I am sitting in the Coffee House in Antarctica. It is summer here and the snow has been falling for days. On these solo journeys there are times when you feel a little bit alone. Naturally. Being down here I very rarely feel lonely. There is always someone to relate to and to spend time with, always something going on to participate in, in fact it is the most actively involved in a community I have been since I left Ithaca. But there are moments, like right now, that I feel like I WANT to be alone. To digest the past few months here and where I am at with myself.
Life always has those funny ways of picking you up and putting you down on a road you never knew existed. This time I have ended up at the bottom of the world with a collection of people who drift with the wind and have lived and danced and loved and fallen and gotten up again all over the world. Talking to people about the places they have been and the lives they have led leads one to think of what kind of life you want to live. What is important to you? What do you want to do with this one wild and precious life?
Some people seem to know the answer to this question. Some would say there is no answer; some might say that there is no question to begin with... We put one footstep in front of the other, we happen upon new influences and inspirations that either bounce off the skin or sink in, saturating our souls and pushing us to pursue our dreams. I have a million dreams. But somehow I also feel one plane away, as if there was a magic portal into another life that I can see into but haven't figured out how to enter. Which way to go? East of the sun? West of the moon? North of the pole? Indeed, north of the pole. Into the next dream, one of love and healing and adventure. Do our thoughts rule our lives? And if they didn't where would we be?
A favorite by Spanish poet Antonio Machado for you:
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the way, and nothing more;
Wanderer there is no way,
the way is made by walking.
By walking one makes the way,
and looking behind
one sees the path that never
will be traveled again.
Wanderer there is no way,
only trails upon the sea.
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