“Not all who wander are lost.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Lately, I have been knee-deep with wanderlust.
Now, I am not huge on traveling.
Most of the time, vacations exhaust me more than just staying home. Even going to Chicago, with its intense sensory overload, is rare for me.
But I do like to jump in the car and go to my second home, Bloomington-Normal, and other places within an hour or so, when the urge strikes me.
I lived in Bloomington-Normal from 1993 until 2005, throughout my 20s and into my early 30s.
Much has changed since then, particularly on the east side, and on the Illinois State campus/downtown Normal, but my heart still resides in numerous places in and around the Twin Cities.
I moved there in September, and perhaps it is because of that and the excitement of being on my own, that fall holds a particularly special place in my heart for when I lived there.
I cannot explain it … it is just a “feeling” I get when I am in familiar places, especially on clear, crisp days.
All of a sudden, a part of me is viscerally back where my adulthood essentially began.
I treasure my experiences there, and the lessons learned.
And I am grateful I had the opportunity to get away from my hometown, to experience life independently, even if my trajectory changed unexpectedly and sent me back to the Illinois Valley.
Last night, I woke up and thought of how recently, I haven’t traveled to Bloomington, or anywhere else as much, because of the ridiculously high cost of gasoline.
This has been while my spirit aches to visit artistic and creative outlets that bigger locales offer.
I find myself driving around the perimeter of Streator, just to get SOME sense of getting away from my routine. Sadly, doing that simply reinforces how small my current territory is.
As I drive through my hometown, I think of all the change that has taken place in the last 30 years, and all that remains the same.
When I was younger, I used to think about how my dad, who grew up here, and except for a stint in the army, lived here his whole life.
I wondered what kinds of changes he had seen over say, 30 or 40 years.
As a kid, he used to play baseball at the field on the east side of the former Sherman School. One day we drove by there and he remembered the open park looking as it did today. I was surprised. It seemed to me that 50 years was eons when applied to my dad’s life, and to think the trees he played by were the same trees I experienced …
Recently we have lost some of those trees, and the first I saw it, I felt as though I had been punched in the gut.
Those trees have stood in the background of my entire life, and now they are gone.
It seems to me as though 30 years is about as long as a minute.
I think of all the people who have come and gone in those 30 years. Hundreds, if not thousands of students who walked the halls of Streator and Woodland high schools now live in all corners of the country, and around the globe. Many of them have gone on to be highly successful, and a source of pride for those who know them, and taught them.
I wonder what their lives are like now.
I wonder if and how often they remember where they were formed, and the people with whom they grew up.
I wonder how they experience their hometown if and when they return for a visit, after having lived their lives in various other places.
I used to think that never straying far from your hometown was limiting your potential, and your ability to appreciate diversity.
To a certain degree, that is true, especially the part about appreciating diversity.
But everyone’s life story is different, and just because you live in a small town, doesn’t mean you are small minded. On the other hand, there are many people who live in large, diverse locales, who can’t or or won’t see outside their own limited perception.
It doesn’t really matter where you live.
Our hearts and spirits are infinitely expansive, regardless of where we live or how much or how little we travel.
What matters is what you feed your mind and heart, wherever you happen to be.
I choose to feed mine with imagination and creativity and questions.
I choose to explore the landscape of my ageless soul.
My exploration of that ageless soul over the first half of life has not taken me physically very far.
But each week when my fingers and my being harmonize to write this little column, my soul travels by spirit to countless places and people I’ve never met.
I can live with that.
- SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and community.