Wednesday, October 03, 2007



I've got a love letter in my soul, for Bavaria.

The implacable goddess with her swords and her arrows, hunting hounds at her feet and the harvest at her breast, the direct mother of the Texas star. Beer-gardens, hunting stands, fields and trees, industry and agriculture combined with a live free or die lifestyle has been the Bayer's lifestyle since they were tribes.

I've been living with my love letter to Austin, tucked into my sport bra, worn to illegibility, secret and sweaty, up until this time. Even I can't read it any more. Something about the soulfulness of always being overheated, stuck in traffic, overcharged for beer or coffee, and grumbling about trendies and tourists taking over the place.

I've got a love letter in my soul, for Europe.

She's been dealing with the idealists, slackers and drunks and druggies of the world as long as the Continent has been dry. One weekend in Amsterdam will teach anyone the limits of human tolerance to addictive idiocy. Everyone wonders why the French are so crabby in Paris -- I'm sure the average native Austinite feels the same about SXSW.

Somewhere, someone drew the short straw, and I got an invitation to go Home.

I'm pretty sure I'm ready.
Just don't ask me to stay during boiling August and early September, or juniper-poisoned January/mid February. For the rest of the time, I'm ready to get my feet on the ground, and my hands into people willing and ready to change.

I'm ready to get life off the starting line.

Meanwhile, I've fallen in love with damp, cold Bavaria, and will miss her sweet, clammy hands... the fall colors, the quick seasons, the fall colors, the SNOW, the feverish short summers, mushrooms, apples, berries and bittersweet sloes.

It's part of the cost of musashugyo, to miss all the places you visited.
I'm lucky enough to have this experience, and will never forget it.

Actual love letters coming shortly...

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