a life blog
January 17, 2018
Brother Alexander,
Driving up the mountain to the monastery yesterday, I was nervous. Something about the visit felt significant and at the same time I worried about coming across as yet another gawking spiritual tourist. I was curious, but not casually curious. Continue reading “Silver City: Missives to the Monastery”
“We get a lot of your kind around here.”
Dale smiled from across the coffee shop counter. He looked and sounded like Willie Nelson ten years ago— old, but not that old. It was my second day in town and Dale, the owner of The Tranquil Buzz where I’d been writing most of the morning while nursing coffee and espresso cookies, had just asked me where I was from. It’s a question I’m not sure how to answer these days: “Where do you live?” Nowhere? Here, but only for like a day or two? I used to live in Utah, but not anymore. Those disclosures require further explanation, usually a thirty-second elevator speech on the gig: sold my house, quit my job, just travelling for the foreseeable future. More questions reveal the why, even though what I tell them usually isn’t the entire story. Still, I was another wanderer and far from unique, especially in Silver City.
[Grammar-free zone! Except for a few clarifications, this is an unedited journal entry from a week and a half ago. It’s embarrassing. It’s long-winded and rambling. It’s kind of whiny. It’s also one way I’ve learned to work through my shit: by studying the game tape. This is the game tape from a warm winter day at the Grand Canyon.]
January 3 – January 6, 2018
I left Bryant and Kelly’s in Denver in the early afternoon of January 3rd. I’d dragged my feet leaving, going to the gym first and then getting an oil change. The stay at my friends’ house was, in my mind, the Last Outpost before venturing into the wilderness of the world. I’d intentionally left all decisions unmade as to where I would go once I left. I wanted to see what it felt like to have my entire future in front of me with none of it planned or defined and to learn what kind of decisions I’d make in the absence of any structure.
Family, Friends, and Probably Some Internet Strangers,
Last October I quit my job of thirteen years, sold my house of ten, and purged most of my possessions, pocketing the profit to take myself on a self-imposed sabbatical. This has caused some of you to take notice, variously calling it a Vision Quest, a Walkabout, a Journey of Self-Discovery, a Rumspringa, or a Poor Decision. None of these descriptions quite fit, though, and I’ve had a hard time coming up with one that does. From the outside, it’s easy to see this abandonment of all worldly responsibility as sudden and rash, as though one day at work I threw my hands in the air and announced, “Fuck it! I’m out of here!” after enduring one team meeting too many bloated with plastic buzzwords and overwrought enthusiasm for the “exciting changes” happening within the organization. That account isn’t far from the truth, but to describe the leaving of job and home as rash or sudden or even brave misses the mark. The “sudden” exit had been in the works for years, in fact, and was the result of far more important changes that aren’t as easy to see as a fresh end-date in the work history section of a resume. Continue reading “What’s all this hullabaloo about? (Full Version)”
