| Today
the snow is falling on my North Central Washington farm. Everything is
buried
beneath this chilly white blanket. To make matters worse, the man who used to
be my favorite weatherman is predicting more falling-both of the thermometer and the
snow-for the coming weekend.
I look with wanderlust
to yesteryear when I could skedaddle away from cold or hot or whatever I didn't like
because I was one of a kind: a free spirit, a gypsy, a travel nurse!
I have loved planting
roots! I've loved being married to my farmer, watching my daughter raise her animals
and knowing she would be in the same school district. However, there will always be
a part of my heart that listens to the call. A part of me still dreams of loading
the car with nothing more than a half dozen uniforms, an iron, a vacuum cleaner and a
13" TV and heading off to parts unknown.
Is it the snow that has
stirred today's disquiet? Or perhaps it was the book I reviewed for a fellow author
this week. Florida travel nurses, you simply MUST be on the look out for Kathleen
Wells book "Florida's Phantoms". This fascinating book discusses all the
places to see in Florida. She also talks about many of the haunts and where to find
them.
I never made it to
Florida as a travel nurse-a decision I now regret. The ex-husband was afraid of
alligators and Disney World.
Well, I know spring will
come. I will be thankful to be planted, rooted and stable when spring brings babies
to the farm. I'll be happy I'm not going anywhere when summer brings fresh
vegetables to the garden, and my strawberry planter yields more fresh strawberries than we
can eat. I'll enjoy the unequaled sunsets of our valley from my swing
set in the
memory garden we've planted through the balmy breezes of fall. But when the snow
starts falling on the mountains, I suspect my thoughts will return to Katy's book and that
little ember of wanderlust will heat up.
One day the daughter
will be grown. The animals on the farm will gradually go away. Then the
husband and I, with Katy's book in hand, will wander off to Florida for a winter.
I'll still be young enough to work. So watch for me. Old travel nurses may
take a break, but the call of highways yet untraveled, places yet unseen, could
always bring them back. |
Highway Hypodermics
