WANDERING 2001

a deep, deep romantic mood: thinking about being the young wandering sensitive artist, the boy who smiles at every passing woman and receives smiles from the women as well, who wanders through trees and streams, sleeping under the stars, building fires at night for warmth, cooking my own food, my own rich fine food, and leaning back after dinner, contented, sipping a glass of wine or whiskey, smoking a cigar by my fire. writing all my thoughts in a flood, waking with the sunrise, toasting the sunsets, smelling saltwater and feeling sand between my toes, climbing mountain tops, and basking in that two minutes of triumph following a successful mountain ascension, drinking from a canteen, hitching rides in the back of pickup trucks, walking down railroad tracks like a balance beam, riding trains and letting the scenery just flow into a timeless blur, as if somehow, on this little journey, i'd stepped outside of the world, outside time and space, because i'm nowhere distinct, every second i'm in a new place, and everything just flashes by, a divine blur. and meeting people on the trains, straining to understand their english, straining to learn bits of their language, sitting in cramped smoking railcars with general admission seating, feasting on $2 wine and cheese, bathing in hot springs, rivers, and lakes, sending postcards to the unlucky stagnant people back home, unknowingly humming happy tunes to myself, strumming a guitar under a full moon in a field of daisies, heading across borders and dealing with those poor, unhappy souls - the border police - and trying my damndest to send them positive thoughts, if that's possible.