This wild-eyed man came into this tasting room the other day. He opened his mouth and things started to pour out, jumping from subject to subject. He was unchained, untethered, a man of the road. He talked of living through tsunami's in the Philippines and Bolinas in the 70's.

He seemed rather nuts. But, I knew that deep sense of curiosity. That need to continuously see new things, for the mind to be challenged and stimulated. 

But here I was, hunkered down in my fourth winter in this teeny town. I was no longer wild. 

I remembered the sensation of that man's knife in my side as he tried to rob me in Nicaragua. I was stubborn and fearless, I resisted and he applied pressure. I can still feel his humid breath on my neck. I had this memory as I walk the dirt road from changing the open sign, as I looked at the horses, the fog rolling over the hillside, as I thought about how I am living my dream and have so much of what I yearned for so many lonely years on the road. I thought about how that life and that person seems like it was someone else's life, some other person. 

Times were lonely on the road but I also made intensely deep friendships. Work hard with people and you're bound to be kin for life. 

Merieidi was one such soul. We met in Alaska and lived in a cabin in the woods together for a short time. She is a boat captain and we bonded over living a life out of a bag. We worked long 12-15 hour days in the endless Alaskan light. But the sun never set, so there was always time to talk.

This was her third visit to Point Reyes. And what struck a cord in me, is that I can count on her. Friends are the family you choose and I take their loyalty to heart. It's the trait, I value most. Perhaps she gets it so because she knows that itinerant fate. She values those she connected with along the way. 

That peninsula in Alaska created some of my dearest friendships- Jill, Mikel, Nancy, Megan, Dani, Anne and Matt and Meriedi. One of my fondest relationships was with a man I met there, another itinerant with the need to move with the seasons. Throw a handful of people on a secluded island...et voila, friends for life.

As I pack my bags for Cuba, I realize I haven't left the country in over a year. My, how things have changed. I find myself out of practice, I feel as if I am going to pack all the wrong things. But, my soul needs this. It needs to see cultures where community thrives, no matter how little they have. I always felt a part of community abroad and I always would come back and say in the US we are on an island with ourselves. 

I am so ready to go a little wild eyed, even if only for a brief moment.