.isitabout?

What is it about the unknown?  why is it the pied piper of the ages?

What is it about going west, going north, about last frontiers? 

What is it about climbing a mountain, just to see what it looks like from the top?  Or climbing the next one, to see if it looks any different?

What is it about not following recipes, adding rebel dashes of pepper and switching white sugar for brown or deciding to let the dough rise a few extra times? 

What is it about not reading owners manuals or not stopping for directions? 

What is it about breaking rules and laws and driving fast just to feel the wind in your hair?

What is it about Airstreams and VWs and campers and tents and tarps and backpacks? 

What is it about moonshine and bluegrass and plucking the music of the road, of the mountain from a borrowed guitar?

What is it about the power of dreaming - the invisible forces of cherished wishes driving you on a blind walk toward a distant flash of northern lights?

What is it about seeing gypsies, road kids, hitch-hikers, leather tramps, thumbs to the sky with the world in their backpacks, wishing for a moment that you could be that free?

What is it about people that live on the edge, carving out there wild niche, not quite belonging to the wilderness, not quite belonging to society?

What is it about the notion of starting over?

What is it about long silver braids and feathers in the hat, fringed moccasins, and leather jackets?

What is it about wanting to beckon a stranger into the cracking contents of your soul, just because you know you'll never see them again?

What is it about motorcycles, the raw power and grit eating up the open road?

What is it about how the moon looks the same, dimpled and creamy and ferocious, no matter which side of the world you are standing on? 

What is it about thrift stores and threadbare sweaters and a black and white picture in a locket that someone somewhere wore close to their heart?

What is it about used books, the wanderlust and wonder and exploration masquerading as dust falling reverent from cracking spines, weightless in slanted beams of afternoon sunshine.

What is it about peregrine falcons and birds and airplanes and hang-gliding and faeries and angel wings?

What is it about songs from the past, filling you with the wistfulness and power of a movement, a generation that will never repeat itself?

What is it about gambling, with your last crumpled 20, or with your job, your future, your life?

What is it about trading in everything tangible for an idea, or a belief, a cause, or a person?

What is it about forbidden fruit and Eve and skinny dipping under no swimming signs? 

What is it about rain on your tongue and running water and bubbling springs and waves crashing rhythmic on salty beaches? 

What is it about the eagle, the the wolf, the flashing flip of a silver salmon?

What is it about moving trains  and open water and thunder swirling its grey magic across the sky? 

What is it about cracks of lightening and gold trimmed purple orange sunsets and flames licking light from a solitary fire?

What is it about legends and leprechauns and big foot and running breathless towards the goldmine at the end of the rainbow?

What is it about the dust and the tears and the dance and the colors and the mad mad halleluiah of the journey? 

What is it about craving, about wishing, about wanting, about going, about trying, about moving, about flying, about being, about hoping, about risking?

What it is about discontent masked as wanderlust?

What is it about longing to find a place that will finally pull me to stay?

__________________________________________________________________________

**** in honor of Christopher Columbus and the spirit of this blog, the following is a silly throwback to my time in Tchad - what is it about the allure of exploring uncharted seas (or flooded rice fields) in a dugout canoe??