The Return….

“Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours – long hallways and unforeseen stairwells – eventually puts you in the place you are now.” ~ Ann Patchett

Sometimes our journey – our own personal “Rides” – take us in a straight line from point A to point B without detour or diversion. We motor along with few cares, delighting in the ease of the view. Other times it zig-zags in hairpin curves though the hills, crossing deep valleys and taking us into the dark canyonlands. And sometimes it goes in a circle. Sometimes the road takes us to a place we never thought we’d see … and sometimes it takes us back home. Such as it is with The Ride now. Early Monday morning, the Silver Backpack (aka: the little Subi) and I will leave these jagged mountains and high dry deserts that I have come to cherish, and begin the long drive back to Upstate NY. Though I absolutely adore – and thought I would possibly settle somewhere in the western states – a myriad of factors, like factions of fractions in an equation, have shown me this not to be so. At least not right now. And the winds that blow have said it’s time to return to the land where my Ancestors lived … to the knolls where those ancient voices still sing to me, and their life-blood courses beneath my feet as I walk the land and sit by the denim waters of the Finger Lakes.

Oh, this “Ride” of mine has indeed been most amazing and wondrous – a gift beyond my wildest dreams in so very many ways – and I have a feeling that it’s not over yet. There are many Journeys in life … and many kinds of journeys … perhaps this one is just changing. It will be a long and demanding drive: 2500 miles from the canyons of Utah across the Rocky mountains and through the Great Plains of Wyoming; from the rainwater basins of Nebraska, through the plains of Missouri, the farms and flatlands of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio before turning north and heading through western Pennsylvania and finally into New York. I’ll descend 7,000’; cross 3 time zones, the Continental Divide, the great Mississippi and the mighty Missouri. 2500 miles, a scattering of motel stops along the way, and a visit with a friend or two before I unpack the burly bag I bundled 14 months ago. Where exactly I will land, I do not know yet … the heavens have only said that I must go back now.

Well, there is much to prepare for the journey ahead, many things to arrange … and I must get to it, so I will bid you adieu for now. Back soon as the Circle continues and this Raven flies on…….