Yes, I know. I've been remiss with the blog. Shoveling sawdust and vole poop will do that to a writer. It's been nearly two weeks since my arrival in Gunnison and I should be ready to go home. Instead, I don't want to leave. The house is clean, or clean enough. It meets our standards, anyway, which have plummeted in recent years to about the level of limbo bars for cockroaches. The plumbing works now -- mostly. The grass looks like a bad haircut. But it's still a way cool house, in a groovy town, and I want to stay.
My friend Brian said it best in quoting the theme from Cheers on my Facebook page recently: "You wanna go where everybody knows your name." Lots of people know me here, and I know lots of people, and we've been genuinely glad to see each other these past days, in coffee shops, at their houses for dinner, on the sidewalk, at the market or the hardware store. Everywhere I go. Everywhere. And the people I've encountered who I don't know? Well, they seem like nice folks, too.
As much as I love the house itself, selling it does not preclude returning here. There are plenty of places to rent or buy here and always will be. And if the infusion of cash gets me off the island a little more often, then it's worth it.
And then there's Alaska. I was there, too, just a few weeks ago. It's a wonder, that place, and I've come to love it, too. There's so much more of The Last Frontier to explore.
I really should return to Gunnison and to Alaska mid-winter. Maybe then the rainforest won't seem so bleak, the green not so boring and oppressive, the warm, humid air not so cloying and annoying. There's more coffee to pick now, and even some to sell, which is kinda cool (but also grueling), but I'm still languishing "in the bushes" as my neighbor Kathy refers to where we live. Everything feels better here, in Colorado, or in Alaska, where I can look out across the valleys to mountains beyond, not far beyond, mind you, but further than the choke trees crowding my house in Hawaii.
Johnny Cash is singing dirges as I sip warm lemon ginger tea at Mochas this evening. Stuffed with Garlic Mike's Pasta, my stomach's uncomfortable, but in a contented way, with Alfredo fetuccini and, ala Hannibal Lecter, a nice chianti. My butt's sore, for I stepped funny the other day, into a hole maybe, carrying a load of rubbish from a slash pile left by the renters, a pile too damp to burn. And my hearts aching some too, for having to leave this place.
Time to take an ibuprofen and hit the air mattress one last time. Tomorrow morning, I'll say goodbye to Gunnison, and to these guys. They've been good company, too, coming to the fence most afternoons to visit.
A hui hou, guys. Aloha!
My friend Brian said it best in quoting the theme from Cheers on my Facebook page recently: "You wanna go where everybody knows your name." Lots of people know me here, and I know lots of people, and we've been genuinely glad to see each other these past days, in coffee shops, at their houses for dinner, on the sidewalk, at the market or the hardware store. Everywhere I go. Everywhere. And the people I've encountered who I don't know? Well, they seem like nice folks, too.
As much as I love the house itself, selling it does not preclude returning here. There are plenty of places to rent or buy here and always will be. And if the infusion of cash gets me off the island a little more often, then it's worth it.
And then there's Alaska. I was there, too, just a few weeks ago. It's a wonder, that place, and I've come to love it, too. There's so much more of The Last Frontier to explore.
I really should return to Gunnison and to Alaska mid-winter. Maybe then the rainforest won't seem so bleak, the green not so boring and oppressive, the warm, humid air not so cloying and annoying. There's more coffee to pick now, and even some to sell, which is kinda cool (but also grueling), but I'm still languishing "in the bushes" as my neighbor Kathy refers to where we live. Everything feels better here, in Colorado, or in Alaska, where I can look out across the valleys to mountains beyond, not far beyond, mind you, but further than the choke trees crowding my house in Hawaii.
Johnny Cash is singing dirges as I sip warm lemon ginger tea at Mochas this evening. Stuffed with Garlic Mike's Pasta, my stomach's uncomfortable, but in a contented way, with Alfredo fetuccini and, ala Hannibal Lecter, a nice chianti. My butt's sore, for I stepped funny the other day, into a hole maybe, carrying a load of rubbish from a slash pile left by the renters, a pile too damp to burn. And my hearts aching some too, for having to leave this place.
Time to take an ibuprofen and hit the air mattress one last time. Tomorrow morning, I'll say goodbye to Gunnison, and to these guys. They've been good company, too, coming to the fence most afternoons to visit.
A hui hou, guys. Aloha!
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