The Stem

Seriously, if you read the first post, you are still wondering what I am doing. You may still be wondering if I write coherently. I brandished the cosmic chalkboard, and now allow me to tap my pointer on the little dots which I am.

So I am not in college right now. The bureaucracy still has a distant tether on my ankle, but basically I am a free man. With new shoes and shirts but mostly empty pockets, I am going to the Western longitudes of the United States, to see what really goes on out there. I am leaving the books on the Eastern coast, but the memories are coming along, and are weightless anyways.

The adventures begin on January 9th. I fly to Hilo, Hawaii, and meander down to the Southern tip of the Big Island, to a farm I have never seen. I know it is an organic Orange farm, and I know I have a place to stay. I guess part of the suspense of reading this journal is discovering what happens next.

But the larger culmination of my coming days is in the Spring. Beginning April 23rd, I set out on the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,660 mile path from Mexico to Canada. What I see is yet to be seen.

On the Appalachian Trail, my name was Ishmael. He is the wanderer in Melville's Moby Dick, set out on a strange ship with strange characters. He is an articulate orphan amongst heathens, savages and capitalists. He sees dark shapes below the seawater that he never catches. His journey carries him to the far corner of the world, in pursuit of Nature with a capital N, in efforts to put his fingers around the throat of something he can neither see or feel. He is a quester of the absurd.