Wanderlust

Sitting on the sofa (where I have been spending a lot of time lately, trying to lose this aggravating cold) I thought back to my last trip down to Florida.  Strangely it occurred to me that I had driven all the way down there and back to New York by myself.  That is a long trip.  I would estimate that it must have been a total of approximately 3000 miles.  It is not strange that I did it, but rather strange that I never gave it a thought.  In fact I have done the trip many, many times.  Alone.  Just me and the radio or the tape deck and a book for the evenings in a campground or motel or a relatives couch or spare bedroom.  One of my nephews told me I was “couch surfing”.  Hit the nail on the head.  I am a couch surfer. 

While I am on the road like that I do a lot of thinking.  Long stretches of highway lend themselves to contemplation.  I think about my marriage and my family.  I think about myself.  I keep mental lists of the money I spend and the places I see along the way.  I list the things I would like to do in the future and think back on the things I have done in the past.  It is organizing.  Not productive but orderly.  I process mental snapshots of the lives of my friends and relatives as I visit.  Without fail I find myself thinking about what it would be like to live in each of the places I stop to eat or sleep.  There is almost always something attractive about each of the places but when I reach the Palisades Parkway in New York, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I am overwhelmed with my appreciation of “home”.  Glad to be back.  Never more to roam, until the next time. 

So, until my cold it gone.  Until the Fall when Lizzy promises we will be moving on to a new chapter in our lives.  Until the wanderlust and the road draw me out of my cocoon on the sofa in my own house.  I will try to enjoy "Home".  

Out in the flatlands of the Florida Prairee a little bit of Oz-The Heartbreak Hotel