Wednesday, September 12, 2007

California Endgame

These are my last eighty something hours in California. I'm moving from the former lands of the coastal Miwoks and the Ohlone to the ancient stomping grounds of the Timucua and the Potano. After looking west into the ocean's pregnant silence for the last three years, I'm turning back to the east. the dirty south, to be exact. It's gonna happen in a blur, and it goes something like this:

hardpan cracked earth to sage hills and mesas to hesitantly rolling land on down to the dank mud of the mississip straight on to the riverine paradise of the southern toes of the appalachians settling into the coastal plain sands and the marsh swamp estuaries.

Then my perpetual culture shock will turn inward and eat itself like a confused but decidedly limber ouroboros. Because he can.

So here's what it looks like when it moves.


Awe is the interiority of these mists. They're metaphors for each other, and also pointing to something unseen. That'd be mystery.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope the best for you in your eastward travels. I'm considering hitting the road myself, and returning to Northern California.

“Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kind of people”
- Mark Twain

I'll keep an eye on your blog to see how things go for you.

Ryan said...

thanks Richard! frisco missed you.

Emily said...

i just found your blog-- and I just did that very same move, but maybe 40 miles south-er on each end-- South Bay to ATL...
culture shock, you're not kidding.

Ryan said...

word. i grew up in the 404, so i can tell you that there's plenty of totally hip, with-it individuals there. you just have to learn how to navigate the city's nooks and crannies to find them!

Isn't that really what life is really about? Nooks and crannies.

BTW - to get some good southern cuisine i highly recommend Eats on Ponce de Leon and also the Flying Biscuit for brunch.