NOT FEELING WELL - A SPECIAL TIME TO THINK

Having spent the last couple of days not feeling up to par...I don't know, cold, flu, something like that although mild-ish, I've had just enough energy to do some thinking. When all you can do is lie on the sofa or lounge chair, thinking and reading are about it.

Thinking about what to do this winter is what I'm doing. I love my part time job at University Gardens in St. Lou, of course. But I have a vagabond spirit. I want to go away for maybe Jan, Feb and part of March to see if my love lies elsewhere. And I'm not talking about my romantic love, I'm talking about that thing that resides inside oneself that says, "now you're talking." It can be a feeling about a place, a person, a job, a natural setting. Just about anything qualifies to be ones "love." Maybe I just enjoy the search for it and will never realize it's right under my nose...not a new idea, no doubt.

But I have such a wanderlust. I want to know what's over, just behind that farthest hill I can see when I let my gaze get fuzzy while looking off to the horizon. I've just read a book about the back hills of Virginia and felt so warmed and delighted by it that I started to really wonder if my thinking about Asheville might not have some real merit to it.

Oh, yeah, I visited Asheville, NC last month and found it a divine city. Full of every kind of thing I love. A great natural foods grocery, many "green" businesses, fun-to-do public stuff, and the like. Working and living there seems like a wonderful thing to do next in the journey of my life. Something seems to call me there...just like Tucson did for the last four years. But would I want to come back to the Lou? That's what I'm not sure about.

I think that making a commitment to something is what has to happen. Like the commitment I have so naturally made to St. Louis for so long. Of course, if I did move fully to Asheville, I'd have to somehow entice my son and daughter in law along...perhaps that is quite a big part of what keeps me here. Not sure. I know if I ever did move to Asheville and if they ever did decide to visit, I'm sure they'd fall in love like I did. But I guess time marches on and we shall see what we shall see soon enough.