“Astronauts and Heretics” has always been one of my favorite albums. (Long before I worked for Thomas at Beatnik.) And I especially loved the song “I live in a suitcase”. At the time I bought that CD I could have said more accuratly that I lived out of my saddle bags. In 1991 I had taken a summer off from work and motorcycled around the country, sometimes following the Grateful Dead. In 1992 I had a day gig writing software, but I was always planning my next road trip. In 1993 I completely uprooted on a whim and moved to San Francsico. It was the best thing I could have ever done for myself.
The past few years I’ve been sort of settled down in Tampa Florida, mentally rotting, with the travel song in my blood far too muted by the safety of Haus Boheme. Ironic, that Haus Boheme would be a place where I almost settled. As it was named, it was only supposed to be a waypoint for travels. Funny how that happens sometimes. I was never meant to sit still. I finally hit a breaking point, and something had to change.
So, in the past couple of months I have spent very little time at Haus Boheme. I’ve been living out of my suitcase. Mostly in the San Francisco area, though I am writing this from New York. I’m actually staying in one of those ‘closet room hotels’ that you read about in books. (Yet, I realized, I’ve never seen a Law and Order episode where someone was staying in a room like this and wasn’t a crack junkie. We aren’t talking a dive, this is a Clarion, but the rooms and hallways are insanely cramped.)
I was in SF last Friday, Tampa over the weekend, New York until Wednesday, and then I’m off to SF again. Ya know what? I haven’t felt this alive in years.
No real point to this, other than “I live in a suitcase” is running through my head, and I’m happily sitting in a cafe in New York, a place I always wanted to avoid. As Thomas said, “travel broadens the mind”, and I’m glad I came here today.
-Chris
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