WANDERING
There was an ancient, nomadic tribe known as the Tartars. From generation to generation they lived off the land, cultivating the best possible existence from a place, then enthusiastically moving onward when prompted either by spirit or circumstance.
Their enthusiasm for the adventurous life led them to create a curse for their various enemies that sounded like this— “May you stay in one place forever.” I am acutely aware that, from the outside looking in, we have moved too much. We didn’t set out to be nomads. We must simply have it in our genes.
Both of us, destined to this life of perpetual movement, even to the point of Ron’s real name, “Damon,”being the word “Nomad” spelled backwards. It takes both boat and anchor to navigate the seas. In human terms, looking at the model marriage relationship, each embodies one and the other. As our marriage developed I began to realize that neither of us was the anchor.
We were both somehow created with the urge, more the compelling, to set out, to charge ahead, to try, to dream, to wander.
I love the quote by J.R.R. Tolkien, “Not all who wander are lost.” Somehow just the simple saying it gives me peace. I don’t think Tolkien “wandered” so much on the earth as the interiors of his mind. It’s remarkable what mythologies can be created from the imagination.
As a writer, I can marvel in the weaving of entire civilizations as a means of escape, as a means of making a life bigger and far grander than one I will ever really be able to live in the flesh. But the one place I like to wander most of all is into the depths of human experience and human emotion. Here lies the rich, juicy unseen evidence of who we really are—The sadness. The hunger for something meaningful. The longing.
It seems I’ve spent my entire life wanting for something. It’s not for a thing that I can hold in my hand. It’s this intangible. It’s this place that the heart goes when it feels something deeply. It’s for something more than normal. Something other than day-to-day. A sojourn to the interiors. A discovery of self that has little to do with feedback from others.
May we never be afraid of this wandering, this willingness to look in dark corners.
This unbridled fascination with “me” as creation. This exploration of the soul that releases the notion that thought is everything. It’s the way back to ourselves. It’s where we discover who we really are.