State of the Savage: January 2016

Last month marked six years of Traveling Savage. Six years! I wrote my first post here on December 13, 2009, almost a year from the date I intended to leave my corporate job. It was a cringe-worthy, rambling manifesto that began a year of philosophical writings on travel intended more to keep me motivated than to satisfy my readers — I had no readers! I wrote in the evenings after work as a test to see if I could stick with a blog, and if I couldn’t then perhaps I didn’t believe enough in the idea. But I did stick with it, and as my departure date approached my pragmatic and soul-blasted selves tangled in an exhausting cage match of fear, anxiety, hope, and excitement. I was leaping into…into what?

Hope is not a plan. Some nun said that in the context of my previous job, and it has stuck with me for many years, because, I think, hope is generally my plan. Now that’s not entirely true, but a certain amount of wishing things into being simply through force of will has defined my life. I like to think of it as faith in myself, faith that I will find a way to make something work. While I can’t condone leaping from one idea to the next bereft of sensible plans, some people just need to be dumped in the boiling water — they’ll find a way out — rather than think forever about the hypothetical. I’m one of those people.

So I quit my job, traveled, and wrote. A lot has changed in the ensuing six years. I refocused the site on Scotland five years ago. I began offering trip-planning consultations 18 months ago. Well, maybe not that much has changed, but perhaps steadiness is my strength. You know what you’re getting here: A site focused on Scotland (with the occasional blather). There are over 550 articles in the archives. I’ve spent so much time on Traveling Savage I can’t imagine what it would be like not to write here.

Time. Every new year comes quietly in the darkness. January can be difficult. In Wisconsin it’s dark and frigid, the land is peopled by the SAD-afflicted, and my mind wanders to despondent places. For the last four years I’ve spent most of my time working on a novel. There’s no advance, no promise of payment. It would not be totally off base to call it a hobby. But I believe in it. Sarah just finished reading my second draft after having read nothing since I started. How’s that for faith? She believes in it, too.

Yet I worry. Six years. Look how fast that has passed. What have I accomplished? How long can this continue? When will all this passion reach critical mass? These are dark roads none should walk alone, and it’s often in these moments of despair that Burns Supper arrives, and with it a reminder: Fondness. Wonder. Gratitude. The manifesto from my very first post. Looking back, I have been incredibly lucky to have the support of someone like Sarah, who has fostered my creativity, and to be surrounded by friends with similar values, among them jewelry-makers and musicians, brewers and bike-makers, fashion-truck owners and authors. Passion pulls. All have recognized that the future is not promised and all good things take time.

My faith is restored among the haggis, neeps, and tatties, corks flung in the fire, and friends dancing across the swords. I am wearing a kilt for the first time, and my clan’s words ring in my ears: Virescit Vulnere Virtus. Courage grows strong at the wound. We must resolve ourselves to great things as the dark half gives way to the light half.

And so: This year I am exploring parts of Scotland that have long escaped my reach. This year I am sending my novel into the world.

The future must be forged.