The Year of the Turtle

Monday morning in the Weaverville Bakery, one of my last here for the time being.  And I got to watch 'em stand and pole the American flags all up and down both sides of Main Street (it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day).  And speaking of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we should all pay respects by listening to the song "Dr. King" by Mason Jennings.  You can easily hear it by way of google, great song by a true artist.

I am flying to Wrightwood, CA on Friday morning, as a permanent deal, to live and work and everything inbetween.  I have already compiled a list of all notable authors that have anything to do with the region and have planned a succession of adventures to surrounding areas (the tallest mountain in the contiguous US, the lowest desert, Joshua Tree Park and Yosemite, etc...).  I will be busy as soon as I arrive, searching for a place to live, meeting the people, getting acquainted with the work site and learning the flowers.

Today I am working on closing the chapter, on moving furniture out of the house and into a storage space where it will stay until Brad and Joel come and pick it up in a couple months, to begin again, if they want to.   Garrison is back in Oregon, beginning his own new story with brand new knee at a new university.  Brad and Joel are working in Montana for the moment, and will hopefully come work in California next to me for a while before returning to Asheville, and hopefully maybe even stay in California, one or both of them.  But none of us really know for sure yet, still coasting on the open-ended roadtrip we began last spring.  The house is starting to look like it did a year ago - the day we moved in - when we sat on the living room floor without a dollar to our name or a chair in the house, ate Arby's, then wondered what to do for the next 7 days before work started.  None of us actually lived out the entire calendar year under one roof, but hey, baby steps.

So far in 2011 I have been climbing a little more often, eating a little smarter, reading a lot of Gary Snyder and listening to a lot of J Tillman.  I have also been watching more movies than I would usually admit, probably since I'm living alone and don't have Joel to quote them for me anymore:  I was really excited to see the "Book of Eli" because of Religion in Pop Culture and end-of-the-world and well of course Denzel, but unfortunately the movie was completely weightless and made me swear that I would give up on Hollywood forever.  But a few days later I saw the original "True Grit" which was a damn good feel-good of a western, and can't wait to see the Coen Brothers' take on it.

Hopefully no one, besides Backpacker Magazine who claims I owe them 20 dollars, will send any more mail to 44 S. College Street in Weaverville.  I'll let everyone know of my new address as soon as I do.  Mostly, I wanted to get on here and send Love to my family in Newberg Troutdale Sellwood Livermore Little Rock and OKC, most of whom I was blessed to see over the holiday break, and the rest of who I'm excited to see for kicks in '11.