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.

Day 275

retail stores and cashiers and shoppers struck me in a new light today. it was a reawakening to consumerism- the cheap jewelry browsers and fitting room attendants fell under the shades of the stratifications of corporate america. i put on a new pair of shoes in t.j. maxx and felt strange, as if for the first time in my life i realized that i didn't and wouldn't buy something that had white and clean appeal. it didn't matter to me anymore.

everything else- the images on stacks of magazines in borders and the car and driver and darting pedestrians in yellow crosswalks- were reminders of when this kind of life was important to me, or at least of the similar lifestyle where i thought i could find some sort of pseudo comfort and renewal in these places. and the same layouts of the same businesses back home home and routinized lives of these people in montana transfered into my own self awareness of a sluggish, ghost-like aura that i began to notice in each step, allowing some surreal outer perspective of my movements into these stores and around isles- like i could see my last fading traces following in the lightest and least discernible layers of a foggy. i was uneasy about it all again.

the idea of fish tacos had never appealed to me, but melody's recommendation of a fish burrito made a good and pleasing lunch. later, for dinner, the four of us would find ourselves in taco bell. memories of summer nights seemed to look up from different plastic benches and seats of the cookie cutter restaurant layout.

i'd bought sweet tea, both an arizona can and a gold peak bottle, this afternoon and decided that the taste of both were as relevant awarenesses to me as any certain songs might have in regards to memories of specific past. but i had no fishing pole today. no jeep. i'm with foreign friends, answering their questions about this shopping center in kalispell, montana, of where i've never really been but who's commercialism i have undoubtedly never not seen before.

i bought a couple books from a used bookstore that boasted a collection of over fifty thousand. shelves and piles of dust and brown pages polluted the narrow floor spaces of this second-life forest. i wondered if you'd have to be half crazy to work in an unorganized and untidy ocean such as this but after the older man behind the counter had cheerfully wheezed that he'd accept five dollars for both a tom wolfe and jon krakauer's 'into the wild' books, i left happy and proud of him who understood and managed such a drafty, spine-bowled literature treasury.

now tonight we're chilling with our friends here and listening to music and making sushi. the deer on the wall are still omnipresent-gazed and i'm thankful to feel alive in this life that has suddenly revealed itself today as uniquely 'set apart' and, almost now, maybe nearly completely free.

Day 245

sleep is always the last alternative. i've been tired for most of today but now that i can be still and chill, nothing inside me wants to go to bed anymore.

i was in this same phase last night when i happened across this BOOK online. i don't make many compulsive buys but after reading the cover and part of the summary i hopped on amazon. a copy is on its way.

today at work i listened to the audio book of this. now i've just uploaded 'the hobbit' for tomorrow.

tim talks about his stint working on an oil rig last year and last night curiosity got the better of me. i looked up oil rigs in the u.s. and an entry position like a 'radio operator' pays sixty grand and the job description says to 'bring a lot of books.' this interests me at the moment. i could bring a ton of text and non fiction books and study music and logic and psychology and everything and get paid. in all honesty the likeliness of that happening is slim to none. still the idea appeals to me.

Day 220

the dark creeps earlier and earlier on the valley. the ski hill closes by four in the afternoon and, not more than an hour later, thick night slides down the shadowy side of the mountain and across the cold highway with the ever-present arctic exhale. six o'clock feels like midnight. it has also always inversely been the case that midnight feels like six o'clock to me but that's a different story.

friends from all over town frequent our place by this time to watch a movie or play cards or hang out. its good. but tonight i still had a stack of books in my backpack. and there's a secret place i have. maybe not so secret after the next couple paragraphs, but i'm willing to sacrifice this for a raconteur, recreated now from a few, blue ink jots on the back of a scrap of paper.


the organic market and coffee shop is across the small street behind the convenience store of whose internet i am borrowing at the moment. this is only my second time going to this place and i wonder why i usually walk at least ten minutes to go downtown to the tea house or mug shots. the other places know me, i guess.

i don't put a coat on and throw my black backpack across my red flannel shirt and walk across the icy street.

the organic market and coffee home is titled as such because, besides fair trade coffee, they sell organic produce. although i am the only customer currently sitting in the small and homey floor space, there are several people who wander in and out to ask about buying fresh eggs or other certified-organic goods. one dark haired lady walks in and asks for scott. an oval headed, short haired man with an orange t-shirt and white apron comes to the register. the counter seems to be located in the middle of what used to be a front room back when the market used to be just a house. he answers matter-of-factly that since she hadn't ordered this morning, she missed participation on the current bread shipment. i take a sip from my small coffee and they begin to chat merrily.

there are two girls working behind the counter as well. the blonde has bright eyes and an accent that's probably australian. the other one, a brunette, reminds me of an actress because her figure and loud, enunciated speech. there's a red bandana in her hair and i caught her looking at me once when i'd happened to glance left at the counter.

i'm more than halfway through the book travels since beginning it yesterday. the conversation of the three behind the counter interjects reading. i hear the words 'american' and lower my eyes from the pages to listen. 'they're all so bloody opinionated,' the blonde says. the three of them banter about how hot coffee spills draw american lawsuits and the brunette adds that they're always ready to sue the pants off anyone for anything. i don't look over this time, i'm kind of nervous for some reason and pull an old envelope from my backpack and start making notes next to my book with a blue pen.

the blonde girl drawls that they're friendly in their own country, but they also seem to always be looking for a way to make a quick buck. i sigh a little and stare back at the motionless pages of the book. i'm forced to agree and almost catch myself nodding when the actress said that the mountains suddenly disappear after crossing the montana border. i know that route well now. the blonde girl says she wants to go to colorado. so do i. i write 'denver' down on the list on the back of the envelope scrap.

they're conversation wanders and i look around the place, noticing a vintage farmhouse image. muddled narrow floorboards and an exposed border of drywall and building structure add to the atmosphere already contributed by the old, metal coffee maker on a shelf and the artificial milkweed stems propped in a ceramic pot behind my chair. i continue reading about climbing mount kilimanjaro. now i want to climb mount kilimanjaro.

the text adventure is interrupted by a voice, soft and accented, asking if i was hungry. the blonde girl is standing next to the table. apparently they have one serving of cream of mushroom soup left and would rather not freeze the small amount. i accept in short speech, not really concerned about the americanisms earlier but still not interested in being asked where i was from. sometimes people can call it on 'the accent', whatever that means. most can't.

she offers water and routinely comes around to refill the mason jar glass. they gave me a free refill on coffee after i'd asked earlier and her and scott couldn't remember if it was still thirty-five cents or was made a dollar yet. everything in fernie is getting a little more expensive now that the hill is open. still, i decide that i like this place.

after spending a couple hours in the seat at the front window, i leave some dollar coins on the table and return the cups. the walk home takes about thirty seconds but the mental transition takes a little more effort.

still, this life is good. and expanding. tomorrow will be my first night playing piano at the resort in the big, fireplace and window room. this has been day two hundred twenty.

Day 217

i acquired a bunch of my old files recently. i found a short story in them from a while back that reminded me of how much i miss sweet tea here. i'm posting that up for your entertainment and critique while i take a rest to do some reading. i'm finding this book to be really insightful, but i want what i'm absorbing to find its flow.

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the porch screen door opened silently. chester shuffled through its white, flaking frame and lowered his shaky body onto the porch swing. heavy, sparse breaths were the only sound of the late summer afternoon; not even a trace of a breeze was left in the air. impulse, or maybe habit, would have called for some toast and sweet tea, but any such thoughts today fell silently into an eternal shell of quiet consternation. there was no desire to say or think anything in particular, yet never had he so strongly felt as if there was something that needed to be done.

not even the swing's unusual resistence could forge the dense, motionless air. it swung in eerie silence. his stiff neck turned to the metal joints and squinting eyes begged for a sqeak or rattle or any noise at all from the suspending chains. even the june bugs and grasshoppers had deserted the crisp, yellow lawn. the tall oak tree was all that was all that remained in the middle of the yard. never before had such a strong contrast existed between its dark frame and the old hay field he knew so well.

countless times had chester watched the sun fall behind this tree and the extending country hills. in fact, he quietly anticipated that time of the day when the sun would take center stage and would perform its glorious solo. the ultimate closing act always followed- a graceful and much appreciated fading bow to a humbled audience.

today the sun cast long shadows from the tree's bare, outstretched fingers and lifted them gently over the old eyes of its solitary audience. it was if the sun knew that it, in all his power and glory, could not muster a single wiff of air nor could it reach the old man's ear with any resilience of a burning crackle.

it was an ironic duo the two made. both, eternally destined it seemed, had their way of life and both silently met to end each day together. no sound, no words, nothing could better communicate the similiarity that burned within each of them. nothing could explain it and, now, nothing could replace it.

suddenly chester sighed, half wondering if it was only to break the stifiling silence in honor and remembrance of a time when he needed not call the air alive. oh the time when crickets sang lullabies from the sweet, dewy grass to the small children asleep upstairs. that time when his dashing wife would bring out two glasses of tea and would silently rest her head on his shoulder as a rythmic squeak accompanied the paling orange decent.

the sigh ended and the sun dipped, lower and lower and lower, behind the familar bumps on the horizon. finally, the tree was outlined by a fading pink brushstroke. flashing lights sprinkled the stillness- stars took their place along the branches of darkness. the swing rocked and rocked and suddenly, strangely, screeched a single, long whine.

somewhere, far beyond the wood rail fence, an inspired, solitary cricket gave an awkward, return outburst of jubilee. the single chirp resounded like the drip on a still pool of water. the wrinkled face pinched into a tiny smile.

"go get 'em little guy, go get 'em."

Day 212

i was cleaning at church today when the pastor and i started talking about design and upcoming events. i was really encouraged when he said he was amazed that i've achieved 'an integral role in the community in only two months'. really encouraged. this is the right place for me right now.

take a look at a video if you're interested. it's the rough draft from the sfc retreat in banff a few weeks ago.

i spent the rest of the afternoon at mug shots reading. i only have a couple free days left before another job starts. my friend jerri who works there would come around to chat in her heavy english accent and to kindly refill coffee.

also, two friends from camp came today to visit for a week. they're staying in the spare room we have that will soon be rented to a swedish friend, jon, at the end of the month. right now everyone's over watching batman and life is good.

thanks again for the letters, books, and birthday cards. they continue to filter through the mail and arrive in timely fashion. very much appreciated.

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.

Day 144

the humid, rich breath of evergreen forests hung in the overcast, autumn glow all day today. the pacific northwest. sometimes i would pause working and, standing on the little path i've leveled midway up the hill, look at the still lake water. the buzz of silence, perhaps more a silky stillness, is momentarily punctuated by the wisps of wings of a crow overhead or the splashing, crashing dash of a duck from flight to the still surface of water. i've seen several bald eagles as well as they quietly drop down from the treetops and glide above the glassy backyard lake.

i found three snakes today and also, surprisingly, a nest of turtle eggs. i know they are the eggs of turtles because the first 'round soft white rock' broke against a shovel stroke. i had to keep moving the rest of the sand in the area, but i've relocated the rest of the eggs to a different part of the yard where the sun can still keep them warm. hopefully they're cool with that.

now i'm inside- tired, full, and clean. i bought a really good photography book online, undoubtably the best i've ever found in my lifetime's broad bookstore experience, after finding it in a bookstore in portland. until that gets here, i have a solid short stack of material i'm rotating through throughout a morning and evening. it's supposed to rain tomorrow. if it's enough to keep me from making some constructive progress in the yard, then i will definitely enjoy reading all day.

i've also been contacting people and have turned in resumes in fernie. i have a hookup at a restaurant there and am really needing a pre-established job for a smooth border cross, so hopefully this process continues to go well. a friend in new zealand, tim if you remember him from very early posts, called the other night to talk and catch up. he's coming back to north america to join our crew for the winter and confirmed his confidence and prayers to the fulfillment of these final winter arrangements. many others have as well, which is huge and greatly appreciated.

now, i'm going to shamelessly drop a couple plugs. one's for some of my photography from the summer's adventures (innocent enough), along with some extras i wanted to have up. you'll see, as they're labeled accordingly. the second is for the website that some of these, along with many more, will soon be available for purchase as posters. you can see how this might be sheepishly presented, unless you're very interested in art, photography, or supporting a young traveler.

joelieske

wallblank.com

Day 137

grey rain filtered from the sky as i woke up and made a bend in aluminum blinds. they snapped back into place and i continued to see that fall is all about the heavy drizzle here. no work outside today.

as i checked emails throughout today, i was surprised at the mass of personal messages. from real people. sent just to me. i've never had so many emails in one day that weren't just newsletters and subscriptions.

i don't know how to put it out there, but i want to. the whole canada work permit situation and ideas for direction has been on my mind much lately. with no real work to do and a quiet morning, i turned from the fridge and put back the last burger i'd eyed. for the first real time in my life, i've started a fast. i'd decided to commence last night and, after the confirming cheeseburger denial at breakfast, i spent the morning reading and praying and such about the future and next steps and life and people. this site helped me get started, as i was kind of new to the whole big picture. i'm a very hungry person, it should be known, and now with an hour left before midnight, i am almost finished with my first twenty-four hour fast.

throughout the day, i tried to stay off the computer and did a lot of reading and praying, but i did check back on a correspondence i'd started with someone in fernie. she'd talked to two employers for me and i have their email addresses now for contacting them directly for work. this was encouraging. also, i heard back from a speaker/magazine editor/teacher i'd met over the summer at camp and who, nearly out of the blue, shared "i do know that when you trust Christ entirely in each situation that you will end up in the exact place that He wants you to be regardless of where (geographically) that place is." good timing.

then tonight, parker and i went to help at the high school youth group. afterwards, we chilled with the youth pastor in his office and the guy gave us some cool books about prayer and sharing faith in everyday conversation we'd been looking and talking about. the david crowder book i'm currently reading that i'd linked in a post the other day is ironically based on the death of the pastor and author of that prayer book.

as much as stuff didn't happen today, much has happened indeed. and there are plenty of links to explore now if you so desire.

i've got one more solid hour left.

Day 130

i skeptically browsed the bookshelves of a goodwill today and ended up finding the most solid popular music history progression book i've ever seen or heard of. a professor at wiu wrote it. although i expected a cheap and worthless artist bio or something when i first saw the title 'the beat goes on', i've found that the information and style comes at a perfect intersection of present taste and knowledge and ties together blues and the beatles and folk and their similarities and collective history.

a morning of work ended after parker and i went out to meet a local youth pastor for lunch. we went to his youth group tonight to kind of help out, even though it was one of their first meetings.

i had more that i was planning on saying tonight but as usually happens when a draft is started in the mind, i end up here with nothing organized or remembered.