It has been weeks since I’ve gone out on a hike.  I have developed some sort of chronic injury or issue in my right foot.  It is not plantar faciaitis or shin splints but something else entirely. Like most strains, I’ve been staying off of it and icing it when ever possible.  Massages and stretching alleviate the pain for the most part and with each day that I don’t put any miles on it feels better.  I have been swimming regularly now as an alternative form of cardio.
     My other half of Staaron and I hit the pool three to four times a week, and we follow his triathlons workout for the most part.  In the past few weeks, I’ve gone from just being able to do a few hundred meters to well over two thousand with out a struggle.  When my foot is better I’ll have to keep this up too.  There is something almost quiet and calming when you swim any great distance.  The steady sound of your heartbeat, your rhythmic breathing and the constant sound of water around you, ferries your mind to quiet place where there is no thought.  No days events, to do lists, phone calls, messages, or work to be done.  I find that my mind zones out in an simple state with one thought, what lap I am on.  My evenings now consist of swimming and sleeping.  Lost in thought as I methodically count my laps as one would count sheep or passing cars.
     The past few weeks at work have gone from talking about the trail to gear.  Questions flow from what will I pack?  What is my base weight?  How can I reduce my weight? To what gear I still need to acquire.  Michael has started scouring the web for the latest deals and auctions in hopes of getting his gear on the cheap.  We spent today after work looking at just that, packs.
     Upon my return home I found my sisters house in its normal Saturday busyness.  They were neck deep in their D&D game while the kids were running around playing.  Oh the noise! The motion, the chaos of the house.  I tried to get lost by searching the web and trying to watch TV, yet to no avail I couldn’t.  I was feeling a bit anxious, unnerved, and out of place.  All I could do to alleviate this was to go, the gypsy itch had returned in full vengeance. Get out! Get away!  I found solace for a few hours at the movie theater.  It was ironically the quietest place to be.  I had some peace while “Dawn of The Planet of The Apes” played.
     On my way out of the theater I checked my phone, to see if there was any sign of life. Nothing, no calls, no messages, no texts.  This has been going on for days now.  This social solitude, I find myself lost in thought as I walked out.  Is the big man trying telling me something?  Is the universe?  I am not dating, not for a lack of trying, only because something always comes up.  Whether its on my end or theirs.  No matter who contacts who in a few days it disappears.  By now I am in the car with no memory of walking to it, starting or leaving the lot.  I see myself not through my eyes but as if I am watching on the screen.  The car, the surroundings are all familiar yet foreign to me, unattached and distant.  I’ve driven this road hundreds of times yet tonight I am seeing it though eyes that are not my own.
     The radio plays and as the song changes from “Colder Weather” to “So Far Away,” I feel the pull again.  This is not my town.  It is every town I’ve visited; The one thing that all the places I have been have in common is, it is not my home.  The trail calls to me, the quest for home calls to me.  I am left with one question as I pull up to the house, Where should I go hiking tomorrow after my swim?