everyone knows now that every night now will be marc's last night in town

i'm on the move again, and hopefully not again for quite a while. our american roots as wandering buffalo chasers will lead me to a mixed agricultural society reaping the crops of my mid twenties in the semi-arid architectural terrain of south texas. my last week has me eager to settle down and build a wigwam, maybe have a few papooses around, smoking the peace pipe of my later days. yeah it's hard to leave austin. it's apparently the town to be in now, but i'm jumping ship, or kayak as it were. it's in good hands, though one could argue austin is in a fast rising coke-induced thrill ride of an evening that will leave skeletons of skyscrapers and remnants of half finished murals as creased dog ears on the rambling memoir that is my college home. it was always an on again off again address, as it may continue to be. that's such a town that will always welcome you back because my grand total of under five years has me considered an old local to the new comers. i recommend the ducks tours, yet i can't say from first hand experience. there's a lot left to do.

Day 5-6: The Desert Spirit Journey is Complete

The stretch of continent between the eastern end of the Grand Canyon and the north central side of Austin is marked by nothing. Miles and miles of sand, some rocks, and shrubs. And of course it's here that we learn the true meaning behind the trip.

My dad and I are both the same person and very different at the same time. Stubborn, easy going, anxious, thorough, sensitive, stoic, adventurous, and cautious simultaneously in different directions so that we've learned to just be silent to let the other one take this one when differences may arise. We know that before long, we'll be in that moment of perfect agreement and nothing else will matter. At one point it took an old Hopi wise man to show us the way. Even though, he looked to be in mid thirties and was born in Riverside, California, his informal tour of the old village he lived in now interested us both greatly. History and architecture, Yes! The oldest existing continually inhabited settlement in America, to be exact, and now just a collection of crumbling stone huts with old residents not far removed from the original inhabitants. No pictures or brochures, and barely a stop, but amazing.

One of the few other stops took us to Loving, New Mexico, again in the middle of the desert. My grandmother, my dad's-mother-in-law, was married here at this church back around the late-nineties to her high school sweetheart, Sonny. It was an amazing happy time in her life, and in a time when I was just beginning to get to know her better. Anyway, within the next few years Sonny died and Nanny passed away in 2002. We never had much time to learn that much about him and technically I would have family around Loving, but all we knew to look for was a small Catholic church on the edge of the town. We found it, stopped, took a picture, and went on our way back to Texas.

Day 3-4: The Grand Canyon

We woke up Sunday morning stuck with the sun rising to reveal the mountains and trees of north central Arizona. Oh and our prositute neighbor at the shanty motel seems to have broken a window and poored alcohol on the Honda. Any fears of Black Canyon City were quickly dispelled/transferred upon our service station meeting with Merle and Gene and Hoss, two old prospectors and a dog that hung around decked out in six shooters and belt bandoliers. My dad of course asked them to take a picture with his unknowing son and thus we have the first appearance of me on the blog. It's worth it.

The rest of day was spent realizing that we could see the canyon by sundown. Doing so required my dad leadfooting it past most of the towns I was told to see, but when he's making time, there's nothing you can do. To be fair, we did stop by another architecture commune, known as Arcosanti, but our pre-tourtime visit made the stop quick.

If you've never seen it and have not had someone tell you before, the Grand Canyon is big. And it's hard to express in pictures the idea of a basically flat area in the middle of the woods opening up to a mile deep. We spent a majority of our time in the park staring at the infinite abyss from above, but tried the hike Monday to find a thousand more photogenic places and thousand more reasons why we should be in better shape. Ultimately, the 3 mile trail got us below most of the campers, so we trudged back up to complete the seven hour walk. I'm not saying I couldn't have done it faster without my dad, but I might have really hurt the next day if I'd run while carrying a mule as I'd originally planned.

The thing about the grand canyon that you get there through isolated roads and out of cell phone range, only to arrive in campgrounds filled with an outdoorsy league of nations. Frenchies, Swedes, Germans and other types of rich North Europeans. And Darien too right as we were leaving the park, with my amazing abilty to run into classmates on family vacations. He too was on a desert spirit journey before starting work, so I wished him luck and away we went.

Day 1-2: West by Southwest

The hard core shortened summer of Austin '06 is quickly coming to close so my dad and I once again jumped in the Accord and hit the ground driving. Without a specific plan or a map from the last 15 years it took nearly two hours to even enter the hill country. However, into the 80 mph speed havens of west Texas, the Grand Canyon became a goal, grail, and brass ring of our desert spirit journey. In the race against time and raising gas prices, we arrived somewhere on the other side of Phoenix by day two. Places to note: The Tucson area Furr's Family Dining and their undercooked fried chicken and underrated overhead speaker version of Sting's Desert Rose. And then there's Taliesin West, the winter home and hemiannual campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. It was my first Wright building to see, and I can say it's all true. He was a short Welshman, he invented everything, and damnit he was an amazing architect. Here I'll thank Benjamin Lloyd Lynn for his own adventures that partly inspired my desire for dry heat.

all that glitters is not fools gold

i'm returning to san antonio for all of the reasons i always knew i'd return for. and in spite of all the reasons i told myself no. after a series of minirevalations leading me towards a multitude of paths, i simply realized we're young and there's a million things left to happen. we can't microplan every step we take in pursuit of perfection. it doesn't exist. when you realize that, my friend, it all becomes a lot easier. we're got a chance, as the children of the boom, to do great things before time runs up. after that, who knows? nobody. so strap on your sandals and fire up the tortilla machine, i'm coming home.

but not before i head west for a bit.

it's time for something biblical

that's enough. i've been delaying the decision of what-do-i-want-to-do-with-my-life for a bit too long and holding out for any longer is not helping anyone. for the past few months i've called on the loyal council of friends and family hoping to defer the responsibility, but i imagine they're ready to update their rolodexes with ink for a change. i envisioned every possible career path until i realized that i can't do that. every single great thing over the last couple of years came through some combination of short sighted opportunism and blind optimism.

so the time has come for me to make a phone call, but not right now. because it's 1am. there's time to sleep on it and room for some other sort of revelation. the problem is i've already decided.

a link to the past

i just got off the phone with nini and jayjay, the old couple who babysat me and a few generations of kids. with graduation, an announcement was sent out that preceded a cross-state forwarding marathon of congratulations and thank you cards that finally ended today. "At this special time in your life may your dreams guide you to a wonderful future filled with success and happiness." The card itself seems as old as me, out of a stock drawer of theirs, that depicts flowers, a diploma, and a globe clearly showing the great stretch of the mighty USSR. most of my earliest memories were from staying with them for the better part of my four year old days. sleeping mats. canned spinach. getting my tooth knocked out in the great wheel barrow massacre of '87. the pattern on their white ceiling fan in the white room in the back of their house that i laid under after a firm spanking. considering how many toddlers they'd had under that roof, they still recall stories of me watching chilly willy and questioning the concept of perspective.

right before that i held a conversation with my newly seven year old nephew about his birthday gamecube. i at 23 have equally been enjoying the vices of video game immersion lately along with the near sighted problem solving of saving zelda for the fifteenth time. of course, the light arrows! i clearly remember my sister telling me how she'd beaten the nes original when i was away. i couldn't ever master that maze, but i guess i've showed her.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.