Chapters

The perfection of a clean desk is so comforting in an unknown place. A clean workspace. A clean slate. A place to retreat to. A place to think.

A place.

Places. I think a lot about places, and their meaning. For all the variation in numbers, data, and statistics, there is always an elemental narrative of a place. It doesn't follow a set pattern or routine, rather a gut feeling. It is however divided up much as you would think a chapter is.

Beginning:

And End.

My chapter is coming to a close here. It acts like the gravity assist that sends spacecraft out into the depths. I had an amazing blast off, and as my craft flies towards Jupiter, I can feel it bringing me in faster by every moment, each velocity measurement greater than the past. But the pivot is still astronomically far away.

I've seen this coming for a while now. As I said in my previous post, this place does not resonate with me. This chapter is coming up on the conclusion of it's two year duration. And I have decided that. I don't know where I will go, I just know I will be moving once my VISTA term is up in August.

There is a feeling I get when I go somewhere I resonate. Imagine a yearning; a deep grab from the bottom of your heart; a settling of all of your worries. Your toes curl with the anticipation of being there, and excitement builds to a long *sigh* as you take in the sunset on your landing.

Arrival brings the natural match of your pitch with the cultural and societal tuning fork of the area. Whatever builds that for you, you find it there.

There is nothing like it in the world.

I find this feeling solidly in Baltimore Ohio with my family. In the Blue Ridge of North Carolina with my friends. In small glimpses of places like Spartanburg South Carolina; the massive urban center of Barcelona in Spain; marshlands and swamps around the Nature Coast in Florida; the central rural community of Bedford Pennsylvania.

Most of all, I feel this natural matching of pitch and fork in the very idea of exploration. Of adventuring off to see new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new cultures, no matter how slightly or radically different they may be from my own.

When is settling? I have a feeling it will find me when I want it to.

For now I am destined to wander, live, and experience. Let's give it another round, and see where it leads me next.

West Coast Blues

My time here grows shorter each passing day. I'm not sure whether or not I will stay. The grandiose mountains, the the flickering urbanscape. The Lonesome Crowded West as Modest Mouse called it.

Over the past few months my life has been evolving at a much faster pace than I ever expected it to. It's a busy but enjoyable adventure. In most parts.

I was building a sense of place here. I started hearing the comfort in people's voices as they talked about this area. It was very persuading. Adopting a new home is never an easy ordeal, but the flags associated with each imaginary line have a fairly discernible impact upon a choice. A choice on whether to leave or stay.

And I don't resonate here.

There are certain things that have always stuck on me, things that I now no longer bring up with hesitation to people. I have grown comfortable in the region's deficits, even beginning to possible claim them as my own. The rain. The cold. The winter. The pretentiousness. The perfection. The false marketing; and the actual reality.

Lackluster? Disappointed?

No. I don't think this place has had a negative effect on me. It has had a constructive gleaning one. How much I have learned from this place is beyond a fathomable amount. I built the second story living room of my house of life in this place. But as your back and mine will tell you; you can't crash on a couch forever. Eventually you need a mattress.






















Some pictures of my Christmas trip to Ohio: