December 8 - Dharma (The Path)

Wandering can be good for the over-focused creative. How did you wander well this year?

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come.

~Rumi

Today's reverb11 question wandered around my head all day. Wandering, like Rumi calls for in my favorite quote, is my heart's truest desire. To leave my calendar and my to-do list behind and go off on an adventure, even a small one, appeals to me. I am not a world-traveler. I have no desire to sit in an airplane seat. I just want to walk away into the woods with a backpack and a journal.

Did I wander this year? Every Wednesday this summer my young son and I put our journals in our backpacks and hiked up a mountain. Step by step we explored the Adirondacks. Each week's journey changed us and our parent-child relationship. He started third grade a more confident kid, proud of his summer accomplishments. We had long talks on the trail and he still talks to me now, telling me about school and third grade girls and books he's read.

I vowed to continue hiking in the fall, but the start of the school year always seems to dampen the desire to wander. School days require a more domestic focus; clean clothes, lunches and homework take up time. But the trails will be there when I wish to wander again. Come, yet again, come.

Someday I would like to try the ultimate wander on the East Coast - the Appalachian Trail. Now that would be wandering well.