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 304

there's a second half to the poem at the top of this page. the latter section is a little different but maybe it just has two parts, i don't know. it's just the way it came out.

"to be free"

inspired by c.j.m.


bring to the shore the power of the ocean to forgive this mind of a selfish life

stand beneath the shadow of a mountain to be made small apart from my spiraling stride

bind these eyes with the eternal darkness that only stars of midnight give

shine through the wild with the deepest silence that man himself barely lets live


show me the beauty thats been twisted up in a lie

let unravel her mystery, breathing warmth from the sky

lift up my vision higher than your blind ever sees

give me the life, to be free, that few longer believe.



today was spent with some friends as we made burritos and chilled at the coffee shop and then in the sun on the mountain-facing front porch of our house. gazing at the blue mountains in the golden afternoon reminded me of that second line. that's why i'm posting the entire thing tonight.

Day 151

i have focus. right now. that's good, cause i haven't the past few days when i've gotten on here. it gets hard to write something interesting every day, but like it.

i have some cool news to share. and will.
but first, a raconteur. sort of.

the rain has stopped. finally. i went outside into the cool, crisp autumn air today to do some landscaping work and was sent back by the familiar scent of sweaty, leather work gloves.

days in australia, last summer, started with the same feel of this clear afternoon. cool. the outback air was always on the verge of direct sunlight at five thirty a.m. and, as i rolled out of my tent and into the hazy chill, i most often continued without a hoodie. minutes into a mostly silent walk down the airstrip, the edgy mist was warmed by a rising orange haze. the horizon glowed, then grew- endless and quiet and wild. hours later, around five p.m., we would be finished working and would be trudging back in the dusty glow of a shrinking sun. the gloves, damp and dusty, would come off. the baby kangaroo, quantas, who'd spent his day sleeping in a suspended canvas bag, hopped around the kitchen and came to lick the salt from the palms of these hands, sweaty and stained by the smell of leather work gloves.

it's a good association.

today, as i began to plan re-entrance into canada, there's been an exciting and relieving occurrence to be able to join the very date, weekend, and overall schedule of this trek with the arrival and intercepting of friends from back home, illinois, who happen to be in this area of the country on the very weekend i pass through the area. remember, this already happened once when eric drove up and was able to meet me with supplies and extra gear.

seriously. these things cannot be planned for and, in a way, are little encouragements that i'm doing the right thing. i'm blown away.

Day 142

monday, september 29, 2008

i was ready to post up hours ago but i procrastinated. then my computer froze. then i forgot. now i missed monday, officially, according to blogger. oh well. this is for monday, even tho it's early tuesday morning.

after doing some work outside and showering tonight, i hopped on the computer and was kind of overwhelmed with the sudden rush of people that started chatting. still it's good to talk to people back home and from everywhere else around the world.

someone asked what my favorite part of these travels have been so far.

my beard. it's finally full.

i was just kidding, sort of, but i hadn't really thought about the 'favorites' of the past one-fourty-two.

- meeting hundreds of new friends from around the world is definitely at the top of this progressing list. liking them and being liked back.
- experiencing the life i'd been wanting to live in an area i'd been long desiring to visit is also up there on the list as well.
- the coolest thing in all this so far, i'm sure, is the way each leg of the journey has been slightly anticipated but miraculously presented. right now i'm living with willing friends of whom i did not know more than just over a month ago.
- visiting downtown seattle and portland and seeing places i'd read about and admired was sweet.
- finally viewing the big mountains, sometimes several in the same gaze, is a solid realization of the rhymed lines at the top of this blog site that had been written early in the spring.
- visiting several different churches and starting to get involved in college groups and helping with youth groups is sweet.
- finally using couchsurfing.com, both for a place to stay while in portland and as a networking tool for future work in fernie.
- i'm finding and pursuing a deeper desire and motivation for living right and working hard to get there that couldn't quite be achieved before.

as of this fall, i'm officially and finally able to look back a year from an achieved position of fulfilled musings and tracings left on that road atlas, now able to actually breathe the realization of their inspirations.

Day 112: the last day

where to start..

has it really been nine weeks of consecutive camps? and now, in a sudden and final ending of fun and friends and sharing and music, it's all over. and not just for one week's pause before the a new camp and new faces, but the end of the end.

youth camp is the grand finale of summer where the campers are fourteen to eighteen years old and there's a huge overall amp in the week and program.

part of this is the banquet where many work hard to set and prepare a classy outdoor dining area on the field. banners and white strings of lights hang from poles like a circus tent skeleton and an atmosphere not much unlike prom has filled every camp outlet with blow driers and whatever else girls brought in preparation for this night. from the stage along the outer circumference, the sun is seen fading behind the mountain and i feel like a lizard in the warm glow of the nearby standing stage lights. they take effect as the mountain begins to sleep in the growing night and i think that i'm content because i'm playing piano as the six hundred campers and friends and staff are seated and laughing in the ocean air. friends dash up on stage at random times to take pictures and the music doesn't stop and there was jazz and octaves and seventh chords and the purest, cleanest, most-fitting recreations as i can pull in this moment that has now become the realization of a long and deep desire for an outdoor audience and piano and mountains and everything.


now, much later, i'm in my office for the last night. i'm only half way through the dvd label stamping and case filling because i couldn't bring myself to leave the fireside. the campers shared stories about broken pasts and broken homes and lives that they're scared to face again tomorrow afternoon. why do i have it so good..

i'll be awake again in a few hours to make it to the final breakfast and my first in several weeks. i'll clean the office, pack my bags, say goodbye to camper and staff friends, and the lights will go out suddenly after such a long and beautiful and admirable summer.

i don't know what else to say right now.