Book II

A new toothbrush has its handle cut short. I grind the annoying pot handle off my titanum tea pot adding a stainless steel handle that actually works. No more burnt fingers and old swears. From a pile of odds and ends, my hands sort, confirm, deny, and slowly Crow Dog gains a respectable girth. There is something that warms inside of me seeing my journey bag come back to life. It is more than the weight of lexan and gortex. It is more than the half a dozen photographs that I know that I will pull from a waterproof bag on those hollow heart nights. There is this brillannt knowing that again I have had the door thrown open: an invitation to quit this wandering of days has been offered and I have grabbed the handle to the point of breaking it off and thrown the door shut. At times she may be cool, distant, even harsh...."but she's always a lady to me." When I think of this relationship of walker and journey being over I am at once anxious--"Not Yet," is all I can feel coming into my mouth. It is not done. It is not finished.
There is this small vat of worry that I will walk forever with no rest to come to my joints, or no dependable roof to constantly shed the rain,sun, and snow. There is even a larger fear that all those that I have known will have squandered all of their days before this walk is done, and I will have noone to show this painting to when it is finished(already so many have moved, passed over, or in their own way forgotten).
In the end it does not matter. This walk had long ago stopped being mine to control, to live. Walking is what I do. In the end it does not matter how many books are written, or how many eyes pour over them. The walk has found you, and we are no longer strangers. It is enough.
Back to Texas.