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bolded, thanks, Shannon, you nailed it)Laura, the implicit answer is in Shannon’s second paragraph. This is true for all of us, any genders, anywhere in life. When you and I are willing to sell our souls for safety and predictability, the price can be awful.To your comment, I think you just know. We don’t always listen, and for sure, we often don’t act. Sometimes, ever. For my part, that’s at great cost to us and the world at large.There is no Voice of God for me. I get itchy, antsy, and I feel that terrible urge to get the hell out of Dodge. I can sense the ending of a phase and the promise of a new one, but kindly, it took me a while. Had I really really listened, I’d have sold my house a few years back long before the problem BF ever moved in. But that argues that I was ready.I wasn’t. I had to cut that tie once and for all. When he drop kicked me for the last time when I landed in Bali, the first weekend I was back in country in February of 2019 I drove straight to Home Depot and loaded up on packing supplies. There was no going back. Not ever. That was for the HUGE move to leave a place after 50 years and just light out. I’d only been to Eugene once, some twenty years ago. I really did Just. Show. Up.How does any of us know when it’s time? Some thoughts:You simply know. It can be a smell on the spring wind wafting in through a window.A taste in the air, something on your tongue that speaks to you of Something Else. A Promise made, but never taken.A melody, something haunting, that takes you back to a scene a movie you saw as a child. That’s me, you thought back then, with all the confidence of a pre-adolescent. Then for the lie of acceptance and safety, you sold yourself down the river to Normalville. You forfeited your passage on the ship that would bear you to the storms, where the gales would hurl your hair around your laughing face as you stood on the ship’s bow.When do you know? We are all wilders, Laura. All of us women. Each in her own way, we belong to the woods and paths and trails. We belong to the moon and the soft valleys and the hard rocks of the high cliffs. We all do. We all hear the call. We go slowly mad not answering it. However, how you answer it is going to be very, very different from how I answer it. How Shannon answers it. <a href="undefined">Ann Litts</a> has a Harley. I know how she answers it (well, sort of)But answer it we must if we are to come into

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our own. For becoming a wilder in our own right wears as many faces and meanings as we are women.Being a wilder for me means- today, for now- returning to the woods and wet streams and mountains and getting away from cities that grew up around me. That suffocated me. For me it meant releasing myself from the assumptions that there was some Perfect Partner for me (there isn’t) and that there was a life to be had in concert with that Partner (there isn’t). Those released me to ask where I really wanted to live. And how, for my final decades.All I want is a home base from which I can launch as many adventures as possible until I can no longer stand up on my own. I am drawn every few months to another wild place just as surely as any bee can find blossoms. It’s not a thing, a voice, it’s a way of Being. Home exists inside me, so where I am, there I am, in a hostel or a tent or on a couch in someone’s basement, in a ship’s room or the floor of a cook tent on the side of a mountain. I am home.I am a wilder. My home is the world, my family all the families of the earth, sleeping under the open sides on a lava bed in Ethiopia or in the wind-blasted mountains of Mongolia. When I am in one place too long I begin to suffer. So it is less a call or an urge for me to go, than simply a need to find a place that allows me to rest again before I look for the brambled, less-traveled path. It took me years to allow myself permission to live this way and be this way.When you feed a terrible itch to color outside the lines, Laura, your wilder is calling. You’re the only one who knows what that means, and how to answer it. That’s why it depends.When you look in the mirror, what is your wilder whispering to you? What cloudless night does she need to dance under, around the stones or in waters of some sacred space? Or does she speak a very different language to you?It depends. But she will tell you precisely what you need.<figure id="ab9d"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*VbbzOfGyXemVb2-w"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@jonathanforage?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Jonathan Forage</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure>Begin by writing your articles. Then see what that process tells you, what comes up, and what aching longing sings in the hallways of your heart. You’ll know what to do.She knows.</article></body>

When Is It Time, Laura?

My response to LauraRaduenz, who asked me the secret question….

Today I got this challenge: When do I know it’s time for another adventure?

Julia, have you written an article that explains what trigger, sign from the universe, ah-ha, incident, made you decide to pick up and move and have another adventure?

I couldn’t find the article. If you have one, please share the link. If you don’t, I’d love for you to write an article about that.

Your recent articles made me reflect back to several times in my life when I had a sign from the universe to go on a big adventure. You’ve sparked me to write an article or two about that.

But, I’d love to hear your story….

The first answer:it depends.

Okay, collective groan.

The second, is how carefully are you listening to your inner goddess? How much are you and I aligning with others’ expectations at the expense of our own? How much do you and I tamp down the tinder of our fires, and wait for someone else to make a decision, when the wilder inside us screams for release?

To make my point, I also just got this from another Medium writer Shannon H:

Congratulations Julia! I hope by the time you notice this response,you have a contract on a house, at least. (I submitted a bid, they are countering, stay tuned)

I love new adventures and have only recently remembered that. I spent the last fifteen years of my life letting others determine what was acceptable behavior and what wasn’t, and over the last eighteen months, I have started to recognize that more clearly and now I am consciously working on welcoming my next adventure… with a 15 year old son, a 74 year old mom, 2 dogs and 2 guinea pigs along for the ride. (author bolded)

Your article reaffirms that these kinds of “pack it up and move it along” adventures are a joyful tribute to the amazing unknown. I am so excited for you and look forward to hearing the next chapters of this adventure story. (author bolded, thanks, Shannon, you nailed it)

Laura, the implicit answer is in Shannon’s second paragraph. This is true for all of us, any genders, anywhere in life. When you and I are willing to sell our souls for safety and predictability, the price can be awful.

To your comment, I think you just know. We don’t always listen, and for sure, we often don’t act. Sometimes, ever. For my part, that’s at great cost to us and the world at large.

There is no Voice of God for me. I get itchy, antsy, and I feel that terrible urge to get the hell out of Dodge. I can sense the ending of a phase and the promise of a new one, but kindly, it took me a while. Had I really really listened, I’d have sold my house a few years back long before the problem BF ever moved in. But that argues that I was ready.

I wasn’t. I had to cut that tie once and for all. When he drop kicked me for the last time when I landed in Bali, the first weekend I was back in country in February of 2019 I drove straight to Home Depot and loaded up on packing supplies. There was no going back. Not ever. That was for the HUGE move to leave a place after 50 years and just light out. I’d only been to Eugene once, some twenty years ago. I really did Just. Show. Up.

How does any of us know when it’s time? Some thoughts:

You simply know. It can be a smell on the spring wind wafting in through a window.

A taste in the air, something on your tongue that speaks to you of Something Else. A Promise made, but never taken.

A melody, something haunting, that takes you back to a scene a movie you saw as a child. That’s me, you thought back then, with all the confidence of a pre-adolescent. Then for the lie of acceptance and safety, you sold yourself down the river to Normalville. You forfeited your passage on the ship that would bear you to the storms, where the gales would hurl your hair around your laughing face as you stood on the ship’s bow.

When do you know? We are all wilders, Laura. All of us women. Each in her own way, we belong to the woods and paths and trails. We belong to the moon and the soft valleys and the hard rocks of the high cliffs. We all do. We all hear the call. We go slowly mad not answering it. However, how you answer it is going to be very, very different from how I answer it. How Shannon answers it. Ann Litts has a Harley. I know how she answers it (well, sort of)

But answer it we must if we are to come into our own. For becoming a wilder in our own right wears as many faces and meanings as we are women.

Being a wilder for me means- today, for now- returning to the woods and wet streams and mountains and getting away from cities that grew up around me. That suffocated me. For me it meant releasing myself from the assumptions that there was some Perfect Partner for me (there isn’t) and that there was a life to be had in concert with that Partner (there isn’t). Those released me to ask where I really wanted to live. And how, for my final decades.

All I want is a home base from which I can launch as many adventures as possible until I can no longer stand up on my own. I am drawn every few months to another wild place just as surely as any bee can find blossoms. It’s not a thing, a voice, it’s a way of Being. Home exists inside me, so where I am, there I am, in a hostel or a tent or on a couch in someone’s basement, in a ship’s room or the floor of a cook tent on the side of a mountain. I am home.

I am a wilder. My home is the world, my family all the families of the earth, sleeping under the open sides on a lava bed in Ethiopia or in the wind-blasted mountains of Mongolia. When I am in one place too long I begin to suffer. So it is less a call or an urge for me to go, than simply a need to find a place that allows me to rest again before I look for the brambled, less-traveled path. It took me years to allow myself permission to live this way and be this way.

When you feed a terrible itch to color outside the lines, Laura, your wilder is calling. You’re the only one who knows what that means, and how to answer it. That’s why it depends.

When you look in the mirror, what is your wilder whispering to you? What cloudless night does she need to dance under, around the stones or in waters of some sacred space? Or does she speak a very different language to you?

It depends. But she will tell you precisely what you need.

Begin by writing your articles. Then see what that process tells you, what comes up, and what aching longing sings in the hallways of your heart. You’ll know what to do.

She knows.