(Originaly posted Jan 29, 2007)
Last Thursday I walked out to the end of the pier in Cayucos. I watched the sun sink into the pacific, and turn a cloudless blue sky purple as the first stars blinked on. I watched the water burn with a golden fire that made me think I was sitting in heaven hearing a choir of angles singing. It reminded me of driving across the plains of Kansas and marveling at a thunderstorm rolling over the endless seas of grass, like some great heard of mustangs running wild across the prairie. Or of sitting with my back against the sandstone in Utah, watching the sun rise up and bathe the desert in a warm orange glow. Of trekking with my father up some unnamed peak on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, breathing in the coldest, freshest air that's ever filled my lungs. Or wading out in the warm waters off Hawaii, petting a sea turtle as it swam around my feet wondering what this strange creature was that just entered its world. But most of all it made me think of all the times I've loved someone and just never said anything, and it made me wonder why in the hell I never told them.
I'd like to tell you that I got the girl in the end, or that I drove off into the sunset, that I found a cure for cancer, or that I preformed CPR and saved someone's life. I'd like to tell you that, but that shit just isn't the case. Truth is I'm the same man I've always been, and probably always will be. But I'm all right with that.
And so, after 25 years, I'm still in this same hole-in-the-wall county, down and out. In high school the guidance counselor asked me the same question that everyone gets asked "what do you want to do?" I never had an answer, well at least not one that fit into the box of "I want to be a doctor." Or "I want to be a teacher." Or "I want to work on cars." My answer was, and still is "I want to create." It took me 7 years to realize exactly what I wanted to create, not some priceless piece of artwork, or the great American novel, or an academy award-winning movie. Only something that someone whom I've never even met will read, will experience and maybe it will change them. It will make them feel something that, until that moment, they've never felt before.
For whatever reason, after thinking all of that, I thought of home. Not of the house on Hacienda that I grew up in, or of the apartment in Morro Bay that was my first expedition into being out on my own. Or even of the futon I currently lay my weary head down on at the end of the day. I realized that none of these places I could call home, that home wasn't built of brick and mortar, but of flesh and blood. That it's a place that I carry with me in my heart. A place I can look back on with fond memories, enjoy while I'm in the moment, and look forward to as I move into the uncharted lands of the future.
The End.
Dedicated to (in no particular order): Dave's musical talent, Frazier's oddly magnetic apathy, Annie's unconquerable spirit, Brieatle for being Brie, Josh's loyalty, Greg's resourcefulness, Lisa's ability to make me feel better, Amanda's AFI collection, Ernie's tenacity, Dan and Kari who make me believe that marriage can work, Whipple's outgoingness, Coy's steadfastness, Rochelle's laughter, Kat's smile, Nate's…. well being Nate is the only way I can describe it, Cecily's just good nature, Kasady's argumentivness, Katie and Ian who have the strangest fights I've ever heard of, Konner who gets picked on way too much, Dan's ability to drink like a fish, Kyle for putting up w/ my smelly ass during OGN, Annie because Burritos do equal Happiness, Sara up north who I still can't figure out, Sara down south for letting me crash at her house after many a senseless trip down there, Hank I hope things are work'n out up north, Lacy and her goal of "getting me laid", Frankie cause he has the cooooooolest tattoo I've ever seen, Hannah who wants ketchup on her hash browns? Best wishes to Adam and the fam, Mikayla stay warm way up there, All the Kinney's, Kendra's kindness, Tom and Julie who pretty much shaped me spiritually, Marcus and Astor the two coolest kids in school, Gebiva god knows why she would willingly move to Cambria, my Grandma Glenda who shaped the hippie in me, my Grandpa Wayne who shaped the badass in me, my Grandpa Gene and Grandma Ruth who taught me everything I ever needed to know about life (I miss you guys soooooo much), Rebecca's just magnetic personality, Jennie and the advice she gave me at in-n-out, Royce who could kick my ass at BF2142 any day of the week, Jamen and Jodie who made the campground the Rock'n-est kiosk on the planet, Kyle and Christa (check out their band Fly40, or I'll hunt you down like the dog you are!), O.S.L. (check that band out too, same threat applies), Jeff and Laura two of the best softball players on the planet, My parents who I never appreciated growing up and I'm sorry for that, and 1:53am for being waaaaaay to late to try and write a blog. (Sorry if I left anyone out or misspelled your name, but that just means that you are a horrible friend and have to work harder, MUAHAHAHAHA:)
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