Anniversary Night

One year, one place. Interrupted by many gypsy excursions hither and yon, but the keyholder of one dwelling in the universe for an entire year, as of today. First time in my adult life.

   An ocean of puffy golden clouds over the Wasatch, crescendo to pink, dissappate, darken. City lights twinkling behind charcoal silhouettes of trees, the last stripe of red flaring over the Great Salt Lake before the sunset is out, snuffed by the shades of enveloping night.  Enter on its waves, its obscuring curtains of black - cricket song, cool gentle breeze and motorcycle hum. Salmon baking, bed of rice waiting inside, garlic pepper goodness adrift in the air. All this from the back deck, lower level, same condo, different year. One. Whole. Year. And I'm still here. 

  I cut my hair today. While driving. On the interstate. Reached for an unsuspecting pair of scissors and lopped my ponytail off. I'd been contemplating a change half seriously, thinking of a birthday rite of passage. Some changes need to happen with no further thought in the moment they're given, though - and so it is and will be. Haggard and choppy until I have time to bask in the opulent radiance of a salon, get it shaped, colored, teased. I won't pretend to mind until then, it wasn't about the aesthetic, but rather the liberation and shedding of a finished history. Time spoke and the blade fell. Hadn't been above the shoulders since middle school.

  Birthday in a month. Edging in on some of the goals I'd set when musing about it a few posts ago. Cutting useless weight from my hair, frame, habits. Honing in. Simplifying. And honestly, some days still just trying not to drown. All is well though, happy to be alive, in my own shoes and on my own road, crossing state lines ceaselessly, the means to the tying of ever-loosening, unruly ends. I am so nauseatingly, exhaustedly sick of traveling. But I'm at the end of the what-I-wouldn't-give rope - and I'm not giving up what's left for the comfort of sitting still. 

  It's progress of sorts to have one place I've come back to for a solid year. Like a homing pigeon. Perhaps in years to come, I'll cease to fly the coop and figure out what it really means to be still. 

  And then again maybe not. This gypsy blood runs strong though wearied, aged and with increased responsibility.  

JH