One of the blessings of my childhood was my mother's trust that I could somehow safely manage to come and go as I please. I did that in great measure... after school, no matter the time of year, I could be found ruminating and looking for stones by the creek, throwing stones off the railroad trestle, building lean-tos in the woods, or on the bike with tunes in my ears. I took full advantage of that permission and that trust. Thinking back, no planning was involved. I went because I went, and that was that. Add a decade or two into that equation and the result is markedly different.

I yearn to go, constantly, my mind is always fixated on a wandering star that beckons me to chase it through skies distant and far, fabled lands whose enchantment I glean only through a fingertip pressed to a map. The rules have changed, it seems; in order to 'go,' much more time is taken up planning the exit than the journey itself. One must navigate many gauntlets and sever a bond or two in order to plow through to freedom.

Indeed there are many transits I undertake daily; the threshold of my home counts continual passage from here to there, but mostly I'm abiding a schedule, little flags planted on the clock that flap in the winds of obligation. I've leaned, however, to see the goodness in even my errands. I navigate a route, that no matter the mundane circumstances, never ceases to bestow little jewels of wonder. I course through winter mountains, sleeping, concealing their resilient greens under a cloak of quiet that is slowly being tugged by a toddler sun. There's a road where someone new is always walking in the margins, an immigrant, themselves hoping to open a path to destiny through their asphalt footfalls. There's a patch of interstate above which the sunset falls, never a disappointing ray or light. Has there ever been?

I think the difference between childhood wandering and adult commerce with place is that, when we're young and mining for what's mine, hoping to strike a lode of identity, we're out there for the freedom of it all. We were in the emotion of going, the slackening of the tether to the nest. I've long since flown the coop of my birth, and now the prospect of going is more about the place, and whatever tinglings of freedom generated by the pursuit of awe are received joyously. When young, I could be just as free and wild in a parking lot, doing wheelies and looking cool in a favorite jacket. Now, parking lots are anonymous, trodden, and melancholy places; I would not go there to feel free. I require more thrust and direction to get away, and in getting away, to relate to new vistas by letting go.

Thinking about this helps to remind me that going and coming, our engagement with the hither and the thither is a ritual that we often do without noticing it. The trappings of the mundane mislead us into a haze of ordinary and passive observation. A journey to buy bread becomes removed from our circle of magic because it's common, and simple. So when I leave home, I'm debating the merits of wheat or natural grain rather than noticing the flocks of birds that alight from pole to pole or the quality of light as it lands on the abandoned farmhouse on my road.

Nudge myself into paying attention and it's no longer a trip to buy bread but rather a moment of deep connection to the space around us, a spatial play of wonder, a widening of the magic circle to include myself, right now, the errand I have to do, and the parking lot where I find myself laughing quietly, remembering the innocent pleasure of popping a wheelie. The spell that's come upon me is easily broken if I wish it, and perhaps that spell is the same as it was in my youth but has survived in a different context. What it requires to slacken is to actively speed off in a direction because I want to, rather than by the dictates of need. It will eventually snap, if but for a while, but long enough for the world to seep in and teach and tell me something new in it's infinite language of beauty, even in the commonplace, even in seeing the tree-line through a supermarket window.

That direction could be a loaf of bread or a waterfall, a friend and a bottle of wine, the pursuit of an egret or the dancefloor downtown. It could be miles or inches away. It could be among the marketplaces of beloved Haiti or along the spine of a lover. Having a choice is a side effect of living in the now, and whether we're fumbling for our collective keys by a darkened door, or watching the stars from some distant spot on the map that a fingertip once pressed longingly, we can be fooled into remembering that it's all a journey, all a choice, all a pilgrim's path through a sacred landscape full of surprise and little jewels. Each time we pull that door tight behind us, and our feet hit the floor or home or the dirt of far afield, we could be pioneering the widening arc of our magic circle, pushing the boundaries of here and there, coming and going.

If I could, I'd pick up that curly haired kid in his favorite denim jacket whose name and history I share. We'd ride the road, and he'd learn all about the wilds the thrive beyond the horizon, the exotic and quixotic nature of travel, and he'd teach me about freedom, and the peaceful solitude of a creek and her stones. And we might, just might, come home when called for dinner, but we'd have to stop and watch the lightening bugs along the way.

This entry has been written to add to the dialog of Ecotone Wiki's current topic of Coming and Going.