Hopeless Wanderer

No, I'm not headed back out on the road or anything; I've just been thinking a lot lately about my wandering and traveling days.  See, I've been a bit surprised that this past year of working at home and doing as I please hasn't been a little more satisfying at times.  Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy it immensely.  I love to be here and work on my art and pottery and dig in the garden when I get the urge.  But sometimes I find myself walking down to the end of the driveway and aimlessly peering into the horizon.

I love my place...so why did I want to leave?  I pondered on this for a while and then it just kinda hit me one day, "you're just an ol' gypsy Annie".  One of those souls that just likes to Go.  I don't know why I didn't understand this earlier.  I mean, I knew I liked to travel and such but I guess not to the extent that is now evident.  After thinking more about it I should have seen that 20 years in a business that required almost constant travel should have told me something.  I guess I didn't stay in that industry just because I like to pour concrete!  We often worked on jobs for years that were basically "in town" but the job itself was always something new.  A different project every day or sometimes you would get loaned out to another job for a day, week or month.  Always a change of scenery.  If you didn't like the project you were on then just wait until tomorrow, you'd probably be doing something different or at least moving to another section of the building.  Without that constant change and stimulus I find myself getting bored and gazing down the drive. We did travel to other states too.  I worked almost a year in North Carolina.  Had I not been married to my first husband I would have really enjoyed that!  I've worked in Tennessee too and literally all over Alabama.  I could have gone even more, even to Jamaica, but they didn't often want to pay for a single carpenter to stay in a room by themselves.  (You normally had to have a roomie).  The guys were my family and missing them is part of my desire to go also.  We're so spread out now the only way to keep in touch is on Facebook.

 I limit myself to just day trips unless I get the rare opportunity like the time I worked a weekend for Daddy Rabbit in south Alabama.  Considering my family and upbringing, I often find my wanderlust a curiosity.  I think the majority of my kin are homebodies.  Perhaps I take after my departed Uncle Howard.  He was in the Army (Bronze Star from WWII), an oil field worker in Oklahoma, a wanderer and finally settled in Oregon but was always prone to road trips if it was some where he had never been before.  As a child I envied his lifestyle so much when he would come to visit us about once a year.  See, we never got to go anywhere when I was growing up.  Maybe that still spurs me on today.  My father was basically a farmer, in his heart if nothing else, and home was where he would be unless forced to go out.  Plus, we just didn't have much money so that dictates a lot.  My father had been in the Army also (Korea) and went to places I can only dream of now but his stories always ended with distaste for where he was and longing to come home.  Standing in front of the Louvre and wishing you were at home???  How can that be??  And no, my father never actually set foot in Korea or any other Asian country.  They kept his company in France or Holland the whole time eating cheese and chasing women. 
So, I grew up gazing down the road, waiting for that day when I'd be seeing that driveway in my rear view mirror and when it came I didn't look back.  Haven't ever since. 

But, now I must make a living at home.  I thought about opening a public studio back up that that really is confining.  You always have to be there to be open for the public.  I thought about going back to doing the art/ craft show circuit, and I may one day, but for now I must finish the house.  I'd never have time to do that if I went back to doing shows.  Just way too much prep time involved.
So, I'm adjusting some I guess.    I may start taking some classes at the local gym a few times a week and/ or enroll in the Master Gardeners course offered by our county extension office.
I suppose wanting to be a semi-homesteader with my personality is about the stupidest thing somebody could come up with but I never claimed to be smart or reasonable.  I'm just me and I work it out as I go!