Here, listen to "Wagon Wheel", covered by Old Crow Medicine Show while you read this.

Today is a singular, perfect early Autumn day in the mountains. I walked to the bakery this morning. The birds were singing, the leaves are beginning to blush deep red and shine gold, and the sky looks like it was painted by a Wyeth. As I walked, first along the sidewalk and then along the tracks, people waved and smiled as they passed by, and I could smell the breakfast and lunch prep smells coming from all the little restaurants. It was so surreal, I felt like I was in a construct*. Not unhappy, but confused by the incongruity of my ongoing depression against the bas relief of this perfect-seeming place. It feels like a trick, almost. Like something meant to make you forget that people are dying for unjust causes, or worse, no reason at all; that the world is overloaded, aching and sick. And that I am floundering in limbo as far as making either a bigger difference in the world or a change for my own health and happiness. I am ashamed of feeling this way.
I felt physically better for a bit, no doubt about that. How could anyone be completely unhappy on such a perfect day? But the one moment that I felt my soul truly rise, and an almost forgotten lightness come to my heart was when I was looking down the railroad, to where it curved out of sight** between the trees. Down the mountain, south, to flat lands and pine trees and eventually, the coast - and then on from there. Aunt Sue doesn't call me 'Gypsy' for nothing.
It's not just me, either. There's a few folks in my family who settled down, mostly on my mama's side, but even most of them have moved and changed and wandered around all their lives. Some of them literally ran away from home, more than once. Many of them could never keep a 'straight' job, and the few who could settle down usually had to stake out a spot that was plenty isolated and able to be shut off from the world completely, if need be. My mother's father and mother settled in one place for most of their lives, but my Papaw spent his days constantly shifting between the river, roads, fields and woods. And my Mamaw, who never learned to drive, spent her days wishing that she could. She hounded me about learning to first ride a bike - she taught me herself - and then to drive***, because she knew.

Yesterday morning, heading down the hill to work, I saw a glimpse of big wings against the sky through a widening gap in the trees. I am always searching the skies for signs of flight, I love and envy all birds, even the ones who swim instead of fly, and so I rushed ahead to see them cross the road. It was a flight of canadian geese, my geese, in full formation, flying very low toward the pond. They were about to land, so I knew that if I hurried I would get to see them touch down on the water. I goosed the gas (haha, "goosed"...****) and swung into the curve by the pond just in time to see the point goose touch down and the other 31 right behind. It was beautiful, I felt like they'd done it just for me.
I've had several starling mornings lately, too. They've taken to roosting in the trees on the hillside across the road from my house, out near the hammock. Usually right after I get out of the tub I hear them coming. I rush out of the back door, and stand on the step in my towel and watch them fly over, thousands of small black cutouts against the slice of crystal morning blue between my roof and the dog wood tree. I look up, dizzy from flock-sound, bath-heat and early-head, and my heart goes with them, black-winged, every time. As much as I love to hear them roosting near, I'm always a little sad to think that they've settled, even for a little while, when they could just fly, fly, fly...
And then I come back in and start my day, put on my armor in layers of smoke and fabric, pick up my million weights, bookbag, phone, accoutrement and keys, and go face another day in the cage.

-s

* I wish sometimes that I'd never seen 'The Matrix'.
**this is almost EXACTLY the spot where I was
***my papaw tried to teach me and failed. this man was seemingly afraid of NOTHING, but nonetheless he gripped the dashboard, white-knuckled, while i attempted to maneuver his Scamp over the little one-lane tie and tin bridge at approximately 8 miles an hour. I was 23 before I got my license.
****that one was for Hamilton