The Ten Thousand Things that are all around us and add up to our life. What is this strange ephemeral collection of feelings, thoughts, experiences, wishes, plans? I am just about to finish reading the book "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed. Kind of like a crunchy more grounded version of Eat Pray Love. A young woman who's life has fallen apart and gets a crazy idea to hike the Pacific Coast Trail alone for three months. It becomes her savior. It took me a bit to get sucked in, at first I found her writer's voice irritating but it got into a rhythm I have since not been able to put down. It makes me want to set out onto the quiet mystical trail. Just like the last book I read, The Snow Child, made me want to set out for the wilderness of Alaska to homestead. The sign of a good book. Most often it seems that the desire to run off to the setting of my latest read is usually a desire for the magic of woods, and quiet and simplicity, and self-discovery.
The thought crept in that my move to Tassajara would be something like these journeys. As the unprepared girl in 'Wild' walked the trails in a pack too heavy and shoes too small with no idea about what to expect. I suspect Tassajara will be like that. Waking up at 3:30, grumbling perhaps, sitting for hours, fighting with my mind and body, being at turns cold and hot, sweaty and shivery, but finding simple pleasure in the small things that one can appreciate when there's not a lot of distraction.
The ten thousand things that make up our life. Sometimes its talking on the phone with a husband who is worlds away, sometimes its the sadness of an email about my grandma who is old and finding it harder to want to eat, sometimes its the joy of a friend to make you espresso in the morning before work, and the joy that today is my day to do whatever I want like lay in my bed and finish a book in pajamas.
