I hear coyotes. I’m hesitant to hike in the dark but not now. At daybreak I ascend the open wooded mountain slope, the deer and squirrels scurry at my approach. Giant boulders are strewn with fallen leaves of chestnut oak and sassafras. From the summit I can see 20 miles across the broken woodlots and farmlands of southern Alamance county. A serene, rolling, rural land with a rich history of hope and oppression. Quakers provided shelter to slaves fleeing northward. I would say this land is haunted by its impoverished and racist past but that wickedness endures. The past is ongoing here. The breeze is cool on my ears and my moist lips. I feel well, light of heart, and solid in soul. Purposeful yet flexible. I’m wearing my mother’s colorful wool shawl and singing into the space she left for me.

First Moon

I left on my road trip hoping for transformation, wanting clarity, inspiration, and purpose. Probing my inner depths, the terrain receives me, inhales me, and spits me out. “Nope, not done yet”, the Earth chortles. Resurfacing, I cry. I laugh. I delight in art, in food, in beauty and good people. I have some clues but I return home, lost as I was before, yet changed. Though I see no path I have no doubt I am on mine.

A pleasantly warm Thanksgiving came and went. We were able to eat out on the patio, a calm, simple meal as I like it. My family gatherings condensed over the decades. I meant to let go of my association with conflict and unwanted obligation. And I savor the kernels of joy we retained: board games, children, and mid day pastries. I thought I had the holidays whittled down to a minimalist art form but that’s now changing. Cousin Tammy brought her own mixed history of struggle, joy, celebration, and sorrow.  She parachutes in on a long frayed thread spun from my father’s generation. A spiritual seeker striving to reconnect, to repair and weave a new tapestry of loved ones. My small enclave of relations became her warp. This is all a long-winded way of saying my family is growing again. I’m reaching out to my brothers, to exes and in-laws, to old friends. This is not the fairy tale family of my child’s wishful imagination. Where mom and dad gaze lovingly over mac and cheese. The old Coleman lanterns and plaid flannel sheets are gone. But I like this new arrangement. My rag doll family has coarse red stitching and missing teeth. Like a whimsical, sock-puppet monkey. It’s flung in playful retaliation by unruly siblings in the basement playroom.

Optic white. That’s a stupid name for a toothpaste. I see the words in the corner of my eye as I finish peeing. My brain picks them out imperceptibly. The words register as I look out the window and notice the frost on a billowing pile of junk. That icy, gritty, sheen clinging to polyethylene tarps and broken plastic bins. Freezing for a moment the scraps and discards of this culture’s incessant river of crap. That’s optic white! And that’s what I think of marketing.

I dream of a great clearing in a wild land with many paths leading outward. The inhabitants mingle, dance and cook. The crowd is messy and chaotic, but I enter regardless. Something’s different in me. I don’t feel my normal disdain, the judgment that reflects my younger self. I can dance now uninhibited. I can listen without the banal chatter. I am not afraid. I walk among the busy people. The path behind me is growing over with briers and brambles. Beyond the fire a well-worn road follows a waterway. It turns beyond a rocky bluff and disappears into the clouds. On both sides of the clearing there are alcoves, each with their own hidden portals. I head for the central fire.

Am I autonomous in this world? I’m alone, sufficient. I can take care of myself. But I want to share my life with another person, a woman who deeply deserves and desires my love. Where is the balance? I’m stoic, self-reliant, powerful, and heroic. And I’m also a wounded and anxious soul, seeking comfort in the song of a mother’s soothing hum. I am all of these things. Fiercely devoted, a compassionate father and protector. I want to carry a hefty moon on my shoulders. Yet my bow has no string. I plant trees to cast shade on other bodies. I pull nails from boards with nothing to build. I build soil I may never turn. I clear enough space to lay my head but no more.

Home is where you are.

I’m grateful for projects that hold my attention and for the time and space I need to get my bearings. My house sits behind me, big and empty, becoming a beautiful burden. I’m hungry for purpose and impatient for opportunity, a hero searching for a cause. Within me I contain a myriad of half-baked ideas. Nothing is certain except the lure of broken sidewalks. I’m called to explore some random shabby southern town, perhaps down east, at the coast. The food trucks and thrift shops are my siren as I feel the urge to ramble again, to stretch out my pace. I hold tight though, knowing that first I must untangle the cords that bind me. Simplify and downsize. The way will open. That’s what the Quakers say and I believe it in my bones. I don’t have to figure out where I’m going. I’ll feel it with apricity as I’m facing on my way.

I met an enchanting woman on my trip. Vibrant and witty. We pass as I fly west, and the sun gives up the sky. She, the ember nestled against the hearth. A flare and a pop, a spark thrown that glows briefly against the starry night. I once thought I could find balance within myself, grounded by solitude. But alone on the road, my mood was up and down, and prone to melancholy. Now I sense that I may be more stable in a partnership. As we talk my desire grows. My heart is filled with autumn leaves caught in a whirlwind. The romance pulls hard now, deliciously frivolous. Still I hold fast.

At what moment does a custard set? It transforms slowly in stages, at the edges and inward, from a mucilaginous goo to a firm jiggling jelly. At what moment does a drop of dew join the hazy mist lifting off the grass in a shaft of morning sunlight? Can physicists pinpoint the exact event? At what moment does a human soul change from a fearful, struggling, wounded child, to an empowered, generous, and radiant adult? I was lost in Arches National Park, racing the sunrise up the trail to meet that moment of light. Again, I found my path. Here at home the sun has cleared the forested horizon. For a moment it’s blinding, before limbs and clouds obscure its glory. And now it’s pulsing, speaking in beacon tongues. In this open, endless, barren sky of life, I weep and struggle without purpose. Rain must condense on a speck of dust to form a drop. Every simple event precipitates my future. A call from an art school director. A wink from a hopeful lover. A moment of instruction from my son on the proper form of the dead-lift. The tick-tock of a chemical vice being purged from my cells. The heat and the clarity commence. I wrote a song this morning, my first in years.

A lonely young boy is mesmerized by spiders and moss. He perceives the lightest breeze. It rustles in the sycamore trees, and gently lowers a leaf to the river’s edge, laying it in the water like a boat. A zealous ant struggles with a beetle many times its size. The distant chattering of school children fades from his awareness. The river cycles through the seasons. Spring floods push silty water over the bank. Low-water ripples quickly dry on summer baked stepping stones. Another change in the light, it has the flavor of autumn. The boy realizes he is alone now in the woods. His class is gone. They went off to math or history as he studied the real world. Unsure where he is, he does not panic but sits down in the middle of the path. Calm and content he waits knowing the others will return. That’s how we found him, sitting on the cool ground, surrounded by leaves and the unfolding drama found within the lives of bugs.