the return home
With Sirius being the last community on the tour, I’ve started my journey home. There are plenty of friends lining my path. This is the part of the movie where the bad guys have been vanquised, so all the helpers come out of nowhere and they all have a big party while cheesy 80’s music plays.
12/1 - Friday
I came into Duxbury (near Boston) today to see Carmen, a friend from my visitor group at Twin Oaks. We saw some giant phallus-shaped monument with a pilgrim on the top, then went to the beach! I hadn’t seen the Atlantic yet on the trip, so I’m glad that I found that completion. I would have been disappointed otherwise. Now I can say I went from coast to coast! We had yummy sushi for dinner, and I bought some rum. Carmen fell asleep at 9 (she says lately, she’s been going to bed at noon).
12/5 - Tuesday
Went through New York city again. Patrick (old friend from pre-TAMS high school, St. Mark’s) was in town this time, so I stayed with him. We talked about video games a lot (ah, just like the old days). We went to see Casino Royale (my first NY movie!). Patrick had some work to do, so I hung out with Tavit again. I really love the Nintendo Wii. Besides being immaculately designed, it really brings people together. After playing Wii sports for a while, we went out to a park near his apartment and played 4-square! A simple game, but super fun. Later, I had a drink with Taylor (TAMS friend). He’s working for Snohetta, an architectural firm from Norway. It was interesting hearing him describe the different social/cultural awareness that a Norweigan company provides - a more egalitarian, social(ist) mentality.
12/7 - Thursday
Twin Oaks is great. People all over have been glad to see me. Everyone asks if I live here now, or when I’m moving in for good. So much love here for me. It’s hard to resist. The commune changes the social scene as well - different from Earthaven, where everyone is focused on doing their own thing most of the time, and then come together for the sake of the community. At the commune, all the business is already taken care of, so you just have to plug in.
I’m staying with Callista; it’s been nice to see her again. She has a very healthy outlook on life and has “the right level of seriousness” (e.g. “extreme farting”). Just a very cool person. I definitely want to keep in touch with her.
12/9 - Saturday
Earthaven was very cool - I walked up just as Kelly and Peggy (two A&A helpers that I worked with before) were leaving - they were not expecting me. Patricia, the “mother” of the house, whom I had contacted, has been really busy and didn’t forward my message, and they didn’t get my phone messages in time. No biggie. I was welcomed anyway. We went to a Granola Funk Explosion show in Asheville - it started later than we thought, so we had sushi beforehand. The show was ok - had a cool vibe for a bunch of white guys - smart lyrics. I talked with Farmer again about open-source mythology and got some of his writing. I left him Doug Rushkoff’s Renaissance Prospects speech on cd.
I had been planning to stay with Mark Saturday night, since he expressed interest in seeing me again, but he wasn’t returning any of my phone calls, so I stayed at a motel. Oh well.
12/12 - Tuesday
April’s place was good. I met a friend of hers named Raven who is goth and into Shamanism. I feel like I’m being pulled more towards Shamanism lately - it keeps coming up, and I keep meeting people along the way to be my little guides. I asked Raven about it and he urged me to focus on awareness, presence, and then seeing the connections around me - something like that.
I had a good conversation with April about our relationship. We were both drunk, which helped a lot, I’m sure. She said she was looking for closure on the relationship so that she could move on into friendship.
We made delicious soup - black-eyed peas with tomatoes, spinach, etc. We watched some Firefly, like the good old days, and ate popcorn with nutritional yeast flakes. yummy!
12/14 - Thursday
Karen Jean’s was also fun. But oh my god the food. Two days at Karen Jean’s makes up for weeks of wholesome organic cooking. It was “good southern food.” We had meatloaf, carrots swimming in butter, and baked potatoes with all the fixins. The “highlight” of the foods that I consumed was a butterfinger pie - butterfinger candybar with whipped cream and cream cheese. Good thing I don’t eat like that very often!
I helped Karen Jean get her Christmas lights set up in front of her house [youtube video].
12/15 - Friday
And now I’m home! well, back to the childhood home. I had lunch with my dad (got my tex-mex fix out of the way), told him briefly about the trip - a few summarizing thoughts, brief future plans. Got some car stuff taken care of and chilled at mom’s house for the rest of the day. I’m looking forward to some rest over the holidays!