February 2017 – The Westside Muse

You may have noticed that I write a lot about travel. My photo galleries involve far off destinations that I’ve discovered and fallen in love with over the years.

You may have also noticed that I am not married.

Perhaps you are like I am and you can’t help but fall in love with a place far more than you have ever loved a potential partner. I’ve asked myself (a lot recently) if this is my problem. I can’t commit to a person because when I travel I wear my heart on my sleeve and would rather give it to a destination. A new adventure. A new climate. A new culture. This is a fatal flaw known as romanticizing and I am an expert in this art.

I have done this in the past; given my heart to a specific place and abandoned what could have been an epic relationship. Does this mean that I have chosen travel as a husband instead of a real life human partner?

So then what can realistically be done for gypsies like me? One idea is to come to terms and (with fierce abandon) embrace the wild spirit that lives in so many of us. To succumb to the notion that we will always be single if we chose to follow the call of our hearts and live a life of adventure. But is there a way to have it all? Is there a way to embrace this yearning to run and explore while maintaining a healthy marriage back “home” whatever home means to us? Can we blend both lives?

The flexible work schedule is a no-brainer on the Westside and working remotely is as common as fair trade coffee. We can look for that almost perfect partner who is as wild as we are and have a house (home?) in a place where it is possible to make enough of a living to allow us to run off at every opportunity. We’ll have to agree to home school our kids, who are all named after the location where they were conceived. It’s the marriage of the bohemian with the corporate, the wild with the traditional and it HAS TO WORK!

I have sacrificed enough time on the 405 freeway and in a brownish grey uninspired office with yellow flecked industrial carpet and eggshell walls to know that we were created for so much more. (Remember when I mentioned hating fluorescent lighting?) How easy for our internal fire to die a slow suffocating death because of the restraints of paid holiday and terrible business owners who disavow vacations due to their own insecurities of missing out on making the next dollar. For me, the chase of a sunset beats the chase of a dollar. Every time.

So this brings me back to the choice of travel vs. staying grounded and setting down roots. It is a scary thing, commitment. Whether we are committing to a person or a location, the idea that we MUST stay put is a hard pill for many to swallow. The bear grass may always seem greener (actually whiter in the bear grass case) in a new area code, but it’s the roots we establish that eventually give us strength and meaning and purpose. The catch is, for some of us, choosing travel as a life partner may ultimately prove to be more loyal and satisfying.

At this point, the only marriage I can comprehend is the marriage to self. So until I can be honestly open to more, you’ll find me running through the canyons or skiing through the glades. You’ll find me in nature, my first and truest love. You’ll find my wanderlust ruining my romantic relationships. At least for now…

Photo by Kelsey Lichtenstein. Deer Valley, Utah. 2017.

Good Morning Westsiders.

The rain is falling. Again. Another go slow and have that second (third) cup of coffee kind of morning. The dogs are napping and the world seems to be moving slowly as raindrops dance across my windows. We have had plenty of these mornings this winter. The irony is that I haven’t made use of this advantageous wet weather to write. Our Southern California winter has been this just-missed-the-deadline millennial poet’s ideal climate and I’ve been neglecting my passion for more practical tasks like “laundry” and “grocery shopping” – actually, scratch that last one. I have my groceries delivered these days, which is everything that is right and also wrong with living on the Westside. Everything can be delivered. Including wine, which I discovered last night.

The thing is, I’ve started writing so many times only to have my season appropriate stories, time out. That’s the problem with the holidays. When we should slow down it seems like our most tonic tasks are pushed aside and we red-line our internal RPMs to make it through Christmas parties, shopping, appointments, wrapping paper and ribbon, airport security lines and eggnog.

This is a photo from my Advent post that was never published.

Winter is the season when nature sleeps. It is resting. It is quiet. Perhaps we should take a page from Mother Nature’s book as well and use this season to go slow and tend to ourselves.

Winter is also my favorite time of year to venture into nature ALONE because the bears, too, are asleep.

I was having major Westside guilt for neglecting this site for the last few months. Why? In order to keep my head above water? Because I didn’t have time? Because it has to be perfect before I published? It’s like our morning devotionals (or meditations, or mantras, or insert your individual religious practice here). When we prioritize these rituals, we gradually see our lives fall in step and take on a more manageable cadence.

So I’m writing to say that I’m still here. And perhaps finally in a season of rest and recovery. But, even during this time of year where hibernation is a state of mind, I’m reminded through whispers of wind across the lake or the silence of a snowfall that there is still a spark at the core, during this frozen time, waiting to ignite when the time comes to reawaken.

xx,

Month: February 2017

Winter Waiting…