Day 198

i get older today. it has come fast. still, a big realization came around the age of twelve when i suddenly found my mind telling me that turning '18' or '21' wouldn't be 'bang you're now this age' moment. you just open your eyes that morning and keep breathing and the calendar does the rest. the other day a friend from home and i were discussing birthdays and i wondered if all birthdays are meant to be realized about six months after they actually happen- as if they're a delayed cycle and we really end up breaking into our new number several months after the actual day of birth. like a good pair of jeans.

i imagine one of those signs from the outback that would say 'last stop for gas' for the next insane amount of kilometers. twenty-one is that shiny road sign, just down the road from the 'welcome to eighteen' gas station, but in small print under the 'last stop' part is another sentence. 'see you when you're fifty.'

special thanks to the friends that made this the best foreign birthday. seriously. good times.

Day 197

after showering off the lingering pungency left from yesterday's stop at a natural hot springs, i made some pancakes and coffee. actually, there's a lot to be said about the weekend as a whole that i never got around to describe. a van filled with music gear and three musicians are driving to their first gig together through canadian rockies valleys and cliffs and ledges and stopping for cheap coffee at gas stations along the way and analyzing the newest death cab album. stuff like that.

the sun is warm on my back through the big window in the kitchen and we just put a large map of canada on the wall. rockford and the chicagoland area barely made the cut in the deepest south of the paper and, in fact, command the map's only outcropping of green land against an otherwise consistent straight white border. there's just enough room to see home and i've been looking at the map for a while now and finding this visual presence of home a satisfactory addition to the wall. i like maps. once i bought an atlas and followed lines and highways in my mind and across the paper to various places on the west coast. like seattle. portland.

i did get birthday cards in the mail today. and a package. thanks very much. in the box from home was the book 'through painted deserts' as requested. i've got it in my hands now and am reading it again after a year of last putting it down. part of the introduction says

"everybody has to change, or they expire. everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.''

and also

''i didn't know, when i was living it, that it was about leaving home.. thanks for letting me go.''


i'm not sure which one that all this is meant to lead to. yet.

Day 191

i feel like i should explain yesterday. i had other thoughts to draw from the day but every time i retreated to a coffee shop to be still and chill, friends from town would cheerfully appear. i have no problem with this really and am thankful that there are friends everywhere now in this town. i'd just had that letter on my mind the past few days and am planning on sending it to don miller as soon as he accepts my facebook friend request. i'll be sure to share a response.

my birthday is now suddenly a week away. this has become the second, total realization of this nearing occurrence. time flies. life is good.

4/6 of our house members are here. unsimplified fractions don't matter to me. in hearing the other's stories, i'm fully believing more and more that this group has been arranged and pulled together in this house in the middle of town for this winter for a developing and exciting purpose. i've never been more alive.

if you're interested, there's a print on wallblank for the rest of the week. you'll see it. if you don't even like it, i'd encourage you to visit back again to see what else is presented in the following days.

p.s. i need some new books. i've read the collection i've brought and bought along the way about 5 times each now. if there's something you're willing to share and part with, i'll hook you up with an address and with the promise that the material will be shared once again after a reading.