Predawn I have my coffee. Our dog is sitting near the backdoor entrance to our shared office space. In the distance I can hear the hum of AC units beginning to churn as the weather boils up towards what always promises to be a hot desert day. Even in this I am grateful. I can hear the sound of cars streaming along the highway a few blocks away and I am grateful not to be part of that commuter rush. There was a time I would rise early in the morning and join the stream, desperate to make it to the office early enough to have time to relax before I started teaching. Now I am relaxed before I start teaching. I made a million choices in my life; a series of variable encounters that led me to this. I am fortunate to have been able to be anyone or anything. I toyed with the idea of being a stage performer, singing along with a group of very talented men. I tried my hand at athletics before dropping out under a veil of laziness. I was going to be an engineer. I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to be a great many things. I am what I am now.
Some my choice matrix as a series of failures. It could be seen very much that way. I see it as a series of chances taken or not taken. I see it as allowing the thin winds of fate to blow me in the direction I thought it meant to lead me, though not quite understanding why or especially where. I have slowly shifted my way across the United States, moving from one coast and meaning to terminate the movements on the other. Each stop represents a fundamental phase of my life. Perhaps this is what the last post hinted at so strongly. My time in the southwest is nearing an end, as so is this phase of life. Soon I will be along a different coast and what will come of that?
This phase of my life is marked with a lack of energy and a longing for things that I grew up with. Everything in the southwest is geared towards leisure; towards a post-life life–a retirement or even luxury party phase. This is a place where athletes go when they cannot play any longer. This is a place where elderly people come to retire. This is not a place where someone comes when they are craving the frenetic creative energy of a major city. Perhaps this is why I leave so often, as if I am a thirsty man seeking a well to quench my needs for interaction beyond these placid mornings.
I mean to be a better me. It will require a better tomorrow that starts with me, but has the help of place. Here I am surviving, but sinking as if in quicksand. Elsewhere… who knows?