Monday, November 02, 2009

days long gone and forgotten














I feel like I'm sunk in the summer doldrums here today. The weather has finally gone warm and clear in San Francisco, but my skin feels both hot and cold here. It is a weird between seasons, between phases time. Everything seems muted in this big city, and even old songs seem to have lost their meaning to me. The birds outside my window have gone from vibrant to unfamiliar and vaguely threatening. My time here is brief. A new home beckons, wherever it may be.
The other day I went to a friend's Halloween wedding dressed as a slim, bubba ho-tep Elvis with a pompadour that struck out a good half foot from the front of my face, and a pair of gold, wrap-around sunglasses that brought me to the verge of vomiting after wearing them for a few hours. This all was a coup in a life lived lately of stringent international deadlines and heady, red-eye travel. I've missed so many important dates, weddings, funerals, births and deaths that I'm amazed folks still keep in touch with me, and consider me a friend. I've been gone and separate from that world for several months now, and it feels pretty ok. I guess I'm not really sure how to get back into this thing here. All of this dirty interneting. All of this airing of my digital laundry. A few months back I had decided that if I continued my current pace, and careless lifestyle, that I would be a rather unhappy guy. I decided, with my 30th birthday rapidly approaching, that I would quit my job, move out of my apartment and find somewhere obscure, remote and wild to live for a few months, and maybe set myself right. I had, on a lead from a friend in Portland, investigated the Oregon Forestry Service's disused fire watch towers that they occasionally rent out to those pure of heart, but determined that while wild and remote, a fire watch tower might not suit my less than responsible with fire, less than law-abiding needs at the time. I settled on Big Sur as a place to escape. It just seems to be what you do here. I packed up a box with some canned food, a coleman stove, some books, a radio and some warm clothes, and lamped out to an old cabin with no electricity or plumbing, no pipes or wires. It was a tangle and fight for most of it, but I came out alright, and am feeling like a new man. I'm hoping, in the next few days, to piece together most of a journal that I kept with some pictures and post them here. Thank you for your concern, but I am quite well, and no, there are no bears in the mountains.

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