I’ve never been north of San Francisco. I mean I have. I am as I write this, in Seattle. But I mean like in a metaphorical sense. The farthest north I’ve been is right past San Francisco; you get past the bridge and the world instantly becomes a jungle there are all these exits and they all seem to go to nowhere so you turn into the lookout parking lot, look at San Francisco, and drive back into San Francisco.
Maybe I’ll do it. Finish my trip sliding my way back down the western coast of lower North America, also called USA. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll stay here for a while.
I left for this “trip” from San Diego so one may wonder how is it that I’m in Seattle coming from San Diego but have not been just north of San Francisco? Wouldn’t just north and way further north of San Francisco be places I’d have to be in order to eventually find myself in the northwest most point of the lower 48? Yes, if I took a straight shot. But I didn’t, I traveled up through Vegas then Salt Lake then went all over Montana; Bozeman, Billings, Missoula, Philipsburg– a secret paradise, and Paradise, yes the name of the place, and yes an accurate descriptor. Like a literal strip of heaven….. so then after all that I have made it to Seattle.
There’s a mystery in the thought of going back south from here. That mystery, the State of Jefferson, is an area (frankly I don’t know much about these days) at the northern end of California, where some folks got it into their head “freedom!” and decided that they were gonna do their own thing.
So say I do go down the coast, and say I don’t care much for Tacoma or Portland so I keep on going… I’d eventually reach the end of the line: Free State of Jefferson. Of course, there’s more south of there, what with the rent camps in San Fran, the WASP nest of the central coast, the glamour and mystique of Hollyweed, and the whatever San Diego is.
Free State of Jefferson, end of the line. What if it’s not a vibe either? Am I off to Spain? Will I even have money for Spain? I guess I could always sell the prius. That would fund a plane ticket.
I don’t want to be homeless. I also don’t want to be a wage slave. But I also think a lot of innovation is not such and I wouldn’t know what esoterica of economics I could pursue and actually want to pursue.
Life is so short. Life is so much this life. Like track it to the end and you may hope in afterlifes or rebirth but track it to the end and it looks like after our expiration dates we just go rotten, in need of being chucked.
In this youth I hope to bring sweetness. I hope to aspire and to achieve. I do not know what I’ll achieve I only can say that life needs living. And I don’t see much living, but perhaps that is due to the blinders I’ve had on. Maybe it’s because I just needed to be back in the trees and oh Washington has trees. And grass. And an ocean. Maybe I’ll hang here.
When I emerge from the forest do not fear.
J.W. 