What Now?

Where do we go from here? So many choices, so little enthusiasm for anything.

Having a wonderful time here in Minneapolis staying with Mina & Greg Leierwood (check 'em out at Leierwood.com!) and their teenage son Avram and German exchange student Julius. They're amazing people, and their home is so homey (in an artist's way, my way), so full of art and life and spirit. My entire experience of Minneapolis thus far has been likewise. Last night out late at a local performance space for a "Romp," a night of wild skits and dance and puppetry and song, some scripted, most impromptu, all of it great. Place was packed. I could just stay here forever, so tenuous is my hold on the concept of home.

But the dreams! I must deliver the Bottle of Dreams to its destination. Or perhaps not. Not yet anyway. Ways have been suggested to me how I might bicycle down alongside the Mississippi or borrow a canoe and go it my own at a more relaxed pace, or walk it even, continue my mission to collect dreams. But I think not. I think I have set in motion a great thing, and I don't intend to let a shoulder sprain stop me. But I'm also not convinced that the Mississippi River has to continue to be the platform for my mission. My desire to return to the desert and my Bisbee extended family of friends is strong (I've been couch surfing and camping out since late May). I believe the bottle will be going "home" with me, and once there I will continue to fill it, now with the dreams of Bisbee folk, artists, Bisbee's many homeless dreamers (people like me yet a generation younger), Border Patrol Agents, illegal aliens, whoever. Maybe I'll take the bottle into Mexico and with the aide of friend Hunter and collect the dreams of Mexicans, really mix it up.

Frank is gone now, downriver a ways. God be with him on his journey, now solo. Many have done it solo, and he is more than competent and has the best equipment money can buy. He'll be fine. He wishes I would rejoin him when my shoulder heals. But the doctor looked at me grim-faced when I posited that idea, said the injury would likely return in spades. So it isn't likely. As I say, Frank will be fine. He's a rock. Or at least that's the appearance he puts out, the military in him no doubt.

It is me who has deflated like a sad day-after-the-party balloon. I might endeavor to just live here. The people seem great. I like the town. But winter is coming. And I need my sun. I might endeavor to continue the river trip, somehow, some way. But I lack the mental stamina (or any desire) to go it alone. I lack the mental and physical stamina to go looking for another partner or a canoe or a living situation here. I do, however, have the stamina to get on a bus or a plane and motor back to the desert, to rejoin my car and scant belongings, to drive out to the Strawbale and take refuge there again from the things of the world, from decision making and media-campaigning and failed book signing tours and such. I do have that. And after a few days of rest there, I can drive into Old Bisbee and find again my place amongst its citizenry once again.

Many have turned the dream question back on me after I've gotten a dream out of them. They ask, "What's your dream?"

Right now, I just want to go home, wherever that be. - RSM