intent

Last night in my dreams, there were sled dogs, three teams of fourteen or sixteen each, gearing up to go for a run in three long lines at the trailhead. The dogs were screaming and lunging to go, slamming their harnesses and yipping in anticipation. There was a flurry of booties, harnesses, clips and lines. As I watched, first one team and the next and the next pulled hooks and sped off in silence, intent on the path before them. I was left at the trailhead alone, wearing the wrong kind of parka and hat, with my heart in my throat.

I spend a lot of time second guessing my own dreams, these days. Not the ones that haunt me at night, because I’m beginning to think those are the ones to be trusted. But in daylight, what fills my head are all the ways the logistics, the finances, the practical, day to day mess of having a kennel and running sled dogs full time isn’t going to work out. That it can’t possibly be the thing, that one thing, that is finally going to be it for me. And if I try to make it work, it will end in disaster and disappointment.

The thing. That weird idea that somehow one thing is going to solve it. And maybe that’s part of the problem. There is no one thing that will right all wrongs and heal all ills. And there are plenty to be had that a few dogs and mountains of equipment to fix and dog shit to scoop won’t help. But I know that I dream about running dogs at least once a week, and that my down time is spent daydreaming down trails, my notebooks just as full of sketches of kennel layouts and dog barn designs as they are of the pathophysiology that’s supposed to be filling those pages.

And yet the doubt remains, making me even more discontent with my current situation, stuck here in civilization and unable to pursue what I love, the lifestyle that I know works best for me. I am still by most accounts five years away from being able to go back up north, to start establishing the life I want to have. I know I need to lay this groundwork here, now, but watching these years slip away is like stripping off a layer of skin, some days. I am left raw from it, and vulnerable to the breeze.

So comes the realization that I need to create more contentment, not around what I am doing now, but in what I am going after. For the last three years, I have told myself to hold it loosely. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. You are only setting yourself up to be heartbroken. But now I am beginning to see that I need to hold it close, plan for it, live in it, so that when I am finally able to go home I will get there with the right parka, the right hat, to be able to jump on the dream I’ve held so carefully and ride it out.