dragons slept,
carving shallow beds
now canyons

The Year of Exploration starts off with a whimper.

Of course, I can blame Winter for a good part of it. North Dakota is a northern state far from the coast, and so the conditions of the winter months drive most of us indoors whenever possible. Couple that with the stuff of day-to-day life, and in no time you can look back over what appears to be a breadcrumb trail of same-o, same-o.

It drives us into the ground, the cold weather does. Some of us fight, but we don’t always win. Instead, we’re shot down by the changing conditions of our environment (what a metaphor, then, is the weather-vane that defeated Tolkien’s Smaug;) pushed into hiding while we watch those better adapted move forward with aplomb, waiting for that day when we are able to re-emerge and find our adventures out in the open air.

I know it’s just around the corner, and I wait with impatience. I should be running already, but I keep hitting obstacles; I injured my shoulder while strength training a few weeks ago, and just when I feel like that’s going away I wake up sick with a sinus cold.

I feel like I’m due a win. Life will throw me a good meatball, a slow-mo slug right over the plate, and it’s going to be soon.

For the moment I nestle, and I carve. I wait, and I watch.

After all, the world was made for me, and I’m going to explore it. Someday, I’ll even make it back to the coast — hopefully for good.

(Header image by Alan Levine)