The Cave of Winter.

There's this nagging melancholy that infects me around this time of year. It's difficult to pass it on to you in words, unless our gene makeup is similar or there was incest way back in our family line. Our brains can then link and understand one another. It's the "let's drive a car to Joshua Tree and Yellowstone, listen to Talking Heads, climb mountains and hang out at bars and play pool with wrinkly 60 year old men" bug. You know? Maybe not.

A warm, hollow place opens up in my chest, right in between both shoulder blades and lodges itself there. It hibernates till spring, when it finally has a chance to stretch its cramped legs and emerge from its cave. It craves a sort of warmth, one fed by rays of sun and people who feel like home. Home. I try phoning home like E.T., but the connection must not be working.

Was this summer better than I experienced it to be? And where do I belong? This city is great. I love it. But I miss my tent and the stately trees and hitching rides to town. And picking 2 gallons of blackberries in one day. I miss Gorgonzola and eating chard for every meal. Even the Douglas Fir squirrel brothers above me, who were my alarm clock at 7 every morning. What was so bad about all that?

Nothing. But it is easier to idealize that which is no longer the present, especially if it is cut off from you in distance and emotion. It's far easier for memory's sake to remember the good and leave out the bad. Yet if you or I keep dwelling in future or past, the "home" that exists now begins to feel left out. Inevitably, we begin to miss out. I better not let that happen.