Day 383

i'm at my kitchen table in the quiet hours that around here are usually always well before midnight. my laptop is sitting next to the well-traveled 'through painted deserts' (for those semi-forsaken but never forgotten nostalgic reasons of preconceived notion) and under both of these is an opened road map showing the coast-to-coast interstates of america. you know this map. it's the oft mentioned atlas purchased well over a year ago while i was holding dreams and desire for the pacific northwest.



we descended the illinois border a few minutes before five o'clock this morning. the hazy mist of fresh light and damp corn fields started giving way to familiar sights. "trippy.. trippy. man" were about the only words i whispered to myself as forgotten landmarks and signs started to label home. maybe the four hours of sleep during the previous twenty-two straight had something to do with a lack of words as well.

now i stared dumbfounded at the house- my house, beige and two stories and with a new car in the driveway that i didn't even recognize. but i knew my jeep. i shook her dew by the luggage racks and said hello. i went inside alone. my parents came downstairs. i kid and ask my mom if i can live here for a little while longer. everything inside looks normal and yet everything seems to deserve a glance of greeting. this is happening... i'm really back after all that happened... hey, look, a coherent dish and silverware collection (no more eclectic thrift store combos) and exceptionally soft carpet (no more gnarly winter carpet or squeaky wood floors). wow, i really like my house. hey, my guitar. breakfast. etc.

my mom cooks breakfast for all of us and we sit around the table introducing and eating and telling road trip stories.

here two worlds have connected between two years and points of two thousand miles. but in the veins my one being i find incredible satisfaction and BALANCE in this manner of return. to me- because these infamous (if you've read this blog every day) montana friends are here in my house- there is no end.

tonight two of those three original montana girls are staying over along with the two other friends who had caravaned to rockford. after breakfast they had driven to pick up another from the airport and to spend the afternoon checking out chicago. i went to my seventeen year old brother's regional pitching start. he dominated while being watched by scouts and colleges and reporters alike.

much later, after dinner and cake and hanging out with these relocated friends and rediscovered family, there is a jam session with all of us in the front room. my family acknowledges this return of music. is this really happening?

tomorrow they will head back to the big city and their wedding destination and then will hit the road west. tomorrow i will stay home and meet my local friends. but tonight, right now in this last minute midnight, i have with me some of the very friends of the memories and excitement and adventures that has become all this. they're here in the house i once left for a place where no one knew my name and i'm sitting in the kitchen where i'd once stood and held my arms out in frustration and excitement to try to explain that i was headed to vancouver island to do video work at a camp for the summer and that i felt there might be more to follow.

this doesn't feel like an end at all. to be honest,

i don't think there is ever going to be an end

to the kind of life

for what has become

all

this