“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
― Joan Didion

                                                                                            

You can miss a place as much as a loved one. That longing can take on an ache deep in your heart just the same. I never thought I’d feel that way about any place but home. I am not a good traveler. I get homesick. I love my home. We’ve put so much into it. I love where I’m comfortable. I feel best with familiar things surround me.

I certainly never thought I’d come to miss the area where my husband loved to camp in the
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Tolerate maybe, never love.

Maybe, because after my first child was born I started seeing danger where I’d never seen it before, or because I lost my father so young and came to realize early on that life was so very fragile, so temporary.

Or maybe, because I get lost at the turn of a corner. Oh, I know exactly where I am. It’s just I don’t know where that is. For me, I go up a trail and when I come back down, it looks completely different. It might just as well be a different country. Actually, I have to face it. I’m lost. And I’m alright with that.

My husband has been taking me to the same place for camping for almost all our vacations. For me, it is always a different place. I’m a cheap traveler because I will never feel as if I’ve seen that, done that. I’m ok with that. I’m ok because I always find something new, something wonderful, or exciting, no matter whether the place is new or not. And always poems find me.

Oh, there was a time I hated going. I did. It was wilderness and frightening, especially being in charge of three little boys four years apart. Camping just seemed to me like I was doing what I did every day only in tougher circumstances. Growing up I had never been on what could be called a real vacation. Our family never went anywhere for more than two days and usually that was to my grandparents in Salt Lake City.

I was determined my boys would love the outdoors like their father. I was determined because I knew it was good for them and important to appreciate the outdoors, the environment. Yeah, I’m one of those. A tree hugger. I’m not radical. I just love animals, love wild and want my kids and theirs to know and love it, too. Even so, when I was stressed, tired and anxious about the terrain, the animals sighted, the ‘green’, the scenery spoke to me. I started looking for ways and things I could love about the place. And I started writing about those things. Poems, and stories, and novels. There was so much to inspire me.

Over the years, I learned to love it. Last year when the doctor told me I couldn’t go to high altitudes, it broke my heart. The campground is over 8000 ft. The trails and favorite spots we like to trek over 10,000 ft. Blood pressure goes up at high altitude, sometimes 20-30 points.

But I got the go-ahead last month. We only had four days. I had to be back for labs. Not enough, but I was going to just feel blessed. It was so good to be gone. Away from phones, internet, computers, caregiving.

It was good to be back, to hear the wind in the quakies, smell the pine, watch the hawks wheel the sky, see stars, breath wild, listen for poems. 

Weaning Off Prednisone

A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of. –Stanley Kunitz

I’ve now been weaning off prednisone since March. Slowly, to be sure. More slowly than I want. I’m anxious, impatient. Aren’t we all when we want so much to be ‘normal’? (It’s very hard for us humans to get the idea that there is a new normal, always.)

There have been setbacks. A staph infection in my elbow and of all things, around my fingernails, a terrible cold. Then, a sore hip/back, so I couldn’t keep up my 2 mile walks, (done for health and peace) but what do you do when you walk and get so sore you’re done for the day, or not walk and maybe, be able to go through your day without too much pain. I fought it, which seems to be my MO and then, finally I surrendered again.

I cuss ‘em all and regrouped. I’ve been doing that a lot. I hate it, I’m learning. I’m too dang stubborn. But, bright spot, as I’ve come off the meds. I’ve actually started writing again. Not typing, but working on poetry.

Though of all I write, poetry is the hardest, it is also the smallest and I needed small. Right now, a novel has just too many details to keep track of to work on. And I have several in need of good editing, which I don’t trust myself to do…, yet. So, poetry has been my go to. My salvation, as always.

That and this blog, that no one reads.

Small, concise contained pieces of writing. And I was right; there was something there, something waiting from all the typing I’ve been doing. It was not wasted time. Much of the little shadow work, which is what I call ideas and notes, are producing poems I’m pleased with, poems that are deeper than I once thought they would be, poems that ease my heart, somehow.

Plus, I’ve been having fun. No stress. No rush to get anything done, no pressure applied to self to be published, prove to myself and everyone else that my time has not being wasted. I’ve just been writing and loving it, so grateful for it, just like I use to before I stressed about publishing or trying to earn a little money with my work.

I’ve decided that idea is banned from this computer, this house, this mind. I’m too old to worry about proof, or acknowledgement. What I think of myself is going to have to do. I know I was born to be a writer. I knew it before I was ten years old. Why else do I see things the way I do and always have? Why else have I always notice the things/details  I do, did? I’ve always been an observer—a stand on the sidelines and witness kind of person. (I reminded myself of that scene from Gone With The Wind, where Scarlett is watching everyone dance, but can’t as she is in mourning, but her feet are playing happy. That is me, only it’s my thoughts doing the dance, my body is just fine watching.

Though I’ve always felt a misfit, I love my view and wouldn’t have traded it for popularity or less angst, then or especially now. It’s just me wanting to find the secrets I know nothing of.