I got lost

I got lost inside a book:
in between the yellow spine and chapter 7
stepped right inside a paragraph break
entered the plot
started a new rising action
right when we were coming
down
from the climax.

I got lost in an ocean:
its enormity impossible to understand.
I took a deep breath that lasted for days
the body of water cradled
my body of organs
created a new definition of home: 
a current.

I got lost in my neighborhood:
my phone died and I had never
really looked hard at street names,
having just listened to the turn cues
on Google Maps

I got lost on a journal page:
I started with the prompt 
“I look out my window” 
and ended up across the border.

I got lost, take two

I got lost in my own backyard. Well, I had to crawl under the barbed wire fence, dried up pine needles sticking to my purple leggings. It’s technically not my backyard but the land right above us is a 400-acre ranch, owned by a couple in their 90s, and their house is far away. Between me and them is a thicket of massive trees and rocks, deer pellets and a carcass, signs of wildlife everywhere. Eventually there is a trail, which takes you up to Lone Peak, but by trail I mean a subtle, thin flattened piece of dirt that whispers its differentiation from the rest of the woods.

I cannot believe this is my home. I wonder when it will settle in. It’s been over four years since living in Colorado and yet I’m still used to my house being a single room, my steps accumulating from daily walks to the 4/5 train. Now, I live in a home where each room has a specific function: work, guests, sleep, exercise. Massive windows open to hundreds of acres of open space and little valleys with winding roads dotted with houses.

Every morning the fire cracks in the wood-burning stove, heating up the house without the need for anything electric. The fox, deer, and birds all come in and out. I’m waiting to see a lion, wondering if all the bears are really hibernating with some days being so warm, the sun confusing our seasons. The once-was clean windows are now lined with nose prints and streaks of dog drool. I make a commitment to wash them weekly.

And yet, I still get lost in my own mind, wondering what is next, and when I can hug someone again, and when we can travel overseas to foreign spaces. Loving my home doesn’t erase my thirst for other rhythms; the slow-paced silent mountain life needs equanimity by way of honking cars and cows on streets, little markets everywhere and an air mixed with incense and sea salt and pots of rice and fish.

I am lost on one side of the spectrum — groundedness, peace, homestead and stillness. It’s been years since I’ve worked in an office, all of my colleagues now in different timezones, in different countries. I’ve developed days when home and traveling to different rooms is the commute: bedroom to bathroom, kitchen to office. I get lost in my own wantings that are opposite of my own presence, only to fulfill my wanting and want to go back to once was. What room will I be in next, what spaces will we fill, what rooms have I yet to get lost in?