Questions and Answers

Within my eye's view lies a busy highway; a road that leads both north and south, bringing travelers up from Texas and Oklahoma and down from Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Canada.
The path I take to get there is made of fine, brown dirt; soft and velvety beneath bare feet, the kind that drifts upward like cocoa chiffon with every step. It is a road just wide enough for one vehicle, where wildflowers and Johnson grass sway gently on either side.
I walk across the overpass and look out over the speeding traffic; tires upon asphalt overpowering the shuffle of my sneakers, the faithful blue healer by my side.
And I wonder....
Where are they going and where have they been? Are they happy about their destination or dreading its arrival? Do they see me, too, standing above them...and wonder the same things?

Sometimes I feel envious. The smooth ride of a new SUV passes underneath me and heads north; perhaps going into the city where there is art and music and diversity. It's shiny paint tells that it has never traveled dusty country roads and the illumination from its DVD reminds me of all the things I cannot give my own family. A sportscar zooms by, its driver hurrying across my stretch of prairie so he can get back to his comfortable world of neon lights and expensive food.
I think of all the places I want to go, and all the places I never will. My heart feels restless and my mind wanders to what might have, could have been. There are question for myself, yet no certain answers as I contemplate life from another view.

Then I turn to look across the horizon...and there is home. Home, where the light burns through my lacey curtains. Home, where the music of laughter rings against the walls. Home, where my children know me...and like me anyway, and where my husband waits with unconditional love. Home, where the treasures of my life are fixed in memories built there and memories waiting to be. My footsteps quicken westward down the hill as it beckons. And though the longings of another world follow on my shirt tail, they're shaken loose as I open the door to all that matters and know without a doubt, where I belong.