They call me the wanderer...

I'm not sure why I decided to start this blog other than the fact that I often have stuff I need to say or stuff to work through and one of the best ways for me to do that is through writing. And this blog will be my little cyber-home, a place for me to wander back to when I wander away.

I am a frequent wanderer. There. I said it. As a child I often heard "Stephanie is a bright child, but her mind frequently wanders" or "She daydreams too much." I know now that I probably just needed a low dose prescription drug to make the fuzzy edges a little sharper. But the eighties were still a little early for identifying ADD. We were just busy surviving dayglow colors and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

It is probably a good thing I don't have the opportunity to physically wander as much as I would like to. There are other people in my family who don't like to sit still, so I come by it honestly. In fact, I used to have a fear of being completely settled down--For the longest time, in my head, settled translated as stuck. I like to think I've worked through that. But anything binding still raises my heart rate, speeds my breathing a bit--contracts, waistbands. When I was a newborn my mother said that when she rocked me I cried unil she put me back in bed. And those little nighties with the drawstrings at the bottom? I couldn't wear them. They made me scream. So I like to think I come by this neurosis honestly, genetically, through no fault of my own.

There is an old hymn that says "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above." As far as God is concerned, I don't believe my wandering has ever really been away from God, but more like just around Him. It reminds of this great uncle I had who may have been one of the sweetest, coolest people I've ever known. He had the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen, and a deep love for children. I was shy as a child, and when he came to visit, I spent the first few hours just kind of wandering around his chair, not wanting to acively seek him out, perhaps afraid of being rejected. Being told to go play outside. But it never failed, he had something so good to say or show me, that I had no choice but to come closer, crawl up in his lap. And he whispered my name when he talked to me. With a smile only I could see. And everytime, I remembered that the view was always much better from his lap.