Porthole

I took to the road... and never went back.

30DBC: "Think back to a moment in your life when you were faced with making a difficult choice. (Which city to move to, which college to attend, what to ask Santa for, etc) How might your life be different if you had made a different choice than the one you did?"

There are so many to choose from.

On July 7th of a year in an era a ... long long time ago ... I went on a two week vacation. By July 9th I reached a friends' place in Ohio, joined in a Holy Day observance and read the latest Harry Potter book. I went west. I thought of looking for a new job in North West Arkansas as the area was doing well job-wise. I landed in South West Missouri in a miserable backwards place and then stayed for awhile at my cousin's in Bonanza, Arkansas while I looked in Oklahoma.

I ended up in Tahlequah for a year.

During that year I lost everything, received news my house had burned down, never got a steady job.

Donna would ask me every day whether I had eaten. I would reply, yes. She'd counter with, "a potato?" Yep. Lost weight that year. What little I had in my car when I left I put in boxes in a closet.

I was happy.

The countryside and people fascinated me: the soft sounds of Cherokee, fireflies lighting the way down Long John Hill, a luna moth by the front door of the trailer, the persimmon tree in bud. Come Spring, the dogwood looked like white birds among the greening timber oaks.

I had vowed to never let go of one friend from my previous life. A small but significant decision... I needed to hear his laughter to know it was okay.

I didn't call often. My name was mud among the people he knew. By December I had started a journal, a "letter", now on page 5,072. I kept my calls short over the years and sent postcards from the places I visited.

Today I called him. It's snowing.

I never went back by-the-way. No idea how my life would've been different if I had; but, I'd be frolicking in the snow instead of sitting by a window with the weak sun trying to part the grey.

569