A Living Magazine - Day 19 - You Can Check Out Anytime You Like...

...But you can never leave...

The bad dream in the Tucson, Arizona desert seemed to be coming true. I woke at my rough camp here in Redding with a terrible feeling. 

As I've said before in this blog, I am an expert at the "if" game--the "shoulda, coulda, woulda." After making it to Fullerton, California from Tucson, I had planned to keep going up into the Northwest, as I'm trying to do now. But attention to my work immediate plummeted to nothing. In addition to this, I was receiving messages about how I'd disappointed people by "not actually walking" the whole way, "staying in motels instead of sleeping outside" and "writing instead of living the journey" (which I still find so bizarre that I get confused just reading the words). So, I was supposed to only walk from Maine to California, sleep in the woods and not write about it (meaning not receive any money).

This made the end of the last crossing bitter sweet, and to some extent, mostly bitter. When I got to Livermore at the invitation of Steve Powell - whom I eventually learned had a secret agenda for me of his own, had never really followed the Manifest Destiny journey (though he lied and said he did), and had the resources to manipulate me and buy me out - I was disheartened. I had been telling myself during the hardest parts of that last journey that if I could just complete it, I'd write my own ticket. I would publish a book about it, go back to Maine and start my self sustaining house project for low income subsidized housing. Word to the wise: Don't ever plan for success--just plan...

The bronze statue in Steve's yard seemed to be done in the likeness of the woman from the dream in Tucson; frozen in metal. It was the gatekeeper of a state-wide prison--or so I feared...

She said, "We are all just prisoners here..."

Now, I like California. If I hadn't, I would have left 6 months ago. I still felt I had some kind of responsibility to report "from the bottom up," but the life here was sucking me back into the "just give in and play the game" attitude I had been rebelling against since 2011--a notion spearheaded by this "friend," Steve. I would not do it.

That is why I formulated this current journey. We all assume things. I am no different. That assumptions are hardly ever good past their original moment, has been proven to me over and over again. Still, I do it! And, hope - as I spoke of repeatedly in the first journey - Odyssey - here at the blog, is a golden coin. It sparkles, feels rich and soft when handled, but once spent (wasted?) can never be bought back. Somehow I'd forged a new golden coin... and spent it as soon as it dropped into my hand.

Now I was here, with things falling apart, friends falling away, readers falling for more novel things. What the hell was I doing? My thoughts about all of this were beginning to eclipse my motivation to just keep going no matter what. I was feeling bitter, guilty, alone and foolish.

I packed up the stuff, squeezed it into my dirty backpack and headed back onto the road, for my slow walk west back into town. I stopped at Burger King to get a coffee. McDonald's, across the street, was absolutely packed, but Burger King had not one single customer. I actually wondered if it might be closed, but it wasn't.

Having the place to myself, I got online and saw no messages nor comments at Facebook, only a few reads at the blog, and no emails. Apparently, except for a few hangers-on, I was doing this entirely for myself. That is never what I wanted. As I said in an earlier post, if I was out here just to get back to Maine, why the hell would I travel north, staying in the Pacific end of the country?

If this was indeed becoming just me writing to no one, had I really fulfilled everyone's expectations that I was "crazy"? I knew I wasn't crazy. I took a moment and just watched the rain start to fall outside the window. The storm was finally dumping whatever water was left in those gray clouds. I lost the desire to work there at about the same time my battery died on the Nextbook. How convenient. Thus, it was back outside for me. It was nice to see the ground wet. I felt fairly good about Redding having a tiny respite from its usually parched state...

What is this strange substance?

The rain wasn't heavy either. But it was a good 3 miles to the library and I didn't feel like being wet when I got there. I stopped under the Interstate 5 overpass...

Odd...

More odd...

I thought this looked a bit like a map of New England.

The library was already open when I got there. I didn't have to wait like I usually did. Sitting at the table, I plugged in the laptop and tried to turn it on, but when the power is too low I have to wait for about a half hour before it would be possible the actually get my sign in page.

My glasses fix was working pretty well...

Bored, and feeling down, I decided I would get a juice at the Park View Market, right down the street. Arizona has a new $0.99 mango juice that I'd been getting since Napa, so I bought one.

The store had permanent posters out in their window. I thought this one particularly ironic...

Redding (or some of its citizens) are struggling through a wave of crank (or as they spell it "krank"). Often though, what is sold is any number of analogues of the drug; or, what has been commonly called, "bath salts."  

I bought my mango juice and then went back to the library to finish my post for the day... I was not enthusiastic. The afternoon dragged by. The only thing I had to look forward to was receiving my boots. The prospect of not being able to catch that train to Oregon weighed on me like a stone on noose, about to drop to the ground. It gave a new meaning to "hanging around" Redding. I couldn't work any longer, and decided to wander around taking pictures. "Nowhere Man" (The Beatles) looped over and over again in my mind...

Rocks donated for the front of the courthouse lawn.

Geese on the small canal running parallel to the river.

I turned onto Cypress and decided to walk to the east side so I could find the post office where the boots would arrive, clicking shots as I saw things that caught my eye... 

My parents had a green Ford Falcon when Deb and I were babies.

Tiles inlaid at the bus stop on Churn Creek Road, on the way to the post office.

Call didn't go well?

Safeway's Great Wall of Soda

I was angry. And, I was angry at myself for feeling angry. To me - in this rare form - it no longer mattered whether any of this was "interesting" anymore. I did it so I would have a personal record of my time here. Why? But, then again, why not? 

Wild grapes along E Cypress Avenue. They were tasty.

It was only 6:00 pm and I'd done everything I could to entertain myself. All I wanted to do is go back to the nest spot and just lay down. I basically twiddled my thumbs for 2.5 hours. Just after sundown, I decided to take a chance and go to the nest while it was still fairly light out...

Nice Sunset

I had $6.00 and some change left, and wanted something in my stomach but couldn't afford a full meal. I'd located a DollarTree two days earlier to buy new socks, so I went there. It is a reliable place for real cheap eats. I wanted quantity over quality, not that it really mattered either way. So, I got a huge 10 oz bag of popcorn that I could munch away on. That left $5.00 for the next day.

Trying to look inconspicuous with my popcorn, I reached Victor Avenue (where the sleep spot was). I walked very slowly toward the field entrance, slowing even more as I approached it. When no cars were coming in either direction I slipped in behind the trees and followed the red-colored path to my giant pine cone, then sidestepped in.

For the hell of it, I took some shots of the sleep set up there...

Peace--maybe not peace of mind, but some semblance of the shadow of a hair's turning above the crooked pathway leading to the bridge over the river that ripples down to the meadow where peace of mind is said to be... settled in.

I laid there watching the sky turn for hours, thinking, and not thinking, finally falling asleep at some time around midnight. Maybe the next day would bring some more gold coins.