How does one mark the passage of a year spent in waiting? That continued birth and death of expectation...living for 365 days oscillating between promises of two weeks and the undetermined has left no other recourse but to plot onward into an increasingly hazy and obscured future. Since this time last year the country has been crossed four separate occasions for truly no other purpose other than movement, as if one could replace the movement towards goals and transatlantic life with the passage of domestic miles. Alaska is no longer that large state to the North but a place known at least on the surface and Canada has worn my boots down as well. As I contemplate those miles, encounters, and hours spent on the open road I can not find in it the vitality travel once brought. No longer can I confuse one for the other.

This years has been fraught with loss. Most recently my dearest friend has gone away to die in seclusion from cancer. All that stands in his memory left available is a rock wall built together, a zippo lighter, and at night while in bed the quiet wheeze of my lungs which was audible in his throughout the day.

...Now my departure from OR is looming once more...but the destination is yet unclear and not without it's consequences...and still I wait for the job in Tanzania to show itself real...