A mysterious sojourn

Now that fall is well underway, and it won’t be long for winter, I can’t help but begin to look to the future. In the interim here I know my jobs will become much more demanding. Well, at least one of them will get very busy, as it always does this time of year, as people are looking to buy gifts for the holiday season. Consideration of the future demands focusing on many things, some quite necessary, such as tax preparation. But there are other aspects of my life that go beyond the day to day grind. A big one for me is what amusement parks I plan on going to next year. And now that my coaster buddy is free from a travel restricting family obligation, eventually we will get together and plan some trips. But there are other thoughts swirling in the back of my mind, along with the summer vacation plans and coaster trips. It is this introspective journey that I set off on earlier this year that I seek to continue. Actually I must continue it, as I feel there is more up ahead to discover. It is a feeling of walking down a path, in an unknown place, where I am compelled to press on to see what is over the hill or around the bend.

When I was a child I found myself smitten with the movie “The Wizard of Oz”, as perhaps so many other children have over the years. While the original books (yes, there were several) were written as political commentary couched within an epic fantasy story, the movie became something else entirely. Interestingly enough, it was always shown on TV right before or around Thanksgiving. As I grew older I looked forward to seeing it this time of year. This was the idea of a monumental journey in life filled with people who are helpful, but also plenty of deceptive and even dangerous characters and creatures. In addition there are places that are safe, or at least seem to be, along with those that are forbidding, scary and likely deadly. It was all played out on the screen in an innocent way that a child could relate to. Of course, the plot twist that came at the end of the film was that Dorothy’s epic was just a dream. Unlike in real life, but as a child that distinction made no difference to me. But very much unlike Dorothy, I have undertaken much of my exploration alone, and not always by choice. It wasn’t always that there weren’t other people around, but that rather that those who accompanied me were simply unaware. If anything, people close to me could not understand the paths I took and the choices I made. At least Dorothy’s friends knew why she was off to see the wizard. Yet my husband has no clue as to why I had to visit the New River Gorge Bridge or why I had to walk the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I tried to cobble together some sort of explanation, but it went over like the proverbial lead balloon. Essentially at this point in my life I’ve mostly given up trying to enjoin others in my quest. Those who accompany me do so in ignorance, not unlike in the way a dog might follow its human companion. The dog has no notion as to where its person might be going or what the future plans are; it simply tags along. The dog isn’t ignorant because its human friend fails to inform it as to where they are traveling (and why). But it remains unaware because the mind of a dog is incapable of fathoming such notions.

Therefore, I would imagine my husband to be rather like the scarecrow in this analogy. He is committed to me, he supports me, he follows me and he will do anything for me. But on so many levels he is just clueless. He is definitely a smart man, but he seems to lack the capacity to understand such ethereal nuances. Perhaps the only comparison to the tin man in my life would have been my best friend, who has been gone for more than a decade. She was in no way lacking in heart, but she might as well have been made out of tin considering all of the physical problems she that she suffered. She was with me from childhood until we turned forty, and then sadly she passed away from complications from various chronic and developmental illnesses. There seems to have been no analog to the cowardly lion, but I’ve come to think that is simply a part of my self. In some ways I am like Dorothy, where I can be assertive and I will forge ahead to get what I am after. But in other ways, I become overwhelmed with fear of certain things and situations, which can end up holding me back.