Winter Cold Moon
“My heart wants roots. My mind wants wings. I cannot bear their bickerings.”
| — | E. Y. Harburg |
It has taken me a long time to resolve this dichotomy. It drug me from Indiana to New York City in the summer of 1968, then pushed me back home in the fall. I moved to Wisconsin, then Minnesota, all the while traveling as much as I could. Wandering made me feel free, but it also made me feel homeless.
Now that I’m into my 42nd year in Minnesota and my 43rd up north, I feel I’ve gotten roots in the state. It took me three marriages to find Kate, but she’s given me roots in a relationship. I moved 17 times in the Twin Cities and twice outside it before we moved to Andover where we’ve now lived 18 years, 19 this July. Although I do not feel rooted in this town, I feel very much rooted to this place, this land, this home. Even this county.
Here is the resolution that came to me, not long ago. Without roots the mind cannot take wing. Anchoredness, embededness, place stable give the mind freedom. It does not have to occupy itself with the troubles of daily life since they can become part of a routine, a healthy routine, yes, but still a known quantity, a given. So the roots reach down deep for stability and nourishment, deep enough to support the mind’s marathon to the end of the cosmos and back.
With solid roots the mind can at last break free, run out of its traces into the realms where only the mind can go. Roots support wings.
This may be, probably is, obvious to you, but it took a while for me to understand.
