Six weeks is a long time to be away. But six weeks of beauty around every corner is even longer. Through the miracle of life, the perseverance of self determination, the gifts of desert, mountain, ocean, marsh, and redwood, the generosity of friends, and the bliss of love my last six weeks have been worth a dozen lives. And how could I describe it? My journal is full and tells only speckles of an elaborate tale of places, people, dreams, desire, birds, rock, history, and freedom.

I seem to have visited a world where play reigns, everyone shines, and time only matters to the sun, moon, and stars (so many to see!). Part drift, part plan (though most plans fail), part intuition, and a lot of patience yields pleasure to the maximum degree. I've slept in tents, box trucks, trailers, motels, other people's homes, and cars -- on the ground, inside, outside, with bears, with swamp, with hot, cold, sober and blazed -- alone, with friends, and with a confederate crow. I've met a dozen people who built their own lives from toothpicks and string, they are the characters of unwritten novels - passionate, maybe crazy, and certainly focused on one of the billions of bits that make this world interesting. I am the luckiest person alive and you are too. This is what we 'should never forget.'

It started in an overstuffed purple Volkswagen bug, smashed up to the dash for a 7 hour ride from Brooklyn down to Crisfield, Maryland, to catch a ferry to ride 40 minutes to the center of Chesapeake Bay -- Smith Island, the town of Ewell to be precise. I had a feeling but no real idea and it's hard to sort out what happened. But I'll tell you this: The people are real, the land beautiful, and respect and honesty prevail. It's a small crabbing / oyster town with a post office, a store or two, a few bed and breakfasts and no real penchant for tourism (hooray!) . It was hotter than black coffee and the bugs were relentless, and the stars were bright, and the moon glowed red, and the unidentified flying objects filled our heads with possibility. Kaleidoscope clouds and epic sunsets are just par for the course. I found myself in church! Dear Golly! Not for want of god but for involvement with community -- with people who help each other, with people who really do care, and so do I. They sang nice songs, they swayed and tapped, and heaven help the poor fool who tries to mow the grass on Sundays. There are no police to protect you from yourself. There is no government to register your car with. There are only sacred, known rules, however few, and you best pay attention -- less you lose the other freedoms you enjoy from such autonomy. There is no hip, no cool, no scene, no bar, in fact it's a dry island (beyond the contents of ones private collection), and gosh darn, I've never felt so damn free, so comfortable, so easy. It's not for everyone, but it's most certainly for me.

I guess I passed three and a half weeks there and could have easily moved in, but the wind blew and a far away friend returned, and I found myself hitchhiking up from Reno to burning man to hang with the wolfs and the lambs and the rushing elephant shits of Brooklyn. I hadn't been out to 'the playa' for 4 years, and it had been ten or eleven since my first visit. Yeah, things change, they always do. But I wasn't worried about that this time. I didn't care about the ratio of good to bad art, or frat boys to artstars. I saw people I haven't seen and walked and walked alone in the sun to visit what came along. I slept, I drank, I danced, and I did not play records -- and I am so glad for it. I checked my ego at the door and did what I could to have a good time. Thank you to everyone who helped me get there, because it was not easy. In fact this is a nice segue way to lessons in humility...

A few months ago I had a hot, well paying job, and felt like I could buy a bottle of champagne for $100. But then the company that owed me money declared bankruptcy, and well, now I'm poor again. Funny how that works. Less funny, and rather beautiful, is how well the people around me have helped -- in every way possible. Food, rent, plane tickets, libations of all sorts, and gifts gifts gifts. I found out about my destined poverty a day before leaving for Maryland and had to decide: Go get a job, or hope I can fly by and finish my 'plan' and come back later with roses for everyone. I obviously chose to ride the wings of fate... I encourage everyone to make that same choice when it comes time. Helpless, but never hindered. Thank you, everyone. I love you. And I'll be there for you as you have been for me.

After burning man I spent a day in Gerlach, and for those of you who have ever met Lola, you know what I am about to say about the kindest, wildest, loveliest woman I may have ever met. Her place is like paradise lost for old toys, stuffed animals, clothes, yarn, canned goods, records, magazines, books, trinkets of all sorts, games, old electronics, broken instruments, deserted attics, and wayward dreams piled four feet high on nearly every square inch of her giant old motel of a home. Go there, ask for her, bring her gifts, and build her some shelves, help her clean, tell her stories and don't forget to ask about her trip to Brooklyn in 1955.

And then I climbed into another overstuffed vehicle and drove for hours sitting upside down first to Reno for a horrendous buffet and then to sierraville for hippie yuppie hot springs that re-hydrated my desert self. Sunrise, a white owl, and mating cows. Rock ponds, tile baths, hot and cold and delicious! Only to travel further to pot mountain, somewhere in California, up private dirt roads without electricity and teeming with more bluebirds than I've ever seen. (They liked to steal the cat food and had an elaborate system for acquiring such sustenance). I guess I was there for five days before we stumbled out to San Francisco and Oakland for family, friends, and a trip to ocean beach.

Somehow I managed to come home after all this... I am exhausted and full, drunk on happiness and elaborate mail art that arrived in my absence. So if I look rosy it could be the vodka, but more likely it is complete and total pleasure which includes all the uncomfort of lack of privacy, personal space, and hard ground. Life is good if you let it be so.

Love and chickpea salad,



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