I realize that it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything here. There has been more than one query as to why that might be so. The most obvious (at least to me) reason I have given is that I haven’t really been travelling all that much lately. What would I possibly have to say on the subject of standing still that could be half as interesting as wandering about like a loon in some foreign city where I don’t understand anyone around me but seem to have no problem finding fun and adventure..

Then I thought, why not try it out and see? Me who is not travelling is still me, with all her awesomeness and wackiness in tact. And it’s not as though I’m exactly settled or anything like that. Yes I am in one place that I plan to be more or less for the next while. The next while being how long, exactly? Who can say? Most likely until the weather warms and green becomes a commonplace color once more.  At any rate, there will be much opportunity to see how interesting it can be to write about standing still. It could be argued that I’ll never truly be standing still, even on a molecular level, there is frenzied activity, but I think it’s pretty clear what I mean.

Of course, in my dreams I’m moving, constantly. The smells, sounds and smiles of foreign cultures beckon to me, insistent, inspirational.  I search out travel blogs, country profiles, cultural nuances, music, food, language. I look for apartment rentals in Buenos Aires, Florence, Reykjavik..shipboard crew placings on freighters and yachts travelling through the Canary Islands, the Bahamas, the Mediterranean…volunteer positions in Guatemala, Mozambique, Vietnam…it changes day to day. Sometimes my desire to go places I could be needed is overwhelming and bears no resemblance to the desire I had the day before to see places I’ve read about and wanted to see since I was barely cognizant of a world outside my back yard.  But there’s always movement involved.

Now and again I have pangs of those feelings of settlement. I would like to live someplace where plants grow that I have planted. Where a window opens out to the smell of spring and birdsong and a cat naps on  a very comfy and colorful windowseat while I sit and play my in tune piano of actual ivory keys. Lots of wood and light and color and fragrance and cushions and coziness and friends dropping by for tea. Where the sounds I hear at night are frogs and the river and an occasional owl. A dog who keeps perfect time with the coyotes.

I think I might have found something ressembling where this house could be. But how will I possibly know until I’ve been everywhere else? There’s nothing to suggest that my window with the comfy window seat and the cat and the piano won’t have a view of a rainforest canopy in Costa Rica…I’m sure I have many friends who would be just as pleased to stop by for tea if I lived in a treehouse near Tamarindo. Or overlooking a banyan tree in Cambodia.

All this travel in my head is exhausting. A final before I sleep and dream of breaks where there are no wetsuits needed, it is November 10, 2009. I severed almost but not completely my left thumb one year ago today. I am pleased to report, it’s still there. Happy Anniversary to me.