Season Three - The Last Day of the Snake.

12/30/25

hello, stranger –

i guess it's kind of perfect - in it's own way - that i find myself out here on the porch again, of my little outpost in the desert, in this funky little dusty circus of a city, just over two years from the night i first picked up this project again, put pen to paper and started writing you.  things on many levels seem to have this sense of coming full circle lately. the sun is just now beginning to dip behind the buildings in a gray, unremarkable sky, the road outside the gate is relatively quiet, i have a cold beer set out on the table in front of me, and there's only one day left in 2025.  an appropriate time to write again, if ever there was one.

in truth this is probably the third time i've actually sat down to write you – the others i either never finished or never sent – and maybe the hundredth time i promised myself i would.  it seems i put a significant pause on the project ever since my trip back east at the end of this summer.  i can't tell you why because I'm not entirely sure that i know, just that there has been a strange energy block that i haven’t been able to put my finger on, or get around.

the irony in that is that right before i left the east i had a revelation, a moment - of what i took to be, and still believe was - a true moment of cosmic insight about this whole project.  nothing crazy; just one of those rare moments when it feels like the universe breathes out at exactly the precise moment you breathe in, an otherwise stale idea shines brilliant again, and a fog you didn't even realize was there burns off in the dawn’s promise of a new day.  i had actually watched the physical manifestation of that very feeling play out in front of me about twenty four hours after having it, on the furthest point east that i could get, on the very last day of summer, as if i was somehow conjuring it from my own mind.  talk about becoming the author of your own story!

so i thought when i got back west i’d be full of gas to get the project roaring to a whole new level.  instead i came back and dove straight into some sort of strange cocoon mode that  i never saw coming.  it started with me cleaning out the closet and kitchen, and i thought it might last a couple weeks.  now it's been almost three months (is that all somehow?!) and i feel like everything i've got in my life – whether it's the physical stuff around me, or people in my life, or the chatter in my head – have all been dusted off, examined and organized.  the useful stuff gets put in its proper place, the useless gets pitched out.

i just had this vision – for whatever reason – of driving down a nice, winding country road, in an old school Ford F150.  except there's a plate of day old nachos on the dashboard, a couple of flies that pop up from time to time to buzz around the cab, and somebody's yappy chihuahua in the payload, rattling around with a few empties from last night's bonfire.  now the truck stops on the little bridge somewhere, the doors open up and the cab airs out, and all that shit get chucked over the rail to the ravine down below.  what a whole new ride it is after that.

maybe that's where i've been, – on that bridge.  it feels analogous.  and if that's the case then that's fine.  but lately what i've begun to wonder if i'm actually past that bridge at this point, and down the road well beyond it.  that also feels like it fits.  and if that's the case it makes me wonder about the future of the project, because who needs windshield therapy when there's nothing but open road and music to enjoy?

not that everything over here is a  in perfect order – far from it.  but things seems well in hand, in a way that it has been a long, long time.  even when things go wrong there's a way to see them being right.  and there's a hell of a lot of enjoyment to be found in waking up to the moment that you find you're being is in.  personally, i've been focused on cleaning and building a garden lately, but that's liable to spread to other areas too – i was just thinking of cooking a duck tomorrow night, just because no one's stopping me.

so we'll see where things go from here.  i feel very much like someone who's standing in a doorway, with no option of stepping back but also deliberately stopped from moving forward. not from fear or laziness or procrastination – i hope, at least.  but because i no longer hear the crack of the whip from behind, or the yap of some random chihuahua barking from the payload.

i have to say, though, writing this to you tonight has sparked something a bit, in a way that i didn't actually expect.  i guess i didn't have much to say before, and i don't know for sure that i'll have too much to say after.  but the act of writing – to you, not just in my journal, or texting or an email about the daily grind – has been missed.  i guess i didn't have it in me for a while.  it looks like we'll just have to wait and see if i find it again down the road.

i tend to hope so, but if not that's okay too.  i couldn't be more grateful for the ride i've already taken so far.

i hope you are well my friend, and that you understand the lag since last we spoke.  best of holidays for you, and for the brand new year ahead.  the year of the snake is coming to the close, and the year of the horse is about to begin. let's see what happens…

be good, happy new year and talk again soon.