My Next Escape

 

For years i would plan my next escape, and travel for miles to places imagined many times by all those who had read the same touristy information trap-script. 

As the portals to all those destinations were slammed shut by drought, fire and plague, so i have been constrained to my own scrap of wilderness. A wilderness untouched by tourist information officers or inssstagram influencersss :). 

When i tell my neighbors of my ventures, many blanche at the thought of venturing into the nearby mountains. Only the hardy ask if they can come when next i walk. 

Of course, the old timers - the foresters and wild food collectors who know how to dye wool from nettle and eat from the land around them and know dragon-speak, already know. The old ones look at me when i ask them questions and pointedly ask me if i am going to write about it. The first couple of times i got asked i stumbled - but now i say i will write about the old timers too - for who better eyes are there to see the world turn than through theirs.

I hope you, too, find adventure soon. But do not make the mistake i made. Do not pine about traveling far away from your own countryside, for the best adventures wait just around the corner and up the lane. All the more so if they include a dragon.

Image: i am undertaking a mentorship with the light master Eric Raeber - this assignment involving bending light :)