The musky scent of sage mixes with nag champa and freshly brewed coffee to fill the small rooms of my little home as Dave Mathews sings “It’s a typical situation in these typical times” from the compact stereo competing for space on my kitchen counter.

I smudged this morning with clear intent; to remove the negative thoughts and emotions I packed with me when I left Mobile two weeks ago.

There were plenty.

I am not happy to be back in the North, it’s not where I want to be, but I am grateful. In a time when most people are worrying about how to feed themselves and how and when their world will return to normal, I have resumed a job and a lifestyle that, for me, has been the norm for many years. It is one of isolation and social distancing in a setting so rural I have come to recognize individual birds by their markings and actions.

I am no naturalist. I don’t keep notes or name them. I don’t find such recognition and identification a comfort, I find it to be a painful reminder of a life I chose simply because all the other lives I tried fit like oversized suits bought second hand. Sadly, this life is a good fit, for now.

Winter was short. Just three and a half months. And it was expensive and it was largely non-productive. I didn’t finish the book I’ve been working on. Didn’t fill these pages with hope or love. Spent far too much money on supplies because I didn’t prepare for a pandemic. How could I? How could anyone predict that the promised land, the land of milk and honey, would be replaced by an ideal of the promised land as being a land of lysol and toilet paper?

Strangely enough, when I returned North I found both on the shelf of the well stocked local grocery store. A store with all of five isles. So maybe I am in the promised land. Maybe the promised land is just a lot smaller and a lot more remote than I imagined.

A lot more lonely too. Just me and Brown Dog and some birds I refuse to name and a bunch of cows and a huge blue sky and miles and miles of uninterrupted horizon and this little laptop I am tapping on and Dave Mathews reminding me that it’s typical.

Yeah, Dave. I get that.

Image by Brittany Colette.

Published by J M Greff

J M Greff is the rambling author, trucker philosopher, peace loving hippie, spiritual warrior, backpacking pantheist, wandering minstrel, and poet fool who created A Caravan of One for you. View all posts by J M Greff