Day 5, Every morning and every night

Yesterday I heard from an old friend. She was sharing a stream-of conscious journal entry. Much of it had to do with her daily routine. I was struck by the term she used to characterize this: ritual. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, ritual is "A ceremony in which the actions and wording follow a prescribed form and order." Fair enough.

But what about the word "ceremony?" According to the same source, ceremony is "a formal act or set of acts performed as prescribed by ritual or custom." In fact a ceremony is a ritual. But then the dictionary goes on to this definition of ceremony: A formal act without intrinsic purpose; an empty form. 

Now I take exception to this. The whole point of ritual, and thus the whole point of daily routines, is to instill a sense of completeness, of focus to the day. We begin our days with the routine of getting out of bed, getting dressed, taking sustenance, setting rooms and self in order for the day. We end our days in reverse, setting rooms and self in order for the night, getting dressed in nightclothes, getting into bed. These are not meaningless, purposeless acts.  They are necessary to get the job of living done: one prepares for a job, and one cleans up afterward. 

What my friend does, however, goes far beyond this. She imbues her daily ritual with insight and observation. She sees what the day is doing, she stretches her body and feels the sensations of life, she luxuriates in preparing and consuming her breakfast. Her monkey brain may be skittering about concerns and fears, but her conscious brain is focused on the particular joy of the moment. If the purpose of life is, as some say, to experience it, then these rituals are not empty form. They are full of meaning, they generate and witness meaning.

So, every morning and every night, I perform my rituals. And although some days I'm not aware I'm performing a ceremony, that is the fine.  The ceremony is there to uphold me through those dark days when I wonder why I am getting up, what I am doing with my life. The ritual propels me forward into my job of living, and sometimes it even fills me with joy and gratitude. Like it does my friend. Amen, so be it.

Day 4, Dark frost was in the air

 She had planted the camellias in December. This was South Carolina, there was no worry about snow or hail or below-freezing temperatures.  The coldest it got was in the low 50s, high 40s.  That’s why they had moved here, why they had wintered over here for 15 years. So, she planted her camellias, two along the driveway, one out by the road, one in the backyard to the north of the screened-in porch. She could watch the backyard bush from the swing. The others would greet her as she returned home from the day’s excursions. 

Last year’s camellias had died in the summer. Not enough water, they said. Camellias are hardy plants, they can grow anywhere, but any newly-planted shrug needs to establish itself before it can weather the extremes. Even South Carolina had extremes. This year, she’d try again, plant the camellias the minute she arrived, give them the full four months of TLC so they could last through the summer.

She’d never been a gardener. Yes, she had a vegetable patch: tomatoes, peppers, carrots, corn.  But that was in Illinois, land of the black alluvial soil. All you had to do was remove the sod and dig a hole. Water some, weed some, harvest.Easy peasy. A few trees for a windbreak, some shrubs and flowers along the driveway, and lots of green lawn. They had a riding lawn mower for that. It certainly wasn’t landscaped. It was simple, and nothing really needed to be pampered.

This South Carolina property though…People gave her plants, and she planted them. Her best friend was a master gardener, although that creekside property was more jungle than garden. Still, she knew her stuff, and was happy to share. An herb garden was slowly developing, along with lemon and peach trees. They looked pretty at least. And this year one of the lemon trees was producing. Huge green globes of hung in the small tree.  Last year there had been three, but this year there were at least two dozen. Progress.

It was January. The camellias were producing flowers, She picked them as they opened, pink ones from the front, red ones with yellow centers from the back. They floated in the tiny ramekins, turned brown, were replaced. It was a gentle ritual, and today she could see many buds,  

But dark frost was in the air. Tonight the temps would dip to the 20s, and snow was on the way. The snow would become rain, and the rain would coat roads and bushes with ice. She went to the linen cupboard for sheets and table cloths to cover the bushes, and in the dark, gathered in the green lemons to ripen indoors.

Day 3, Coldly, Sadly descending

The cheeping, whistling, chipping, whirring bird calls. The mandolin and fiddle and E’s voice explaining chord progressions, LL’s voice talking story, B laughing. (He'd been describing the neighbors across the street, and she of course knew them and all the backstory. We're Yankees, she's local.)  Cool-warm air: cool in the breeze, warm in the sun. Distant dog bark.

.The three of them, our host C (B's wife), E and LL, have started playing Liberty. B talks to me about everything and nothing. I’m on the screened-in back porch, leaning back on the chaise longue. I'm trying to write about the prompt. He wants to be host, so I look up from the iPad, smile, ask a question, show interest. More mandolin music forms the soundtrack to our talk, but it's really where the action is, two rooms away, but so close in this small bungalow, with all the doors open and the resonance of wooden floors. I want to get up and play with them, but I don’t have the nous. I know the pieces they are playing but not in that key. I don't know chords, don't have the tunes under my fingers.

B leaves and I return to my words. What "coldly sadly descends?"  Fog on the hills? A woman on the stairs? Water along a streambed? What sort of thing descends? Objects, matter, air, water, sound. Thoughts, lives in a downward spiral, night... all quiet, methodical, dark, falling falling falling. But what is happening now is intent, cheerful, in the moment. Good sounds, good times. And that’s the case with most of the lives around me. Busy, involved, focused. Maybe controlled and repetitive, but with an element of surprise, of improvisation, a possible tumble of notes, a possible change of pace

In the room, two doors away, I hear them working out the chords to The Star of County Down. I set down my iPad, walk through the house to the living room, where E's violin case sits open on the couch, and B sit's nearby on the other couch. The sun streams through the window, warm, happy. Nothing cold or sad about it. I start to fiddle.

Day 2, Baggage

Yesterday I wrote about packing. Today's prompt could clearly be a continuation of those thoughts. But of course baggage has so many connotations. The emotional, the physical, the mental baggage that we carry with us, that weigh us down, but also fill our needs: all of it could be discussed.  Do we travel light, trusting that any forgotten items can be found along the journey? Or do we try to control our future, making sure we have brought everything we could possibly need? Most of our journey is not Everest or Borneo (and even those are no longer days and weeks away from supplies.) We aren't striking forth into the wilderness. Personal medications and ID and credit cards are all that one needs. But there are the intangibles. Most of my friends bring along something to read. I bring my knitting. E brings a mandolin. All of these fill moments of waiting, but they also create a sense of home, and that is more important, if the point of the trip is not to escape one's self.  I remember M's semi-nomadic friend, who traveled with a small suitcase but always included a small framed painting which, placed on a bedside table, transformed the smallest and most barren room into her personal sanctuary. 

So, these are all aspects of baggage that I could pursue, that I could write about, could make part of a fictional character's actions. I could totally wax philosophical, or I could try to emulate Tim O'Brien's list, Things They Carried.  But I'm not Tim O'Brien.

There is my unending search for the perfect luggage, of course. As some people collect shoes or wine (both of which indeed carry us to wonderful places in wonderful ways), I collect travel containers. I have totes that were given to me or to friends as SWAG at work conventions. Brightly-colored with mystic logos, usually made of  canvas or recycled plastic, they serve to hold groceries and craft supplies. I have totes that people have bought for me, some very sturdy indeed, with innumerable pockets and zippered closures, while others are made of nylon and fold up small to stuff into a bag that will slip neatly into pockets and other totes. There are backpacks that fulfill specific needs (holding cameras and lenses, holding laptops, holding camelbacks.)  The huge bags no longer travel with me, but hold a stash of clothes at my various homes away from home. I bought them during my really nomadic days, when most of my belongings were in storage and I was traveling nonstop. Midsize bags, overnight bags and carryon bags are also scattered about the U.S. A few went home with a visiting sister, replacing the paper bags she had accumulated on her trip. There's a shoulder bag that I bought in Florida to hold the portable piano keyboard (it being just a little too long for my other luggage).  There's the carryon I bought in Oslo to hold the extra purchases I had made during my 3 month stint petsitting. There's the most recent acquisition, a shoulder bag that I bought (also in Oslo) to use on my 10-day jaunt to London.  I left the larger, more unwieldy bag with the broken handle in the Radisson Blue luggage room, along with the sweaters and boots and cleats. 

All of these bags fill a purpose, and that purpose changes with my trips.  When I go on a hiking trip, I leave behind the fabulous overnight carryon (perfect for holding CPAP and electronic devices plus a change of clothes). Instead, I bring the daypack, with the walking stick poking out from the main compartment, catching on doorways and taking up too much space in the overhead binds. When my trip is for several weeks, I still use the travel closet, but it goes into a larger piece of luggage than its original hard-shelled carryon. Nothing is quite right for the purpose, it's always jury-rigged. I suppose there will never be a piece of luggage that is light, easily carried up and down stairs and onto the London Underground, and holds a walking stick neatly. Also, there are purses, none of which conveniently hold iPhone, passport, sunglasses, earbuds, keys and eyedrops all at once.

But, this obsession with baggage is truly that of a person of privilege. I think about Fiddler on the Roof, with Lazar Wolf carrying a bag with an umbrella on top as they all prepare to leave Anatevka. There is no perfect baggage for a refugee. 

Day 1 About the land I wander, all forlorn

I've been wandering since I retired in 2017, almost 8 years. I tell people I'm an international pet sitter. Many people wonder, Where are you now? That's a simple question, with a quick easy answer. I am where I am. It's less easy to say where I'm going next, or why.  It's even harder to understand the point of all this wandering. I say, 3 years of being a nomad prepared me for 8 months of solitude during COVID. But that isn't a point, that's an unexpected result. Mom asks, Are you still living the wonderful K-life (her version of the Life of Reilly.) Yes, I say, wondering if aimlessness could be a purpose, a wonderful goal. P demands, When are you coming home? I flounder through a reply, but leave the crucial question unanswered: where is home?

In fact, to all of this I have no answer. There is no plan. There is no goal. I'm a nomad, I say. My official residence is in New Mexico. I'm retired. I don't know where I'll be next. I'm not really sure where I am now. My travel blanket is almost 9 months completed, but I ran out of the grey-green yarn that records my stay with E in B and substituted a darker green. Now nothing is definite, the record is mixed up, and my certitude with it.

In November I was packing for a 6-month wander, from NM to PDX to IL to SC to FL, to Tromso to Oslo to London, back to SC, then full circle to NM via IL From autumn, to winter, to spring. From the high desert to the mountains to the ocean to the prairies, to the barrier islands to the fjords. From a country of live oaks and Spanish moss, to the Arctic tundra and the Northern Lights, to the rainy London streets. By plane, train, bus and automobile. Even a short jaunt on a boat. I needed to pack rain gear, cleats, hats, gloves, shorts, swimming suit, sweaters...

H said, that's some graduate-level packing.  P said, this is giving me hives. I pondered....Do I have boots in IL that will work in Norway? Do I have a winter coat in PDX? should I pack a walking stick? B suggested I take a picture of what I have in each location.  I've scattered belongings across the US, marking my territory, leaving my scent. Could anyone track me? Can I keep track of myself?

B texts me: 
Washing your laundry.  

Just last week you left by train. 

Strands of hair remain.