Wanderlust and Rain

I didn't realize how stifling a foot fracture would be. A foot fracture and rain. Can't surf; can run; can't get away. Today was a really bad day. Rain. Rain and gray. Rain and gray and a pronounced lack of freedom. Late to class, 2 hours in a doctor's office full of sick people to get my foot x-rayed. Apparently I should be using crutches. Freedom. Ha ha. Lack thereof. Miss Netto. How could she die? She was always so ALIVE! Sick of class. Wish I was a different person altogether. Seem to be doing everything wrong lately. AND my car CD player broke.

I finally got home, so pissed at everything and mostly at myself that I felt like just going straight coming 'round the curve toward Pismo.....parked and I stepped out of the car. Burst of air like dry-ice; hard, cold, bracing. The rain had broken. The clouds had broken. Up above, through a cold rift, a glitter of stars in a dark velvet sky. Faintly glowing billows of cloud parted like the Red Sea around them. Glimpse of Heaven.

And flash of freedom. Flash of the reminder of why I live, or at least why life is a wonderful thing and not merely a forced march through rote and routine. And rain.

That essence of wildness and wild joy that I get like a wave overwhelming me when I get to the top of Bishops, or lose myself in some back Yosemite highland, or find myself on a bus in Spain with no money and no destination and no companions--and no reason to care. The feeling that you can make your bed anywhere and don't have to be anywhere.

It's the feeling I try to capture on those random drives up the 1, or of being awake when all the world's asleep (ahem. as in, now.)
The feeling of total independence from people, yet no vestige of loneliness.
The feeling of a moonlit beach.
The feeling of pushing to your feet as the board suddenly becomes alive and spring-loaded on the wave.
The feeling of watching a sunset in the Mediterranean ocean and knowing that no one who knows you knows where you are. And that you could stay out there all night if you want, or sleep on the beach, or catch a bus and get off when the sun came up in a totally different location--even country.
The crinkle along your back at the eerie, lonely call of the imams to prayer--thin, wailing over a dusky bazaar squatting in the sunset dust of centuries.
The feeling of running to the edge of Bishop's Peak and looking back and seeing the school and school life far, far behind you. Right at sunset. Lay on the rock by the entrance. Look up at the sky. Free.

I always craved that freedom growing up. Running for me was the essence of it, the suggestion of it--captured the longing and sometimes fulfilled it. I still remember the first time I discovered a muddy trail up the side of one of the bare-leaved mountain peaks. Chilly November day. Cold gray clouds breaking to the frosty blue of winter sky. Freedom. I'd just moved from Colorado to a land of stores and Gucci bags and car-crammed streets. But now I'd escaped the city. Escaped rote and business and chain stores and money and all the things i hate to deal with but can't live without.
Freedom. I was stoked.

Cold sky. Cold stars. Cold glittering white stars. Moan of the ocean. Yearn for the ocean. I held my things indecisively in my arms: what a perfect night for a starlight ramble. Cold. Very, very cold. Another hesitation, and I turned to go inside. Stupid foot. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe I'll buy a brace. The beach a la crutches: that would be amusing. A few weeks to freedom. Hunker down 'til the rain stops. Hunker down and pray for it to stop. Or spend my financial aid on a plane ticket....?

Sigh.