Small town connection

It's the end of 2016! When I started this project in February I wasn't sure how long it would last, but 73 posts later I'm excited to keep writing. I have a long way to go to become a good writer; it's trickier than I thought. I'm glad I got started and stuck with it because now that this page is established it feels great to have an outlet for whatever I want to write. Special thanks go to my mom and my dearly departed step-mom for pushing me to keep writing.

I have a few halfway-written drafts in my queue and I decided to pick one of them to finish for my final post of 2016. I'd like to share this description of a day in the Moab life. I've written some posts recently outlining the difficulties I face with my lifestyle, but I also want to highlight the beautiful parts that make it worthwhile for me. This is the story of Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016.

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I woke up at about 9:30 in the morning. It was 40 degrees in my car, parked underneath the cottonwood trees. My friend Eric had been visiting from California for a week, and he was leaving this morning so I said goodbye and wished him a good return trip.

I skipped breakfast and drove six blocks to the donation-based gentle yoga class. Eleanor is a 73 year old woman who has lived in Moab for 40 years, and she leads the class twice a week with light and laughter. There were three other students this morning and as usual I was the only male, and the youngest person by 30 years. The class was peaceful and we left feeling refreshed and happy. I usually attend 3-4 times per month and am always grateful for that joyful group of people.

From there, I drove a couple blocks to the food bank. I was eligible for my monthly haul. I was planning to hitchhike that weekend and needed some food to take with me. I ran into Cameron and his dog Juno and I chatted with him while we waited. There were still several people in line ahead of me when a semi-truck arrived with some pallets of food to drop off. I helped unload the food. Jason, another guy who lives similarly to the way I do and helps out at the food bank, was coordinating the food distribution and instead of filling my cart with the "standard" items he gave me an empty cart and said to take whatever I wanted. So I chose all the healthiest options and left with a good pile of food. I went home and made lunch, spaghetti with fresh tomatoes and about a pound of ground turkey that needed to be consumed that day.

I went to the shop to work on painting some cabinet doors. Brooke came over to clean out an adjascent room and we talked sometimes. Then Mathieu showed up, my French-Canadian motorcycle-vagabond friend, and he taught me how to ride a motorcycle, which was something I'd always wanted to learn.

Adrian had invited me to the locals showcase, a free concert to kick off the folk music festival that weekend. I went there that evening with Dennis, my van-dwelling friend from New York, and we met up with Adrian and Ben and some of their friends. The last act was the Fiery Furnace marching band, which had people up and dancing, and everyone followed them as they marched outside to finish their performance in the street. I ran into a different Ben, a thru-hiker who I met in Stehekin this summer as I was finishing my PCT hike, and said hi to him.

When the marching band was done, a couple I didn't know approached me and asked which bar I thought would be a good one to walk to. I gave them a couple ideas, including the Rio, where I was heading next because it was karaoke night and my friends wanted to do that. So I walked to the bar, found Dennis, but sat at a table with this couple (Justin and Rebecca), who bought me a beer. They were living out of their trucks and staying in Moab for a few weeks. Adrian came and the four of us talked. Her roommate was also there for karaoke with some other friends, and I was excited to be invited to join their weekly writing club.

At the end of the night I walked back to the cottonwoods to show my new friends and invited them to camp there with me, which they ended up doing for a couple weeks.

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What I love about small town community is how easy it is to see people you know, and to meet new people. Without creating any schedule these interactions flowed effortlessly. Without spending a dime, I was able to participate in yoga, get groceries, see a concert, go to a bar, and learn to ride a motorcycle in one day; all within a 3-block radius. Other days, I've participated in bike parties, met awesome people at Fresh Moab Coffee (where it's donation-only and you make it yourself), eaten at community dinners, shared the library as a communal living room, seen local parades and festivals, gone dancing in the desert, and enjoyed campfires on the edge of a huge canyon.

Portland might be a progressive place with a lot of cool people, but I never had days like this when I lived there. It's so busy and anonymous that if you want to see a familiar face it has to be carefully arranged. My personality seems to do a lot better in the more intimate setting of an interconnected little town. Here, community interaction is built in to daily life, and everything you need is just a few minutes away. Less chaos, more rest. As much as I miss my friends in the big city I can't forsee myself going back to live in a place like that anytime soon. Moab's community is too strong of a vortex.

I was thinking about leaving on a journey to South America this spring, but I think I'm going to stay in town through the summer, sink my roots in a little deeper, earn some money, enjoy the nice weather, and be more prepared to leave town when it starts getting cold here around October. 2016 was pretty good to me but I'm excited to see what changes 2017 will bring.