Feckless Drifting

We went up to the Olympic Peninsula to visit my Mom and drop off camping gear and other essentials for after the trip, like a business suit (banishing the thought about future job interviews for now!). They have an incredible house with an equally incredible view of the bay. And we ate like kings, my Mom the chef recreating Lamb Shank with Mushroom Bolognese from the Tra Vigne cookbook, and drank like royalty with “her Ron” as the always savvy sommelier serving wine from his home-crafted wine cellar. You know its special when a Ledson makes the line up. I am careless to not have a photo of this masterpiece. And this is on Mother’s Day!

I should have been the one cooking. Although I did chop some of the ingredients like a dutiful sous chef, I would then disappear into the office to offer meager technical support to the home network configuration kerfuffle in progress. Just 3 days ago I configured Rocky’s router, network, printer, and file sharing in under an hour. That is the bliss and then ultimate aggravation of technology. One minute easy, the next impossible. And then Vista, forget it!

But after the plate was licked clean, the last drop of wine drunk, and the router was secure and purring it was almost already time for our departure from the warmth of my family.

My mom is just amazing and we are so incredibly lucky to be as close as we are even, and especially, as the years go by. She had tears in her eyes as we gave our last hugs for the year, although hopefully we meet up at some point on the trip, “perhaps New Zealand!” saying she felt like she was birthing me into the world again. That moment made me feel like a little girl full of a mothers love, which is like no other, and confident to follow my heart wherever it may lead. My mom with her unwavering support is unabashedly proud I’m running off to see the world. With full permission to be a "feckless drifter". I like the sound of that! But I admit I didn’t know what feckless meant and had to Google it later.

Feckless (Adj) Lacking purpose; Without skill, ineffective, incompetent; Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way; Lacking vitality

Hmmmmmm. This doesn’t seem exactly what I thought it meant or what I think she meant. More of a drifting with no ulterior motive but to drift. Travel for travels sake. Not needing to get anywhere but to be just where you are when you get there.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

That will be my definition of fecklessly drifting around the world.