The shortest day of the year. Here in Tampa it is 10 hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds, sunrise to sunset. In Bangor that would be 8 hours, 47 minutes, and 29 seconds. Tampa has a high of 61F. Bangor is 36F. I am celebrating Yule in Tampa this year. As a bonus, my hotel has a gas fire pit to illuminate the evening.

More importantly to me, I have come to think of this as the real start of the new year. The light is at low tide; I look forward to the tide coming in for six months. And the Journey continues. In so many ways. I am happy to be what I am today; mostly happy, doing good works, better able to think and talk about Janelle, and prepared to believe that when the grief comes, it has purpose and it too will ebb at the right time.

I spent two weeks in Tallahassee, then 45 days in Tampa. Went back to Bangor for a week, then a week in Anniston for training. Back in Tampa now for about three weeks and then shifting to Lake Mary. A bit of a nomad.

I’ve been giving some thought to nomadism. I think I am evolving. Perhaps just mutating. In my story, I’m evolving. I’ve always (?) liked to travel. At speed. What can I see. How many things can I see. My efforts to hit all the cities in a song attest to that urge. Janelle started to change that. It isn’t how many you see, it is how you see them. It isn’t how far you go, it’s enjoying where you are. I’m working on that.

I have a long way to go. I find that where ever I may be, I’m good for a week to a month. Then its time to move. I’m still trying to work out how that fits with Janelle’s way and my nature. Am I nomadic, or just unable to sit still. I don’t know. What I have learned is that while I no longer find any particular place important to me, I find the people around me, near or far, vastly more important than I ever realized. While I am not very practiced, I need to tend to my friends and family much more than a place.

And the way I think I can sort out all of this messy thinking is with a nice drive. Say all of the cities and towns in “I’ve Been Everywhere” that are west of the Mississippi River. And some in Canada. And how about those in “Route 66”? That’s the plan. I hope to set out in April and fill in many of the remaining slots on the “Cities” tab of this blog. My goal is to drive like a flaneur. I don’t come close with this itinerary, but the average miles per day is down substantially from last winter and the Eastern US.

How is a flaneur different from a boulevardier? For me, it is that I can make a close approximation to properly pronouncing flaneur. I trip over the syllables in boulevardier, its spelling, and where to put one, or more, accents.

The project on which I am working is massive. Far larger than the norm. It is amazing to be part of such a large effort to help people during and after a disaster. I’m coming up on three months deployed, and anticipate being on this effort for six months total. I want to see the process on this very large and complicated thing. But I refer you to paragraph four; in normal circumstances I’m ready to move after one month. Fortuitously, because most events are smaller, and because I have some flexibility in the term of my deployment, in the future I think I can do 30 to 60 days stints, take a break, and then do a new stint somewhere else. Perhaps a perfect situation for a developing nomad.

Changes in the way college courses are offered also enable my travels. In January I begin two courses in a program studying the Politics of Education, all on-line. I am a little nervous about diving into Education and wonder how my life experience and views will fit with those of my class mates, presumably career educators. Hopefully we all benefit?

This post is far too long. Straying into TL;DR territory. I guess I didn’t realize how much was happening. I think I’ll start to pick up the frequency again, in preparation for the road trip. Let me know what you think about any, or all, or the above.