I’m sitting here staring out the window, no will to do anything. I had a brief spurt of activity a couple of hours ago — packing my assortment of wide-brimmed hats and a few other last-minute, hard-to-pack items in preparation for moving most of my stuff into a storage unit tomorrow. But all of a sudden the idea I was working so hard for . . . well, for basically nothing . . . brought me to a halt.
A.A. Milne’s poem “Spring Morning” keeps churning around in my head:
Where am I going? I don’t quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don’t know.
Oddly, the words I hear are spoken in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice — or perhaps not so oddly. I think the only time I ever heard the poem was when he read it to the children in the movie Kindergarten Cop.
What does it matter where people go? Or more specifically, what does it matter where I go? Anywhere, anywhere. I don’t know.
I still have approximately ten days in this house, though every day it becomes emptier and emptier. The furniture people have spoken for is gradually being picked up, and my last week here I’ll be sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
And then? I still don’t know. I’ve been looking for places to stay, calling folks who put ads in the paper, mentioning my predicament to everyone I talk to. Others are doing the same on my behalf. I promised to stay until June, and it’s a promise I intend to keep, not just because I like to keep my promises, but because I need those two months of dance classes. The studio has added balletrobics to the roster, and the intense workout will be good for me. I need to get in shape for . . . well, for wherever life takes me.
I’ve been researching various shelters for on the go, such as vans, tents, hammocks, and I’ve become quite intrigued with the idea of such a primitive/advanced sleep system as the hammock. (These are not those rope hammocks with the crossbars that eject you from your place whenever you move, but are made of parachute nylon, which makes them more transportable and comfortable, and come with mosquito net enclosures and tarps to protect from the rain.)
I have to laugh at my pretensions sometimes. Me on an epic walk? Me on a solo camping trip? Me living loose and carefree out in the world? So absurd! Maybe even foolish.
And yet . . . and yet . . .
Where am I going? The high rooks call:
“It’s awful fun to be born at all.”
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
“We do have beautiful things to do.”
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.