LJ Idol Season 8, Week 8 - A Traveling Travesty.
There's a greeting card with art by James C. Christensen that hangs over my desk. It is called "Boat in the Forest".
It seems an exercise in futility, this image. The old man is obviously going nowhere, and his feline companion looks dreadfully worried. The birds of the air and beasts of the woodland floor demonstrate more patience, but have just as little confidence that they are going to see "the bounding main" any time soon.
The picture and its quixotic spirit make me smile, most days, and makes me long to put on my Wilburying shoes again.... to hop a train or a Greyhound and just go somewhere, even if I've not the means or mode of transport.
The old man in the painting seems to have grasped the secret of inner contentment that so many of us quest for in vain, even if his ship's cat thinks him mad.
Maybe all any of us needs is a boat in the forest, some stalwart companions, and a sturdy imagination.
Perhaps then our boats will fly.