Sometimes the only reason to travel is for the gifts that it provides a writer. The opportunity to find yourself lost in a new world filled with mystery and adventure is indescribable, or so it seems to me. Thousands of miles from home I stare out the window and embrace the majesty of the scenery.
I love this mountain setting, green trees, hills and a lake. I love walking around a quiet town and discovering little shops and the people that run them. The lake calls to me, begs me to come immerse myself in it. Somewhere there are fish that wish to do battle with me.
Outside the sun has begun to warm the earth and my children are exposed to things, people and a place that I know in a different way. They walk and look around and find themselves granted a glimpse of something that their father loves.
Too young to appreciate what it means to me now there will come a day when they are old enough to understand that the way to see inside dad’s head is to spend some time in these places. They’ll follow the trails and in the silence learn some of what I find so beautiful.
Endless hikes that take us to places where you cannot hear cars, trucks or airplanes provide a setting that my beloved LA cannot match. There are multiple sides and levels to me- there are things that I want them to share with me but I don’t know how to do it other than in this manner.
Experience. That is the only thing I can offer that might provide the background and feeling that I want them to have.
In my dreams I often think that the life of a writer, the one that I could live would be like this. Trips to places both near and fat. Moments where we step into a different place, time and way of life. These things call to me. The idea of having a cabin in the woods where I can escape to do nothing but live and write is something that I want.
So as I sit here flinging out these silly musings I remind myself that I tell the children that part of living means trying to find a way to live your dreams and not dream your life. That is advice that I work on trying to follow myself.
I think that I am doing it. It may be slow, but I am finding ways to make it happen. And that progress makes me happy, makes me smile. Impatient though I may be, it is good to know that I can live the way I teach my children to.
It has been fun kids. Enjoy….
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