Have you ever awakened in the darkness and have no idea where you are?  Once in a while this happens to me, more often than not of late.  Is this my bedroom? Where?  Wait, not Memphis–I have not lived there since childhood. Knoxville.  Wrong again.  I live in Vermont now.  Am I in the cottage?  No, I am in the loft, where I have been since August. Got it. Now I can exhale. This is home, for the time being–and there’s the rub: the comfort (complacency?) that comes with permanence is gone.  I am okay with that for now, and really, there is no other choice except to be okay with it, or drive myself insane. But the idea of choices is rather intoxicating. There is no one solution, no single path, but many.  My son had a paperback series when he was a ‘tween where you got to choose your own plot outcome:  when the orc gets to the end of the tunnel, he goes left (turn to page 92) or right (turn to page 54).  So now I am the orc, but I also get to turn the pages.

Lately I’ve had a sense that opportunities somehow spawn more opportunities; I could be wrong–it is only a sense.  But I think it is possible that most of us use only a tiny fraction of the creative juice and intellect we possess, and when push comes to shove the question is whether we can search for, find, and use it.  Part of that equation is recognizing an opportunity when it appears and seizing upon it; sounds simple enough, but I am not so sure.

As silly as it may sound, this signpost at a split in one of the many trails on the beautiful land I call home for now has become a metaphor for where I am.  Whenever I see it, though, I can’t help hearing the Scarecrow giving Dorothy choices when she reaches that important juncture.  Oh, and I can tell you why the ocean’s near the shore.