Rootless

I mostly feel rootless. Like mosses or liverworts. I drift along on the surface of wherever I am, perfectly content to be there while actually being nowhere. Today I’m in Virginia. And I could live here. Easily. But then again, I could live in Big Bend, or London, or New York, or the Black Hills. They’re all places I’ve been and all places where I felt comfortable once there. Of course, being rootless means I’d never stay. But why should that stop me from living somewhere?

Mostly what people say when I tell them I could live in a place is to warn me of what it’s like in some miserable season, be it winter or summer. But I’ve been in lots of places in lots of seasons, and in my experience seeing the bad is what makes the good even better.  So, I’ll stand by the idea I could live anywhere, and stand by the idea I’m rootless in the traditional sense.

What I have managed to do is put down something like roots in a community of friends and acquaintances. No matter where I am, there they are. I’ve lived in my current home for more than 16 years, but the community of which I’m a part is bound more by ideas than boundary markers on plots of land. Of course, at my age it’s unlikely I’ll pick up and move, but I’ve learned never to say never. And with every day that passes since the death of my wife, the more I feel the tug of other places, the water of life flowing by me murmuring tales of distant lands and cool breezes and new adventures.