When I take my sabbatical

My company has a wonderfully generous and creative policy. After five years of service, we are entitled to five weeks of sabbatical - free time to do whatever we want and get paid for it. 
     A side benefit to the company, in addition to having refreshed employees, is that many of my colleagues come back from their sabbaticals and write blogs about the experience, which are often thoughtful and full of special insights into life and work. 
     I still have four years before I can take mine. And I know that I will likely blog about it afterwards. Today, I was listening to Greg Brown and one of my favorites among his old songs came up on the random play function of my iPhone. 
     It's not so much a song as it is a narrative backed by a quiet guitar and occasional harmonica riffs. But it's the lyrics that I think speak so eloquently and cleverly of what's really important about life, and gives a hint of how I might like to spend my sabbatical in 2017. 

I think I'll drive out to Eugene, get a slide-in camper for my truck, pack a bamboo rod, hip boots, a book of flies from a Missoula pawn shop, rub mink oil into the cracked leather, wonder about the old guy who tied these trout chew flies. They work good. Take along my Gibson JF45 made by women during World War II, coffee stained stack of maps, a little propane stove, a pile of old quilts, a can opener, kipper snacks, smoked oysters, gun powder tea, a copper teapot, and a good sharp knife. Sometimes you have to go -- look for your life. 

I'll park by some rivers, cook up some rice and beans, read Ferlinghetti out loud, talk to the moon tell, her all my life tales, she's heard them many times. I'll make up some new juicier parts, drink cold whiskey from a tin cup, sit in a lawn chair and fiddle with my memories, close my eyes and see. Sometimes you gotta go not look for nothin'.

The Northwest is good, once you get off I-5 and wander up and down the Willamette dammit, on the back back roads. I know a few people who'd let me park in their drive, plug in for a night or two, stay up late, and talk about these crazy times -- the blandification of our whole situation. And then back to the woods. A dog is bound to find me sooner or later. Sometimes you gotta not look too hard -- just let the dog find you. 

 Then head south and east, maybe through Nevada, the moonscape of Utah. Stay in some weird campground where Rodney and Marge keep an eye on things. Everybody's got a story, everybody's got a family, and a lot of them have RV's. I'm on my way to the Ozarks, to the White River and the Kern. Those small mouth are great on a fly rod. And they're not all finicky like trout. Trout are English and bass are Polish. And if I wasn't born in Central Europe I should have been. Maybe it's not too late. Sometimes you have to dream deep to find your real life at all. 

I might go on over through Memphis. I played a wedding at the Peabody Hotel once twenty odd years ago, and everybody danced. Usually they just set there and stare. A few at least sway. The roads are stupid crowded everywhere. Kids coming along are used to it -- all wired up and ready, or wireless I guess, and even readier. World peace is surely on the horizon, once us old fuckers die. I'll do my part, but first I wanna to go across Tennessee into North Carolina. Fish some of those little mountain streams, catch some brook trout which are God's reminder that creation is a good idea. The world we've made scares the hell out of me. There's still a little bit of heaven in there and I wanna show it due respect. This looks like a good spot up here. You can try me on the cell, but most places I wanna be it doesn't work. Sometimes you got to listen hard to the sounds old Mother Earth still makes -- all on her own.