The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  ~St. Augustine

(and / or )

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.  We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.  ~Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854

cutest snow-capped sunflower ever, digital

<<<—-Tell me this isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.

Dead lil’ sunflower, wearing a cap of snow . . .

This particular plant was sowed by the birds at our bird-feeder this summer.  Somehow, one flew to the exact location at the back corner of the house that needed a little decoration, and dropped a seed from its beak.  We returned from vacation to find a sweet little sunflower plant growing there. 

I find this so much more inspiring than landcaping (although I have got high hopes for my magnolia this Spring).

I see this photo as a paradox: wild and free, versus buried in snow.   But, Nature herself  is a hypocrite.  Snow is wildness; it is Nature.  So, it’s all good.

(I’m confused.)

Anyway.  The point is, I’m currently experiencing this crazy mix of both wanderlust and a desire for hermitage.  I feel, comfortably, a bit dead and snow-capped like the flower.  And, like her seeds, I’m feeling the distantly approaching Spring like an itch.  At the same time, visions of travel are dancing in my head, as I’ve mentioned.  I don’t need fancy travel, I just need to roam.  I need no souvenirs with which to boast, no intelligent well-traveled conversation material. 

JUST GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!!

Now, wait.  Let me defend this spontaneous outburst.  I don’t need to flee.  I am very adept at fantasy and coffee dates and other diversionary tactics of escapism from this mundane domestic life.  Truly, I would be perfectly happy to sit and cozy (as if it were a verb) and read and doodle and veg for days and weeks on end.  This wanderlust is not cabin fever. 

It’s just an intense desire for the unfamiliar.  I cherish the familiar and the ordinary and the everyday.  But the feeling of being blindsided by the incomprehensible scale of that mountain, or merging with the warmth and depth of that sandstone canyon wall, or the feeling the strong pull of that ocean current . . .  Oh, that.  I need me summadat.

And soon.

But, apparently, nobody seems inclined to donate to my wanderlust fund.  So, whatever.