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LEAVING

                                             November 2-3, 2011

I'd sent Dangerbaby on ahead, with all the
cats in their carriers, and after dealing
with one last irrational fit from the
landlord's manager, and doing one final
sweep-- (literally, the agreement specified
"broom clean"), I closed up the windows one
last time (rain was forecast), and I was
ready to drop off the keys and go.

  Our home for over the last 15 years was
  over with-- and we'd packed up and moved
  over 15 years of hipster-nerd detritus--      15 years of hipster-nerd
  and we were on to the next phase, at          detritus: do you have any
  long last making the jump to the other        idea of what that means?
  side of the bay.                              Several thousand volumes
                                                of books, CDs, records,
  I hustled a few last items out the            massive collections of
  door to be stashed nearby, and                kitsch (lunch boxes,
  carried out the last bags of trash            8-track tapes...), a large
  and recycling-- and my god it felt            set of music/noise toys,
  strange, running in and out of the            multiple plywood and 2x4
  house, but leaving the doors open             loft constructs, several
  without fear of the cats escaping.            large pieces of antique
  It was as thought the spirit of the           Indonesian furniture...
  place had been let out, and now it
  was truly empty.

  I was in a beyond-tired state of mind, an old
  familiar feeling for a night owl like myself,
  long used to struggling to deal with the
  daytime world on it's terms when I should
  really be asleep.

  I hopped on my bike to head to BART train, the lifeline
  of our new home, but before riding off, I turned back
  and looped around our old intersection, riding in a
  circle with half an eye out for traffic and half an         I later
  eye on the scene.  An odd piece of anime theme music        realized this
  was running through my head, a delicate, slow, melody       was from a
  with a female chorus singing in Japanese.  Spacey and       soundtrack to
  uplifting.                                                  a Miyazaki
                                                              movie.
  This was an old ritual with me... there were a number
  of times when it was after midnight and I'd missed           I'd heard it
  the last train up from Silicon Valley, and I'd ridden        at the end of
  all the way home-- 30 miles, upwind and over hills--
  to finish up just like this, doing an apparently                 MIX7
  pointless loop, with an exhaustion that didn't matter
  any more because I could stop at any moment.

  The old place remained an amusing eyesore against the slick
  backdrop of Noe Valley; that god awful stucko, painted a
  horrible gray blue.  I circled around, looking up at the
  hills on all sides on this mild evening with the sun
  beginning to set.

  These hills were our constant companions for over a decade,
  we checked on the ebb and flow of fog over them every night
  the way a surfer studies the ocean.

  I might easily see this neighborhood again, but it would
  never be *my* neighborhood...

      I ride off feeling a sense
      of relief and release.


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