shadows and light

it’s happening again. right now, the missing the deh cho is an ache. it’s like my insides are shuddering. i NEED to go on a canoe trip this summer, and i NEED to go north. but all of my canoe partners are un-available.

i am flipping through the photos tonight. hungry. wanting. amazed at how dark our skin was. how light the ends of our hair. how rugged and dirty and READY we look. living outside all summer. the dream. how many times in your life can you pull that off? not just living outside, but travelling outside. going far. i thought i could make it common in my life. and in a way, it kind of is, but not in the way of going with others. not for long stretches. and even taking time out of my day-to-day can’t just happen on a whim. last year i couldn’t go for big travel because i was in the process of moving to the wee island and needed to set things up there to be ready for the fall. the year before that i was in the process of moving back to the coast, preparing my bus – my future home. we did manage to get a couple of week-ish long trips in that summer. but it is the lifestyle i am craving now, it is the months of being away, in the wilderness. or on the way there. or back. not that the crave ever really dies, but that it is r e a l l y strong at the moment. three years will be too long to go without big travel. i thought that physical distance wouldn’t be a barrier between my canoe partners and i, that we could still pull off big trips, but now i am worrying that may not be the case. that maybe we need to be near each other to amp each other up, to feed the fires and keep them stoked. or maybe it’s just that we age and what is most important changes. i don’t know. i don’t know what makes things line up and what doesn’t. how do you will something into being?