Over there

I'd like to write a book entirely about longing.

But of course, any book I'd write would be bound to be about longing.

I wake in this weather to an onslaught of it. The cloudy day outside, the wind, the smell of half-gone leaves all send my head into a place with a campfire, with a woman in a long muddy dress walking by with a bowl of something hot in her hand.

There's a dog running around barking, and a man sitting at the fire tosses his head back and you see that his beard is mostly red as he confesses that the secret ingredient to his amazing stew is Alpo.

It sounds like fiction, but I've been there. I've been in the place where there are people telling stories, where a two-foot bottle of sake is warming by a giant fire. The first time I ever tried it. It tasted just like the fire.

I don't know what it is about fall, especially the late part of it - the part that's really a teenaged winter - that pulls me into these times. These times that I never got enough of, that I felt, even then, might have been dreams.

There was a man I should have run off with. I wonder now and then what would have happened. I was awfully young. It might not have gone well.

Yesterday I was thinking about all the bloggers writing about the pleasures of being indoors, snug and knitting with friends or loved ones nearby. It seems to be everyone's favorite thing about winter (except for those who look forward to XC skiing).

I am having the opposite response. The cold air makes me yearn for mountains and wilderness and open lonely roads. It makes me want to tromp around in woods. It makes me want to hear wolves.

It makes me wonder if I will end this life as I began it, out of step with the perpetual roll of society. Off the grid, out there somewhere like Jeremiah Johnson, waiting to get eaten by a wild bear. Or maybe just on the bike, with a few cooking supplies and a really good book and that tiny coffeepot. I wonder who would watch the cat.

I know someone who's planning a cross-country ride with his giant dog. I kinda wanted to ask if I could come along.