those blues roots. Then, almost ready to return, I’d remember that I’ve never had a fresh Maine lobster. As long as I’m in Maine, I could stay until Indian summer and ride with some trucker back to my hometown in NY for a slice of pizza at Tony’s and a dish of gnocchi at Cortese. I’d live with my stepmother for a month and pick up odd jobs to get airfare and then, maybe then, I could get married under the summer evergreens and start a family.

Basically, I’m continually trying to keep from flipping out and driving across the country. Sometimes it just seems so appealing to load up my backpack, throw a leg over the bike and split. I think of the places I could see, the people I’d meet. Sometimes I’d just like to drift into a little town in the middle of nowhere and get caught-up with some blue-eyed enchantress fresh out of college, sit in with a couple of local musicians, maybe work a few days in a factory there, or sweep some floors, serve some drinks, sleep in a tent, maybe fish a day or two and lose myself under the shifted stars that blanket me in my whirlwind, my spiraling submission to fate. In one town I’d have long hair and a beard. In the next I’d be clean cut. I could drift for a year, and just write every morning and every night, keeping a journal of my new life… start over.

But I have Jane, and this job. Maybe I’ve already done my drifting. Someday when I get a few weeks vacation in a row, I’m gonna pack one bag and hit the road. I’m gonna drive from coast to coast and just freak out on all the cats I’ll meet and do things I’ve never heard of and just be every moment, living each for what they are, and then that summer night’s breeze will remind me of that night in Texas and Hey, doesn’t she look like that wild girl from Idaho, and wouldn’t it be cool to go back to Oregon sometime and try ALL the beers?

This could be a crisis.

Yes, it’s feeling like a crisis.