We leave in three days. I can’t wait. I feel somewhat guilty because I am dragging along my kids and my parents and I am sure that all of them would much rather go somewhere else...but I am pulled to Mendocino. It is almost like an ache. Like I need to be there. I have only been there once when my daughter and I camped our way through there last year, but ever since I arrived, I have felt this need to return.
I get like that with places. Ojai holds me in a similar way. I am not sure if my gypsy life has now latched onto locales as anchors for my wayward spirit or if it is just older age and settling down a little. Either way, I know that Mendocino has something to teach me...and I can’t wait to find out what it is.
I wonder does this happen to other people. A causal visit to a place and then do others become haunted? I mean that in the best way...
Do others feel pulled from their daily lives and live instead in their minds, reliving the moments past that you existed in this other place?
I do.
I find myself wandering the area in my quiet moments, or time between other thoughts, it is like my mind has found a peace in this location and now whenever disturbed it returns to the place that I last associated quietness to a location.
I am doing my best to relinquished expectations because I know that nothing can ever live up to the ideas my head spins. And I do not want the vacation to be a disappointment to everyone. I know the kids wanted Bass Lake and my parents wanted to not really go at all. I feel somewhat selfish except that I really want to share this feeling I have about this place with them. I want them to experience it even if it means that they do not like it like I do...
Life is lived in the now but we think of it in past and future. Mendocino is like a now that only really exists in both the past and the future. It is like since I was there last year, it possessed me in some way and all of my nows have been a part of this place even though I left almost as soon as I got there...
Perhaps I am not doing a good job of explaining it...maybe it cannot be explained. Maybe it can only be felt...and that is why I am dragging my kids, my parents and my dogs to this place that has somewhat owned my soul for the last year. I feel this huge sense of urgency to return and am so very grateful my family is willing to accommodate my crazy. I know they do that a lot. Probably more than accommodation, they know all too well that I am force to be reckoned with and they are just too tired to fight me. Good call on this one since this pull I feel, feels otherworldly and I hope that once I am there I can find out why...why am I so trained upon this location. What do I need to learn that Mendocino needs to teach me?
I also have some reluctance...there is some fear. Life for me kind of bumps along and I am not sure what Mendocino is going to do to me. And that causes me concern. I mostly like my life. And am willing to make some changes for the parts that I do not enjoy. But a revolutionary shift seems like too much right now.
Call it obsession, call it a calling, call it whatever you will. But there is something important waiting for me in Mendocino. I looked up the definition of Mendocino and there really isn’t one...so you know what that means...I will create one!
For me Mendocino means tiny mending. And perhaps that is what is calling to my soul...the need for a tiny reparation, a tiny shift that will produce lasting results for my interior. I know from experience that an entire life can be forever altered and changed with a tiny shift in thought, a tiny movement toward a light one refused to see. I know that it is the tiny, seemingly insignificant mending that has drastically altered the course of my life.
I am coming Mendocino...I will be there soon.
