restless

A wistful feeling of something beyond,in the distance.A time for change,a shaking up of a comfortable structure.

This Christmas season, two things happened that filled me with unease.My Christmas cards were stolen from our mail box.I found an empty envelope on a neighbor's lawn as I took a walk.The hair on the back of my neck stood up at this violation.And then,an abandoned car was parked in front of our property on New Yera's Eve.It had been stolen from Griffin,Georgia,crashed and left by someone who ,no doubt ,lives nearby.

What is next? Next is going to be an uprooting and a move to the Georgia mountains.I have always been drawn to the hills and falls of North Georgia and it is time.We have been in this house for twenty years and I have loved the Flint River flowing casually beyond the floodplain behind our house.The woods of every season,snow dazzling in the trees,the young deer who feed in our yard,sometimes as many as 13.The hawks,barred owls,bluebirds and woodpeckers, with the occasional Pileated.This place enchanted me when we first looked and I will miss it.Here my dogs roamed and created memories that cling to my heart.Canoe trips on the river,egg hunts in the woods,35th Wedding Anniversary celebration and nearby,a church home that has stretched me and brought deep ,life long friends and a surety in the Unseen.

When the kids were younger ,we used to go up to the mountains often,hiking,canoeing and when the tires of the VW van would turn onto Georgia Highway 400,I would feel a drop in my spirits.A deflation.But we always had to go back to the suburbs for jobs,school, commitments.Now, we have a choice.

I think it was the drive from Dawsonville,where my son lives,through the snowy,tree rich hills, to Tennesses this past December that did it.

Oh,I will hear these kind of things:where is the closest hospital?Please.I don't want to live like that.With fear.My parents owned a house in the Catskill mountains in New York and they never would move to this place that they loved because there was no hospital nearby.In 1983,my father had a heart attack at home, on Long Island ,and the hospital that was four blocks away could not save him.

I feel excitement at this shaking up,this new beginning.A challenge to start over.