Westward Hey!

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

 - Inigo Montoya, "The Princess Bride"

After Atlanta, everything changes.

Oh, the lush greens and rolling terrain of the Southeast in early summer remain constant as I ricochet through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and back again in reverse order. But the journey has a different kind of momentum on the way west; the pendulum has swung to the end of its arc and reversed. I'm headed back toward home.

Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve, Birmingham

Twin Oaks, Earthaven, The Farm, IDA

In April, car trouble in West Virginia makes me three days late to the Twin Oaks Community. (The car trouble is an epic saga in its own right, but that story can wait.) Twin Oaks is an egalitarian community of about 100 people in rural Virginia.  It's probably the most well-known secular intentional community in the country, but I'd never heard of it until last year, when a former co-worker mentioned buying a hammock there (thanks, Jeff!). "It's definitely worth seeing," he told me, and when I started digging up info on this place, I realized he was right.

Twin Oaks members and visitors gather round the Maypole

Postcards from Hare Krishna Land

There are many doors into the Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple at New Vrindaban. When you enter the building, no matter which door you use, you take off your shoes. There are shoes in the entryway to the ashram, shoes in the hallway with the administrative offices, shoes in the main entrance.

Time Flies, Lindsey Drives

SINCE my two months at Jesus People USA in Chicago, I've been more conscious of how little of my two years of travel I have remaining. I mean, I'll be at the two-year mark in four months. Four months! I may push it out a month or two longer, but my savings account suggests I won't be traveling much more than that.

So I've been picking up the pace, stopping places for a week or three instead of a month or three, and that has meant time for writing has been harder to come by. I've kept up on the journaling, which is the most important part from my perspective, but when I sit down to write a blog post, it quickly blooms into something more the shape and length of a book chapter. I'm excited about that tendency, but it does leave you out in the cold, gentle blogreaders. I apologize. Let me give you a quick rundown of what I've been up to.

JPUSA's historic Chelsea Hotel, Chicago

New Old Year, Old New Year

IT'S still January for a few hours yet. I can still write a cliche stock-taking New Year post, right? Right. I'm glad you agree.

2012 held some triumphs and some sucker-punches, some joyous discoveries and some hard lessons. It was a year of buckling down and taking it easy, of taking risks and clinging to comforts. It was a year I felt was not wasted in the spending: a year fully lived.

Long Haul

I like driving the stretch of Interstate 5 just south of Salem, Oregon. There's so much to look at: vineyards, thickly forested hills, amusement parks (including my childhood happiest place on earth). But I bet the one thing that gets the most double takes is the Transformer Truck.

Too Many Stories

So, I'm in Nashville. What I'm doing in Nashville is a story for another blog post; right now I just want to tell you how I got here.

Where did we leave off?  Oh yeah, July. I spent most of July at the Grünewald Guild, which is also a story for another blog post. And then in August I was in Portland and Eugene and Tillamook and the Seattle area.

In Portland I went to a wedding reception I'd promised to attend, where I had a swing-dancing lesson from a very tall man, and found out that some of my friends had more kids than I thought they did.