An Introspective Trip...

“Think! How the hell are you going to think and hit at the same time?”

Yogi Berra

Lately I’ve been thinking too much. Not so much about the present as much as my future. A few months ago, I blogged that 2019 will be a year of changes. Lots of them. 

https://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2018/11/ch-ch-changes.html

This will be the year, I’ll settle down. Sort of grow up. It’s time. 

Back to the Present temporarily: 

Lately the psychotic Aussie weather has received my attention. The constant force has been wind and heaps of it. I’m not talking a Seals and Croft “Summer Breeze.” There’s been some full-on rock a cabin gales. The type of wind that knocks down thick, healthy looking trees. A class of wind that makes my brain go turtle-like into its shell. It doesn’t help that I’ve noticed a visual famine of single people making the rounds. What I’ve known for decades in coming front and center. Its a couples or family oriented world. Even Down Under.

When a well meaning Aussie now asks me if I’m traveling alone, my first thought is, “Why don’t you throw some kosher salt on that festering wound!”

 

But I don’t say that. I look down at my feet and embarrassingly say, “Yes.” 

Then those well meaning Aussies change the subject.

“Life Is What Happens to You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans”

John Lennon

I’m a planner. I have to be. Without a daily regime, I’d be the proverbial rudderless ship. I need a reason to drink my coffee and get going in the morning.  I require a rudimentary schedule. 

So...presently with an injured knee (maybe a torn meniscus) which will eventually require a surgeon, my plans of hiking in the Australian National Parks, backpacking the Grand Canyon, more hikes in Zion, Canyonlands and the UK are now in the wait-and-see mode. My mind wants to play but the body is rebelling. I’m not thrilled about this.

“Someone to watch over me.”

Ella Fitzgerald 

This is when my over caffeinated mind starts to rebel too. I’m no stranger to waking up in an post-operating room. After the release forms have been signed, a family member or friend picks me up from the surgery center. Eventually, I get deposited into an empty house. That’s when I fully understand what it is to be alone. In the past, I’ve been forced to pick up the pace of recovery. I drive my Physical Therapists nuts. I want the bad times to go away. I don’t want to dwell more than I have to about my social situation or lack of it.

A scenario like the above is for a mere orthopedic injury. What would happen if something really backfires in me? I’m no youngster anymore!

No one wants to grow old alone.

This is why (after the UK trip), I’ll put a tentative hold on International travel. 

I’m burnt out on people asking me if I’m traveling alone. 

From cold, windy and rainy Mansfield, Victoria

Wasn’t it supposed to be summer here?

Jeff 

Lastly an introspective song from Toad the Wet Sprocket. 

Walk on the Ocean

We spotted the ocean at the head of the trail
Where are we going, so far away
And somebody told me that this is the place
Where everything's better, everything's safe

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

And half an hour later we packed up our things
We said we'd send letters and all those little things
And they knew we were lying but they smiled just the same
It seemed they'd already forgotten we'd came
Now we're back at the homestead
Where the air makes you choke
And people don't know you
And trust is a joke

We don't even have pictures
Just memories to hold
That grow sweeter each season
As we slowly grow old