Today in the northern hemisphere we have leaned about as far away from the sun as we are able, and the amount of light and warmth received is at its nadir; the moon races round us in a white-lit lunar descant, and we ourselves whirl on this earth’s surface at the speed of sleep to watch and make sense of it all. From a simple Amen of planetary mechanics, the poetic and spiritual voice of every race and probably every species composes its narrative of life and (so dark, so cold, so silent) death.

Thirty years of summers as we entered our middle years, our parents becoming grandparents, and our children, adults: their growth as imperceptible in the moment as the changing girth of trees, and as startling in retrospect as the forest that replaces thready saplings and threadbare underbrush.

We’ve grown every which way. At first in the same direction, though now, as each one finds their feet, in a more cavalier flight of seed and leaves, the roots in some shared soil (which one? where?) and reaching for the same sun (that one, there) but to the east and to the west. That’s the nature of Being, and the nature of beings. Take flight!

The year is 1990, and I am standing in a field in Glencoe, Minnesota. The horizon is wide here; the trees that rush from the east to greet the Mighty Mississippi seem hesitant to venture far from her safe waters, into the wide, wide prairies, and huddle here and there around farmsteads, brought two or three generations ago by the sodbusters who begged shelter from the merciless Alberta winds, even partially, even for a moment, that sped unimpeded from the Rockies to the Great Lakes.

I do see how straight-ahead thinking gets you there, faster. I’m not convinced, however, that the destination to which the don’t-look-back, no-holds-barred train is heading is a place I really want to be.

So, no – lest you ask – I haven’t published my novel, because I haven’t written it (yet), and I haven’t pressed a CD because I haven’t filled one (yet), and I haven’t built my house in my dream property because the dream hasn’t ended, and I haven’t stopped spinning because there are too many jaw-droppingly incredible places to visit and languages to learn and people to embrace…

Yesterday’s ice storm was erased by the night, and my little portion of earth has rolled around into sunshine, clouds dispersed, streets cleared, warm.

*

My flight (flight away from…? flight toward…?) departs in seven days, one week into which I will pour as many tangible tasks as I am able: a last box of odds and ends to be packed, a shipment of our personal belongings to be negotiated and executed, a three-automotive albatross (one broken car, one damaged car, one motorcycle to be stored), a “last dance” or “parting dance” in Boston, a rented house to be cleaned cleaned cleaned of everything that was us and is me.

It’s difficult to see how much the sense of self is tied to surroundings, until of course you begin the process of departure, whether it’s a trip, or travel, or a birth or a death. Family and friends most viscerally part of your stone and sinew; but structures and walkways, weather and seasons, even the most subtle of daily habits are all you, all me.

“The Moment Before Knowing” by Brooke @ DeviantArt.com

Here’s the re-issue of a photo that looks like magazine copy, but is in fact an iPhone image I myself took in Poble Nou, residential neighborhood of Barcelona, which is soon to be home-away-from-home (or home-a-short-hop-from away-home Boston, or from away-away-home Minnesota, where my heart still resides): a landing pad for my kids and family whenever possible; a vital new life for Cata and me; and fertile soil for many new friendships and projects.

The ticket has been purchased, and phase one of my journey to Catalunya begins in 19 days. I’ll be meeting Catalina, who will already have arrived on the 15th of this month, and we’ll begin our search for new digs, new friends, and new living patterns. I’ll return April 15 for 2-3 months, to attend my daughter’s graduation, participate in a family vacation with my parents, and tie up any loose ends I haven’t been able to put in order in the next coupe of weeks. Then… whoosh!

The wind blew through new leaves, now completely unfurled, southwest to northeast. That is the direction of the sun. I sat with my daughter and thought: “How I will miss my mountainside, riverside seat.” And then I thought, better: “How much I have enjoyed my mountainside, riverside seat.” One thought closed the heart, the next opened it.

When the night had fully fallen, I cooked myself a meal: I was contented with the vegetable flavors and the tiny torch of habanero. I poured the last of that bottle of wine. With glass at eye level (dramatically, for an audience of none) I turned and saluted my rooms. They were as they had always been: Buddha in the corner and Bible in the bookcase; a banner for the Earth in the window, while a guitar dreamed against the sill; the successful house plantings overflowing their containers; and chairs set casually away from the table where visitors, late for their homes, had pushed them. What I have watered, I have been.

I am up late working, as is the case so often this year, when personal and business projects demand most everything I’ve got (and I give it). To make sure this tired self doesn’t oversleep, I set the alarm, so this daily cycle of which I am proud (and somewhat repulsed) to be champion might repeat, again, and again.

I see myself a very clever and determined machine. I know success to the right may be failure to the left. I know this is a passage, not a destination. I’ve got the muscle; I’ll climb this mountain.