Return of the daily haiku!
New year, same me
Hello Again!
I hope you enjoyed your holiday season! I’m back from book leave and ready to share more illustrated haiku. I missed posting every day.
I don’t know if it’s a fantasy or a delusion—but sometimes, when I’m out in nature, I think about what would happen if I kept walking.
What would happen if I didn’t come home?
There’s something exhilarating about the thought of being free from demands and expectations. Of course, I always do come back home. I love my people too much to ever abandon them.
(I’m also compulsively overprepared and could never start out on a long journey without first overpacking.)
Why would a reasonably responsible person have thoughts like this?
For me, this desire for self-indulgent solo travel is more than wanderlust. It’s rooted in a life where I’ve always been the responsible one. Even as a child, I was never allowed to be carefree.
I’m wise enough to know that a life alone on the road would not be all unicorns and fairytales, and I love too deeply to inflict that harm on my wife, children, and myself.
Instead, I take short solo trips during the summer and escape from the grind of life the rest of the year through art and poetry.
every step forward
expands the outer limits
imagination
But still, every time I find myself on a shaded path next to a chatty creek, I wonder, what if I kept walking?
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
Welcome back! I've missed your posts too.
I rather have the opposite experience of solo travel than you. I do a lot of solo travelling, for my work mostly. When I have to visit a new city or country for work, I always make sure to tack on a day or 2 for some exploration, and a lot of walking around. I value these experiences a lot, but the beacon of home is always strong. When I'm here, there are few things that compel me to leave the house. Mostly, it's the dog's daily routine of ramming his 50kg body against my office door until it opens, and sitting next to me expectantly until I get up and take him on his walk. This happens at 3:30pm every weekday.
My partner on the other hand used to disappear for hours without telling anyone. Nowadays he texts me to say 'I'm going to disappear for hours'. He also often plans solo hiking holidays where his schedule allows. And I say 'Great, I'll be here when you get back. Probably on this same chair, wearing the same outfit, reading a slightly different book.'
Jason, we have this in common. As the oldest child in an alcoholic family, I had to help the family survive and appear normal through achievements. When things get hard, I still fantasize about running away, taking a new identity, living under an assumed name a foreign country, with a wig of a different color. Ha! I have found a home for that need through my fiction writing; if you ever read my series, you’ll see that theme repeated over and over again! But escaping in my mind, and on the page, has given me the strength to be the responsible person I choose to be, even when it’s no longer required for survival.