23...

Is how many old I am, now.
Life is now truly a mystery.
I've never made it this far before.

Farewell.

It's a really sad day, because I have to say goodbye to one of my most faithful freinds. We've listened to really good music together, as well as booksontape, and talk radio.  She's heard me talk to myself, seen me cry, heard me pray. We've been on lot's of adventures together, and seen many beautiful things. We had a good connection. She was full of spirit. I'm never gonna replace her in my heart.

Tallulabelle May. My first car. My first love.
Go rest in peace, my sweet blue lady.


I noticed her license plate today: "2 Be Honest With 8:56"...

(this is 1 Kings 8:56) "Praise the Lord who has given rest... just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the wonderful promises he gave through his servant Moses." So maybe that means that everything was supposed to happen...it's time for her to rest now; she was a wonderful thing.

Such Beauty

Melt my heart

Privilege

It's kinda still not totally real that we got to play music at SOHO. So many amazing musicians have gone before us. It was really humbling.

The MTD Bus Chronicles

The three most memorable Bus Encounters in the last few months:

1. A very timeless, young Muslim woman completely covered, from head to toe in a bone-black burka, fiddling on an iPhone.

2. The true and beautiful human interaction between a short little Mexican Mamá and her toddler son, with the animated and long-winded 19-year-old Blender's employee who them told in great detail the whole story of his recent skateboarding misfortune and Yosemite Backpacking trip.

3. The really cute vintage girl wearing red high-heels; long, flowing brown hair down one side of her head, the other side shaven.  She carried around one of those old-school "giga-pets" attached to little tweed satchel. Once she finished tending to her "pet", she began to draw intricate wreathes and legs of porc on pads of paper.

          ...I couldn't stop watching her.


The bus is the best place ever to people watch.

1,222 miles 21 hours 44 minutes.

Today, I fly to Idaho.
Tuesday, the beautiful JD and I drive, from Coeurd A'lene to the land of Sainte Barbara, in one shot. This could be the end.  ...But I hope it's a beginning. I hope to not kill a deer or moose crossing the highway in the winding mountains, or a hobo on the 101, or break down in a ditch anywhere.  Any other adventure is welcome.

California Windy Ocean

Movie Night in a 100 degree Cubbie Hole

Viva La Fiesta!

I don't look very happy for a Fiesta-er.
But here's what I've learned: A lot of times,
the insides don't match the outsides.
What's the outside there for, then, I wonder?

Posterity

If anybody every wondered what the inside of Markus's mind looked like, they can now know. This was written by him one night, as he sat in front of the computer and randomly typed his interpretations of the conversations occurring in our livingroom.

"A bear kills a child.

But in all reality it was not the end. One of the kids was dreaming a nightmare and suddenly woke with a scream his parents rushed into his room and said what’s the matter he said mother what big teeth you have you must be a vampire. Brandon continues to laugh at his dumb jokes and proceeds to the door to go to sleep in Maddy’s shed(while Maddy sleeps in the living room). It is now silent as Pat Bryan and I sit alone in the living room. Bryan begins to talk. Something about enjoying big people and random nonchristians contact him and show up at random places for instance showed up at adorn one night and some other friends from high school come to his house surrounded by Christians. Cole Bennett? Who’s that I don’t know but Bryan had a gathering of Cedars. Praying before eating+worship songs= environment productive instead of beer. He was walking down by tennis courts and Jesus said HI to him and he had(s) lots of demonic oppression upon him, in him. As I read this Bryan continues to deliriously laugh…maddy walks in with a slight chuckle….Bryan explains the significance of my recording of our living room conversations while Maddy sits down and expects some sort of treat from me. I give her a weird look. I begin to read. They get a big kick out of it while Bryan itches his upper thigh. We should go to magic mountain Bryan says, but maddy oaths to never go there because of people throwing up on her head. She got pooped on by people at a theme park says Pat. Some kid ran around in a circle on Santa Cruz board walk at a zoo in the obitchuaries with lots of birds with their lack of poop area muscles. Maddy asks me for the word and I don’t respond because I am”deep in thought” little does she know I’m trying to type. Pat doesn’t like rides and maddy wants someone to pay for her and for there to be no one in line so she can be in the middle of crowds. Her favorite thing: She is an introvert while in the middle of a crowd of people. Like in Montreal she would sit in a  coffee shop and be quiet and think her own thoughts Bryan convicts her of desiring the company of strangers rather than close friends while Pat stirs in his sleeping bag and mumbles a few words. Bryan was flying by himself from Texas because of His uncle’s book and Pat asks me if I am still typing and I want to say that I said no but I said Yes because I don’t lie. Bryan was introducing random crowds to French Uno and Ninja. He played ninja with about 20 people who were random and very cool and about Bryans age and he continued to say things and then Maddy adds that plans change while Pat mumbles a few words that only Bryan understands. Pat says, “I don’t know-it’s just cool” Maddy says that she would think it would be cool to-wait she’s not gonna say it oh wait yes she is-many families gathering in the closed down Borders to shield from the toxic waste and she desires more opportunity to get to know strangers and Bryan loves CA but if you go down south you have a 20 minute conversation with the grocery lady. Maddy starts talking about Montreal and how things happen there and Pat then mumbles a few words and Bryan accuses most people of being stuck up. SLO people are different than here. Maddy rocks back and forth in her chair. I’d rather not go on typing but it would be a giddy thing to look back on this years later. Maddy now desires to speak of me and how perfect and sweet I am, how handsome and talented and how Bryan desires my affections(sorry I’m the typist) Pat then wants us to start being quiet but He does not realize that I can type about actions not words which Maddy agrees. Pat proposes to talk about all different subjects so that I can’t understand what to type about but they forget that I’m not dumb. Bryan then(when they are finished) asks Maddy about something but I forgot.  When Maddy was younger she was a grown up and how her conspiracies about planet X control her life."

Fourth of July

Is it weird that the whole while I watched the fireworks, all I could keep thinking was how small they were?  They were big, granted, as they danced right above our tiny pin heads.  But watching them made me realize how big the sky really is, and how big our brains are, too.  I felt like an infant watching Baby Einstien, bright exploding colors, with orchestra music behind them.  So simple. I can get that on my screensaver. In retrospect, they were like a tiny fraction of a blip compared to the beauty and spectacularness of the Creator.  I could never get that on a screensaver.

The thing that really made my jaw drop though, in wonder and overwhelming beauty, was a croud - as far as my eyes could see, a 'sea of faces' [beside a dark sea], all turned in one direction, lit with looks of awe and happiness, in a moment of perfect overshadowing promise.

Next year, I'm just going to watch them the whole time.

She's gone. :-(

To go find her people and make a life for herself... 

and to take broadway by storm!

I like:

• When I can feel the temperature change when I step from the night, into a warm room.
• When my truck chugs a little going up a hill.
• When the sun touches bare skin.
• When my brother makes music with me.
• When there is always a different face at the kitchen table.
• When true love finds itself.

And can I just make a little confession?  I am pretty much in love with

them.

A Room With A View

We went to different countries and switched foreheads.

Let's take Vows of Silence together in the Shire, and let Finches fly around in our hearts as we bike to see some Farmers in the Jewish Fields of Tumblweedtown with the Lepers from the Salvation Army Colony. And and we musn't forget the lemons that lie by the side of the road.  They play a part, too.

Papa

He's still got it in him. Daddy, you put a smile on my heart.

Homecoming

I suppose something wise should be said.
But I don't want to say much at all.
I'm happy just to hammer a few nails,
then sit in the sun, and watch flowers grow
and enjoy every moment as is speeds by me
like a horse spooked by a mouse.

Cause if there is one thing I've learned
these last seven months, it's that time
is a sprinting Thoroughbred.

Mes Cheres Grandparents ont Connu.

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”  (Kahlil Gibran)