Day 350

i feel there needs to be mention of this morning's church and second consecutive afternoon feast cookout. this time a new group of friends gathered at the gohricks and ken somehow managed to produce another batch of gourmet speciality, oven stone pizzas. the sun was out and the low lawn held cut lines and a green smell and there were hammocks and talking and chilling. dozens of fishing boats bobbed in the backyard lake in celebration of opening season.

over lunch i met a musician who'd impressed me this morning at church and he told me about his professional career in various symphonies and bands around the states. his shiny, round forehead and long white beard and laugh were as jolly as santa. i guess mostly just his personality would have been jolly, but he told me stories about music and traveling and then said that when he reached the age of thirty or so he started to get tired of the moving around and constant uprooting of the adventurous life. he told me to enjoy it while i can. and i am.

i'm especially excited right now because i'm sitting in portland, oregon, at a coffee shop often cited by writer don miller as one of his favorite places to write his books. and i can see why. the place is big but not wide and single sections of tables and chairs border the windows. there are dozens of college students hunched with computers in the dim, yellow light and i'm really just happy to be here. i don't even think i'll be able to read my book here tonight. can't concentrate.

parker's house is only a five minute walk from this place but i think i got here in four. a full moon is cloaked in mist above downtown and patches of sky and moonlight hang a heavy blue between the branches of trees on these neighborhood sidewalks and streets. the air is warm and smells like flowers; i think tulips are popular here. several flashing cyclers whizz past on the asphalt and through shadows and past parked cars.

parker is experiencing his own community and renting experience, maybe somewhat like my fernie, and he's invited me to stay for a bit. the guys he lives with all seem cool so far and most of us had hung out over the weekend while riding bikes and going to the concert in seattle.


it's ten p.m. and palio doesn't close for another hour. i'm so stoked to be here right now. just over a year ago i'd bought a discounted road atlas from a borders bookstore in illinois and had reviewed and explored what highways would bring me from rockford to portland. i'd spent weeks looking for rooms for rent in the shared houses section on craigslist. i'd even talked to the manager at my sporting goods store and he said that a transfer to the new portland store could definitely happen. that was back in march 2008 and still it somehow didn't make sense then.

and i'm not saying that just because i'm here right now that an omnipotent understanding has suddenly arrived. to be honest, i've stopped looking back on the past 350 days as a lump sum and have grown to value each step and day and relationship and risk and success and failure and opportunity.

so tonight from edge of 16th and next to the massive roundabout circle outside the window i want to tell you that i'm stoked to be here for the next month. my new musician friend up north had asked me what i would do if i could do anything for the rest of my life. i told him i'd play music and write non-fiction books and do photography in whatever ministry or cause would be appropriate.

so here i am in portland for the next few weeks. then there's a reunion with some fernie and montana friends at the sasquatch music festival in eastern washington. and then to illinois.

and by then who knows what will have happened.

Day 348

everyone's coming back to the apartment and i've got a couple seconds to dump a couple things out before concentration slides away. i'll come back before tomorrow's post to edit and put some links in for the organizations and musicians mentioned below.

we rode road bikes today all around seattle. everywhere. our adventure started near the seattle pacific university campus where we met indie musician noah gundersen for lunch. he had a show tonight on campus with david bazan (pedro the lion, headphones, etc) that we'd all be back for.

as is usual, i later split off from the group and locked my borrowed bike in front of a borders. finally an american bookstore. i would like nothing more than to one day have a chill place where i can have my own library of books and music and instruments. anyways, while wandering the sunny streets of the pike place market i ran into a new friend, chris, who i'd met a few hours earlier and who was a friend of parkers. he works for the charity children international and we got to know each other a bit on the street corner of pine and first. chris looks just like one of my baseball teammates from rock valley college except he has piercings of bone particles in his ear. i asked him why he does what he does and why he walks downtown and asks people to sponsor children for twenty dollars a month. he'd already tried to get me and i changed subjects.

his reasons were non spiritual and elementally human: contentment and the feeling of helping. the explanation was cut short by a homeless girl. "man, she would be so beautiful if she could kick her habit and get a shower. i can just see her walking the streets in a sundress and maybe a little bit of make up and enjoying her day instead of sitting and begging on the corner to aid her fix." chris and i walked across the street and he bought her a piece of pizza. after handing it over and him saying that he knows and wants to identify with these 'bum' friends, we saw the girl tearing her pizza in half to share with another bum across the street. a beautiful moment. i saw another homeless man drinking the last sips from a drink he scooped from the garbage. ten feet away from him were the shopping middle class husbands and wives and families. on the other side of this were luxury cars and shiny rims roaring over the downtown cobblestone. and nobody seemed to notice either of the others within their thirty foot radius. all these things connected in my mind and i agreed to sponsor a child and picked a boy in mexico because i'd been there a couple times before.

there was an awesome three piece bluegrass band outside the original starbucks and i leaned against a light pole for fifteen minutes. i was glad i had no backpack and didn't feel like a tourist during my wandering laps through the crowds of families and foreigners and shoppers. pike place market.

i rode along with traffic to meet back up with the other guys and we headed back to campus for the show. we chilled with noah backstage and the group of us took a walk around campus. we didn't even have to worry about seats cause we were all given reserved 4th row seats with him. awesome. before noah went up he asked four of us if we wanted to come on stage for part of the singalong for the last song. yes, that would be sweet.

the room was two hundred plus packed and when we got our cue we ran onto the stage to sing the melody. it was great. then the lights dimmed and david bazan clawed his acoustic guitar and thanked us for coming to see an 'old guy singing old songs.' his tone was milk and honey and the whole room was motionless for every tune. in between songs he'd interact and would answer any questions. at the end he told everyone to ''be sweet to each other if they really believe what the Bible says.''

dick's is a fast food, outdoor burger joint that hasn't changed prices in fifty-five years of business. that's incredible on so many levels and the high school kids in orange uniforms that work on the other side of the glass move so quick that it's almost unsettling to think that they're doing it for me. but the food is good and incredibly cheap and is also tonight's last reason to love seattle.

that's a quick summary. bikes, seattle, coffee, books, musicians, friends, homeless, charities, good people, food, and a somehow privileged life and journey. i'm so happy and so thankful to be alive.