Stoking the Fires!

There are moments in life where the present situation is unenjoyable, but is needed to get down the road where you want to be. Always try to find the silver lining. It's like taking that pungent medicine that tastes so foul. It may taste like a rotting shoe. In the end it helps, but it isn't something that you want to do again. That's the way I feel about grad school. There is something to be said about to much schooling. I've just about hit that point. To much book work. To little real world. I'd say they couldn't pay me to stay in academia...but they kinda are paying me for the next 17 months (to my luck).

I try and live in the moment. Take in life as it comes at me. Enjoy the rays and cherish every morsel. I've said it before, and it bares repeating, but people plan to much to die in this country. Good to have a backup plan, but not good to live for retirement. So not to get stuck in the repeating record again. Just saying to enjoy whats in front of you and try new things as they come.

Which is a nice intersection into my next thought. Becoming mature and "growing up" is fine and dandy. It's something that should naturally come with experience, age, and consequently wisdom. Our society, that being in the United States, just LOVES to squash childlike tendency and imagination. To dream nearly makes someone weird. Those who do keep their dreams and spread their wonder across the land are considered "weird" or "nonconformists". I raise my cup to those who do what they want. Keeping that childhood dreaming going is rather easy for some and next to impossible for others. I've never lost it. I find amazement in most things. Nature. People. Which are part of nature. The key is to find that which inspires the imagination. Stokes the fire of curiosity. And curiosity is the one thing that I've never had a deficiency of.

In my childhood, past the age of 3 or so, I never traveled. My Mother is practically scared of her own shadow. She did take me hiking quite a bit. That could be one reason that the forest is one of my happy spots. A zen type of atmosphere, if you will. I dreamed of traveling off into the sunset and exploring anything and everything. I love to explore. To poke around and find what there is to find. To get my fingers into the soil. To climb the tree and see what is across the horizon.

I've never lost that will do explore. Less of a will and more of a deep seeded need. Thankfully, I have the skill to describe my thoughts and experiences through words. I suppose my youth has led me down the road of wanting to live a more nomadic life style. In this day and age we have many options on how to go about this. I'd always wanted to just live anywhere and everywhere, but i do remember the moment, some years ago, when i discovered the wonderful world of the motorhome. It was like some grand epiphany. I was rooting around in my Aunt's book collection (she has one of the most extensive garden book collection i've ever seen) and found a gem called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Homes-Handmade-Houses-Wheels/dp/089104129X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361648284&sr=8-1&keywords=rolling+homes">"Rolling Homes" by Jane Lidz</a>. You want to talk about an obsession made real. I can flip through this book for hours on end. It may have been on of the first books on the subject. This was literary coal for my internal fires. Books do this to me, but this one in particular was very high BTU. You know, if you look back at your life (any one of you reading) you can find defining moments. This book became a defining moment. I wanted to live in one of these rolling homes. Most motorhomes are full of prefab floppy poor quality material. Weight is an issue for gas and tire reasons, but that doesn't mean you can't make it "home". I've always loved cruising yachts for that reason. The woodwork is more homey. One can do this to a motorhome if you know how. In some case people don't care. Just look through "Rolling Homes" and tell me there isn't a personal touch in every one of those.

My brain gets thinking about how exactly I want to handle my "Rolling Home". Do I want an RV, travel trailer, or tiny home on a railer (trust me these are distinct).

or

or

Home is where you lay your pillow and find comfort. I hope to find a place one day that I can dock and find comfort.

Nature

O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy choir, -
To be a meteor in thy sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do, -
Only - be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care;
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city's year forlorn.

"Henry David Thoreau"

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett