I drove across the california state line singing at the top of my lungs, and flew down the mountain like it was a joy ride, gaining me a ticket from an officer who couldn’t help smiling when he saw how unphased I was by his words of caution. I was running home!

And it was breathtaking mountains, the Donner Pass and Lake Tahoe, after miles of salt flats, glassy desert, the dry ungenerous width of cracked and sparsely gorgeous nevada, then suddenly a forest and so much height, so much sun. Maybe its the context, but california looks like heaven, like the heart of a place, a golden gift. It feels so laid back, and now I am settled in the yert, have dropped my stuff at the room I will be living in at my girl laura’s house after this, dropped off the minivan, am falling out of coherence and wired nerves into sleep.

So far, and it’s all behind me now, all that thought packed in so close in the near past that it seems like the travel of a dream, endless, but over.

Good night then…