The Ache

I'm starting to feel it again...

I pulled a necklace out of my jewelry box a couple days ago. It's a beautiful silver filagree piece from Indonesia. I turned to my husband.

"You know we haven't taken a real trip for 2 years?"

He looked up at me apologetically. "You getting wrestless?"

I dropped my eyes and didn't answer. I didn't want to make him guilty. It wasn't his decision that kept us from traveling, that's for sure. I knew he was a wrestless as me. But if the means aren't there, they aren't there.

I used to discribe this wrestlessness to my friends as "the ache". Whenever I got cabin fever, I just told them I was feeling the ache. I used to write about it. Below are some poems I wrote a couple of years ago.

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Gypsy Blood~

So, you say you want to know
Why I do not claim a home?
Why I much prefer the road
And gypsy cart as my abode?
So you want to understand?
Well, follow me and lend a hand.
Got a recipe, I do
And it might fit the likes of you.
If you at first don’t understand
You never will, and never can.
But if you do, then maybe I
Have found someone to share the ride.

Throw your pipe dreams in the mix,
The flukes, the quirks you want to fix,
I'll throw in my wanderlust,
And some leftover sandal dust,
That twinge in your nose, or thumb perhaps,
That comes from looking at too many maps.
Secret hopes that you’ve protected
Old adventures recollected.
Throw them in, and close the lid
We'll let it sit then place our bids.

Ah, it's finished, bring the ladle
And join me here at the table
Here’s your glass – I’ll fill it full
Now take it up and have a pull.

So you like it? I do too.
I thought it would agree with you.
You seem to look with different eyes
At all there is to see – Besides,
The feel was always in your core,
The drink just makes you feel it more.
From birth the feel’s run through your veins
And no, it never goes away.
And yes, it is a curse, I know
Having to stay but longing to go.
The need to always run or veer
Away from what the they all call ‘here’.
The ache that throbs beside your heart
Will never quell until you start
To look for all the roads untraveled
Stitch up dreams someone unraveled,
Top the very best you’ve done,
To run till you yourself are stunned.

What’s the ache, I hear you ask?
It’s the wine that’s in your glass
That need to beet the path down smooth
That need to always be on the move
That need to tred untrodden mud
That, my friend, is Gypsy Blood.

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Defining 'Wanderlust'~

Where do the little roads go?
Does anybody know?
Does anyone care
If they stay here or go there?
If they end
If they bend
If they curve
If they swerve
If they’re long or if they’re short
If they end in wood or port
Would they take me to the hills?
And would I learn the hills fulfill?
Would they take me to the wood?
And would I find the wood is good?
Would they take me to the sea?
And would I find the sea in me?
Do people search for small back roads
Like little boys for little toads?
Or do roads long for traveling trekkers
Like the wood for woody peckers?
If they do, am I obliging
Of myself or to their tidings?
Do they beckon wand’ring heels
And is that what my spirit feels
When I do inside abide
And wish to be on yonder side
Of the widow’s see-through face
The trail’s conclusion sweet to taste.
Do I set off on own accord
Or react to calling words?
Do roads yearn to be traversed?
And would a road be thought of cursed
If deprived of plodding feet…
Are plodding feet it’s plotting’s treat?
The question central to this musing
Is “Do I go of my own choosing?”
Or do I hear all day long
The road’s sirenic, drawing song…
In my ears this song is built,
But in my heart, do I feel guilt?
Guilt of stealing from the path…
Could this be the aftermath
Of robbing the road of its desire-
And is this robbing truly dire?
Am I interpreting this ‘guilt’
As something in me not fulfilled?
That threat’ning in me to soon go mad
Unless a trip can soon be had
Would “I must go!” be better said
“I must pay my due to the road” instead?
The guilt at leaving the road untouched-
Is that what I call “wanderlust”?

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Quote the Ocean~

The sea sang its song as he played along
And kept time with the tap of his foot

His leg o'er the dock, the ocean did mock
The brown tip of the toe of his boot.

Quoth the Ocean "You want to, my chantey does haunt you
It tugs on the walls of your heart.

"So close and so far, still stuck there you are,
Why do you not up and depart?"

"Tis true," said the man, his guitar in his hand,
his gazed held by Valhalla's halls

"Constantly Sirens who cross your horizons
taunt me with beckons and calls"

Quoth the Ocean "The time's perfect! Step down on my surface!
I'll carry you to where they sing

"You're insides grow bleary, your life it grows weary
of balancing on a guitar string."

Quoth the man "What far places, what lingering traces
Of old will I see if I go?

"What have you to offer that would make my suffer-
ing worth it, I'd like to know?"

Quoth the Ocean "Why ask me? Why do you harass me?
You do not care where you reside.

"Suffering!" Ocean sneered "You suffer more here!
You ache for the wide open path,

"For unending sky is the only reply
To that ache that will sooth it's sharp wrath"

Quoth the man "You see through me. You're waves do undo me
I have nothing to stay for at all.

"Yet all things to go for, what have I to show for
my years of ignoring your call?"

Quoth the Ocean "You've nothing but hollowed out suff'ring
And a hollowed out heart for it's twin

"You'll die from your wondering, thinking and pondering
What your now stagnant life could have been"

Quoth the Man "So what you suppose is that I do not know this?
That I have not thought this same thing?"

Quoth the Ocean "Don't raise your voice! It's been all your choice
to stay there or go where mermaids sing."

Quoth the Man "There you're wrong, I do hear their song
But I've fetters my own to contend with.

"It tears at my middle to see even a little
of what I could be thrown to the wind with."

"The sun sings it's chorus, up with it comes Horus
to jeer from his place far away

"At my current unluckiness and how I am stuck in this
place where I'll rot and decay."

"So all you don't care for is what you stay there for?"
Quoth the Ocean in final attempt

"I'm tied into staying with chords never fraying."
The Ocean still sings his lament

So his fingers did strum as he inwardly hummed
Of his longing to wander and roam

And grew the sea's chantey, and with it his fancy
To see what laid beyond its white foam