I Want to Roam
In the last 59 years, I’ve sometimes spoken my mind, but mostly when it’s easy and I don’t have to make myself too vulnerable. I rarely self-advocate when it matters. I tend to bottle things up until they come out in anger. Or in very disconcerting dreams that curse my sleep. I have spent long years with my emotional plate too full to address all the smaller irritants. Now that the kids are out of the house, those smaller irritants have built up and churn in me deeply, and it’s not good. I plug away at things and do a reasonable amount of self-care and pursue my interests, but I don’t feel like I’m thriving, like I’m not fully the person I’m supposed to be.
I hate what covid took from me, and took from us all. Prior to the lockdown, I would go nuts if I didn’t get out of the house at least once a day. Now I can go up to maybe three days, just puttering or laying around the house. I’ve become a time waster. Since I started this blog, my daughter told me that I need to promote it on Facebook and Instagram. I had gone off Facebook probably six or eight years ago, because it was eating too much of my time, and I felt much better for it. Now I’ve gotten sucked into Instagram. The only thing I ever post are my blog posts, but I’ve spent countless hours looking at make-over reels and garden clean-ups, and dog humor. I’m deeply ashamed of how much time I’ve wasted there. I’m thinking of deleting it off my phone and paying my daughter to be my social media manager, such as that would be.
All this goes to say, I am unhappy with myself. I don’t get out as much as I’d like, and I don’t serve on committees at church like I used to – I was just so burned out. But that means I don’t see friends as often, and my circle of friends is smaller. I’ve decided that I should start having dinner parties to try to reconnect. I want to laugh more.
I’ve had knee/hip/back pain for well over a year. I had a back injury in college and I need a knee replacement, and between those two, it messes up everything on my right side including my hamstring, glutes and groin. For over a year it’s been that it hurts to get up out of bed in the morning, and it hurts to get up and go to bed at night. I have to do PT exercises every single morning or I can’t stand up straight. I have an orthopedist, physical therapist, orthopedic masseuse, and now an osteopath and have been doing physical therapy for what seems like forever. Plus I’ve been trying to lose weight in order to get a knee replacement and did really well for a while, but that’s now stalled and I feel ashamed and like a failure.
However, the osteopath and water therapy and land therapy have been near-miraculous, and a couple weeks ago I woke up with the feeling of being ready to take-on the day. The depression had lifted, and I hadn’t even realized how it had been pushing me down. It’s wonderful to not be in so much pain, and to feel like I actually want to do things. I’ve actually started moving around the kitchen instinctively again, rather than carefully so as not to tweak something.
What I really feel is the desire to get away, by myself, feel the wind in my hair, free of responsibilities. Not having to cook meals and do laundry. Not having to put gas in the car or go to appointments. Not even having to do my bible study homework. I want to roam.
But of course I live in New England and the things I want to do are not really New-England types of things. I would give anything to go sit on the beach and listen to the waves and watch the sunset. But in California. I want to drive down PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and smell the ocean and enjoy the California culture. I’ve thought about heading down to the Connecticut shore or even Rhode Island, but it’s just not the same. The beaches aren’t so broad and white, the waves are too small, if there are any, and the sun sets in the west, not the east. And the vibe is all wrong. I spent some time a my friend’s beach cottage with a few other gals recently – ocean view and sea breeze – it was wonderful and I needed it and wanted to stay forever. But it didn’t feel like roaming.
I’ve seen lots of the best national parks, but I haven’t seen the Utah parks – Bryce, Zion, Arches, etc. They are huge and colorful and maybe desolate and expansive. Those are places you can really roam, drive forever and take in the whole of it and just breathe.
There is a place in our town, a mile or two from my house. I drive up a narrow two-lane road, and it weaves up and up to the grand elevation of about 400 feet above sea level. Not exactly the Rockies, but it’s something. There is a quiet little stop sign and a dead end, and I pull a u-turn so I can look east. Up on the hill, there is a field of tall grasses, and another on the other side of the road that is sometimes tall and sometimes mowed. The smell of fresh cut grass is so primal and earthy. But best of all is when there is a breeze, and the wind dances though the tall grass. I think that’s one of the most beautiful things in nature – dancing tall grass.
These field are framed by mature trees of various species; I don’t know what they are, but the depth of green and multitude of shades of verdant, their varied shapes and heights, and their differing trunks and types of leaves – this all gives me peace. And they move gently in the breeze. Occasionally there are a couple of cows. Out past the fields there are hills, and in the cleavage where they meet I can see one more, larger hill off in the distance. I’ve taken to driving up there on the way home, and just parking and sitting there with the windows down.
I listen to the bugs and the birds, and often am able to see them and track them. One bird had such bright under-plumage, that I literally thought that he had some orange emergency tape stuck to him, but no. There are a few wild flowers, and mid-summer there are stands of Queen Anne’s Lace. I sit there in either the warmth of the summer sun or the cool of the spring and fall and just breathe. I do my intentional deep breathing routine and cause my body to relax. I breathe in all the smells and listen to the quiet and to the sounds of the fields. My eyes relax as they look at nature rather than being overstimulated by civilization and technology. My shoulders sag and I unclench my fists. And even if I have things to do or groceries getting warm in the back of the car, I sit there for at least twenty minutes. That’s what it takes for me to feel like me again.
So there’s the conundrum: I need my friends, and I need more connections, but I also desperately need my solitude in the places I love. I also want to make my life fuller and more worthwhile than it is. I want to make the days and years rich with joy, rich with the kinds of accomplishment that matter. I don’t want to waste time on things that don’t matter.
So for the time being I drive up that hill and rest and enjoy, knowing that later, when we retire and the kids are totally independent, I will roam. And hopefully, my friends will roam with me.
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