Friday, April 30, 2010

spring fashion

Rain tip tap splashes lightly all around.
Downtown streets bump with traffic lights, cat calls, and the homeless man urinating in an alley.
Clutching my bag, briskly I pass. Single
Dead Hipsters dance with Boom Swagger and stockings
Martinis, tall boys, and hand stamps.

Mornings are joyful
Laughs of magic spud marathons
mixed with iced mochas
Replacing this barista might not be so hard to do.

And the gooey cream between ends of a day could surprise you
moments short of breath, disoriented by doubt
excited for the road, sad for the leaving
apprehensive - pulled magnetically

heart fluttering
I take a step. forward.
mix magic. surprise short. rain tip tap swagger.
Dacia's coming. Dacia's coming.

full circle.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

4.27

I walk home in well-loved rain galoshes, sniffing. People laugh under porch awnings, cars are mostly still, worms wriggle across my sidewalk path. Reverting to wilderness ways I wonder if it's society I smell, women's perfume and laundry detergent. Perhaps. I settle instead on the thought that it is this wet spring night stretched out before my boots. Red Bud, lilac, willow, and a ton of other Garden City trees I can't identify. They fill my olfactory, seeping through like rainwater into the aquifer below these streets.
Songs bounce around my skull accompanied by the after taste of Huckleberry ice cream.
Thippity thump thump thump.
Water keeps coming down.
Guitars still strumming. I let Tuesday slip through these fingers with the finesse of a white-water skull.
Geronimo dozes off at my feet. Eyelids drop heavy.

Friday, April 23, 2010

how I learned to see....

The sinking sun fades a very long work week into pale colors. Behind silhouettes of mountains and mostly bare tree limbs is a pinkish / tan, fading to near white, to deep blue; as if the sand and ocean were meeting in this Rocky Mountain sky.
As night draws nearer the subtle shades intensify. Black. All black : trees, power lines, everything between me and this neon dusk.
A half moon rises and breeze picks up to tossle these dark branches. Stars break through a deep blue planetarium over this garden city.
With all the lights off in my home I watch from the futon, Chris Pureka's new album "How I Learned to See in the Dark" is the soundtrack. A few street and security lights flood in, painting artificial light on this natural scene. I wonder how to best spend final moments in Montana. Camping? Climbing? Cutting my hair for the first time in two years? Dancing? Drinking? Packing. yikes.
Visions rush across my mind of rivers, coniferous forests, snow capped rocky summits, all that this place is, all that I came here for, all that I'm leaving. Geronimo's collar clanks and echoes off these walls. I am alone. In the dark. Watching this Big Sky. In a structure with so little creature comforts I can almost pretend to be camping.
Mo crawls onto the futon beside me, I restart the album. Recalculating which chords resonate in my being this evening I skip ahead to the last three tracks. The sky is so dark now an ever-gleaming flood light on the neighboring Tae Kwan Do gym obstructs my night vision of the moon and stars.
"Can't you see what you've done? Where's the safety net now? Where's the damage control? We were promised a whole set of balances. You took the crookedest line to our door, and you left us with one million eyes closed. " Honestly I don't know if her voice or chords strike me deeper. There seem to be secrets in the strumming my mind need not unfurl.
And now that night has nestled over this city, and Geronimo is nestled beside me Low rings my phone.
fellowship. complete.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

4.22

Sunny for days - we were giggling and soaking up rays of vitamin D
Shadows soften into a matte finish of a newly budded spring 'scape.
Storms brewing? Slow guitar twinges the soft safety of a not quite home.
Slate grey/blue backdropping blossoms opened in time.

dreams of mine. dreaming of mine.

some forms of presence are so sedating I take this sleepy scene
marinate my being
heart beat through shades of green

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Window OPEN

"Be content of mind and sound of soul as you travel your own road" Andrew Bones
Hillary and I walked warm sunny hills outside Missoula today; laughing about daily events, love, and the joy of this journey we call life. Thank God for Hillary. I spent over 10 hours in the basement of a gear shop today ; slinging espresso, zipping winter coats, regenerating a water softener and discovering a totally foreign dialect of outdoor rec - rafting packages. It's not so much that work is terrible, it's that in the midst of gear and commission and cleaning, a sunny walk with Hillary and Geronimo is the best part of my day.
I've been thinking a lot about community lately as I revel in final weeks with a Montana crowd, scheme to visit traveling companions, and am overflowing with excitement to reside less than a 10 hour drive from so many loved ones on the eastern side of this country. I think about spring peepers - singing in a damp night. Fog rolling off a river as sun warms the landscape. Summer is coming.
Hillary says I'm happier because of the confidence and contentment of having a plan. Truth. But not a whole truth.
Lately Ryan and I carry on like Franny and Zooey over enlightenment, and the steps in between. Happiness. God. Contentment. In his simplified life of cross country cycling and long distance hiking he's found a joy and clarity all too fleeting during his college years.
It's so wild - the journey.
How we all find similar things in different ways at different times.
He asks me from a picnic table set against a sinking sun in Arizona - are you happy? I nearly turn bitter or offended at the audaciousness of the question - until I realize - in that moment - no, no I'm not happy.
During the nomadic chapters of my life I'm quite happy, I have joy and clarity. My domestic chapters seem, well, a little more cumbersome.
But - as I mentioned - I've been thinking a lot about community, and how we're created to be together and care about one another. And I think Hillary and Bones are onto something. It's quite difficult to share life with others if you're not content of mind and sound of soul as you travel your own road.
My friends teach me this because we all have such different roads; caring for a two year old son, international self-powered treks, finishing up a final semester at school. All challenging paths with opportunity for joy, pain, and just maybe- enlightenment.
And me? I plan to pack up and resume my nomad ways in a month. After a few weeks of that scene I'll nestle into a new chapter at a Mountain Campus and Summer Camp for outdoor recreation and education in Virginia.
This past week I've realized - I am happy.
That coveted light beams into my soft grey tunnel; I catch sparkles in my hands. Content of mind and sound of soul. Traveling my own road. Sharing every step possible with a fellowship that warms my heart.
How beautiful.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Shooooooot

Missoula in the spring. There will be a moment where the mountains are green, lilacs saturating this garden city, and chaco-clad feet walk dogs, all licking local ice cream. That moment is at least two weeks away - as wind whips across the north hills and and snow blows on high peaks. During my cleaning hours at work I hear the tippy tappy tat tat of hail bouncing off our sky lights. Most days have a few fleeting moments of gorgeous sunlight, quickly followed by cloud-diffused afternoons.
Geronimo's purple stitches hold his mangled ear together- it seems to be healing. It's a bit scabby and I'm not entirely certain the two pieces will rejoin through that clotted blood, but there's a better chance with a veterinary patch than the Drew/Bek glue attempt when Tanna first snack attacked mo.
Tikka's pretty naughty lately. In the trash, running away to the park, crying when Geronimo beats her to the frisbee.
Oh dogs.
Emily and I have started to list and show our home to potential new tenants; both excited to pack things up next month and leave Missoula, untethered for summer adventures.
Speaking of leaving Missoula - my next life chapter materializes a little more every day. If all goes well, I should settle into Virginia life near Shenandoah National Park June 2010- June 2011 after a few weeks of travel and camaraderie. Odd- last April I was hiking through snowy Smokey Mountains dreaming of Montana. This year is nearly the opposite- but some things are the same : the people I hold dear, the desire to be outside, and a yearning to invest in living life to the fullest while having one foot... okay maybe just a big toe, planted firmly on the ground =) Don't worry though - this time around it's a year rather than a summer and Geronimo's moving in too! Hooray Shenandoah!
After another solitary winter of soul searching for light unto my next step, I'm elated at the path before me. Options of Idaho, Utah, Alaska, New York all bounced around for awhile. But as it is - life works out just the way it ought - and for the first time in a long time I feel lighter, excited for a holistic contentment, seemingly overdue.
The things I've learned simply by living.... or living simple, if you'd rather.
For tonight- we'll wrap up. But as hopeful life springs forth, I suspect I'll share more with you soon!
~B