david taus

There and Back Again

music: Keith Jarrett- Live at the Blue Note d.2

It’s over. I’m back home.

After a 13-hour driving day from Western Ohio to Boston, AJM and I reached Boston, my home, and the great Road Trip of 2004 has reached its conclusion. We arrived to the welcome of roommates for the next year. We ate homemade pizza and drank beer. We laughed and reveled, we stretched our legs for a bit. I marvelled at how familiar and at the same time how uncomfortable this place was; I was almost shocked at my home surroundings after two months on the road. But this is home, and after the nights’ celebrations wear thin I will start to go about the more serious business of carving out my own space in this place. It will take a bit of time due to circumstances outside my control, but in two weeks or so I should be solidly established here.

As to some sort of general reflections about the adventures of the past two months: not possible. At this point at least. It’s just too much to bite off, chew, and digest in one piece. Partly because it is so recent — AJM has not yet turned towards his own home — and partly because it is so massive. I have volumes written on the events of the past two months, just under three hours of cassette tape recordings, over 300 pictures (to be posted at some point in the near future), and even some original music that tells the tale of our travels out west and back. It’s been a productive and fruitful summer, full of experience and memory. So full, in fact, that it’s just not worth trying to summarize here and now (although I’ve been told that I have a knack for summing things up). For now, it is enough to reconnect with friends and future roommates, try to keep my mind Pacific-style relaxed even though I’m back in New England, and begin to sift my way through the pile of mail and countless emails that have amassed while I’ve been on the road. A lot of this returning business is unpleasant, annoying even, but after two months of unadulterated summertime and experiences enough for a full year of living, it’s time to start getting real.

But not quite yet. a cadre of old hangers-on will be heading up to Coventry, Vermont on Thursday to pay homage to the music that has been a major unifying force in my life over the past eight years. I have a week or so to get my proverbial act together before things really begin in earnest. And then an entirely new challenge: my first year of classroom teaching. More rivers to paddle; adventures in sight.

For now, though, some convalescence. Some sleep (I hope). Some proximal stability. And some reminiscing. Appreciation and blessings to the places I encountered and the people I met: The Rocky Mountains. Arches. The High Sierras. San Francisco. Yosemite. Big Sur. Sequoia. Havasu. Grand Canyon. Zion. Tahoe. Redwoods. Crater Lake. Eugene. Rogue. Cascades. Olympic Peninsula. Bellingham. Seattle. Badlands. Minikani. Milwaukee. DFC. Kelly. Nav and Reubs. Canton. TAC Posse. M. Bell. Margie. The Brothers Shepherd. Doody. Jami. Hoffman and the Dub Anthropologist. Dan, Lucas, and the folks at AndersenPalooza. And special appreciation and blessings to my copilot, collaborator, and companion for this trek, the one constant in this trip that made everything translate from possible to actual, “AJM.” Much love, brother. We’ve made it there and back again, and now that it’s all done I couldn’t imagine it any other way. But there are other lives to lead, as Thoreau wrote at the end of his sojourn to Walden, and the currents are shifting. I can only hope for as smooth a transition back into reality as were this summer’s trip through the wonders of the American West.

Posted by davidtaus at August 10, 2004 12:02 AM