and in the end

Did you imagine in January you’d be back in the desert by December? 

Well, there was nothing else on the radar.  I interviewed for this current post in February though I didn’t know I’d have to wait until October to get here.

In retrospect what were the highlights and lowlights of this year?

I am still surprised to be alive.  Not that I put myself in harm’s way, I just didn’t think I’d see 50. 

So, being alive and turning 50 is a highlight?

I’m not into birthdays.  Am I just too modest? Living at the lodge and waking up with the Himalayas at my doorstep for five months is the best medicine for a longsuffering, tagging along soul. A definite highlight.  Turning 50, hmmppt, not a highlight, not a lowlight, it just happened.

Was leaving Nepal a lowlight?

Sure, I’d been there for ten months, I knew I’d have to leave eventually.  But my time there was good.

You plan on returning?

Sure, but I don’t know what my role there will be anymore.  The lodge is an investment without a return.  I’ll always have a room and I know I’ll always be welcome but when 50 appeared I feel as if I have to do what I can to keep myself off the streets when or if I am like really old. There’s no way I can stay in the mountains indefinitely unless forces unseen pull some strings.

So you left the mountains in May, returned to the flatlands of the heartland.  Highlights? 

Seeing family was good.  I’m not sure family knows how to deal with me.  I haven’t conformed to anything normal. My sister’s home was a sanctuary, nestled in the trees, a lake in the back, it was very quiet and there were good books to read.

And then you went to upstate New York and volunteered at a homeless shelter for three and a half months or so.

Getting into the low and dirty, the real broken and lost, humanity at its most pitiful.  It was a depressing place and yet I knew I had to be there, I was fortunate they invited me to work with the Catholic Worker.  They are a gritty bunch.

And then you left, returned to the desert.  A highlight?

I am grateful to be working.  If the university chose not to send me a ticket I would have remained in Rochester and for what it’s worth I would have been alright but I am still able bodied, I can still work.  I had to go.

So, any predictions, resolutions, for the next year?

I hate that we measure everything.  I would like to live in a state of mind that is free from all constraints. 

Where would that be?

Who the heck knows?  But this last three months has felt like house arrest.  It’s strange but in Rochester I made a small weekly stipend but it wasn’t enough to enjoy the city and what it had to offer.  Now I’m here and I have money but the city offers nothing. Nada.