Howling dog, Lost Sierras, Storms of thought and morning.

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Steam rises from a stainless steel coffee cup, warming my hands and lips, filling me with caffeine and perspective.  Outside the storm pushes on, rain for days, our snow pack melting, soggy streets, dampening spirits an increasing solidarity.  The rivers and creeks ebb and run over their banks, flooding roads and further isolating us from the outside world.

When I decided and found a way to move here, I couldn’t help but be excited about SEASONS, actual four seasons of the calendar year.  The nourishment and lessons from each, the patience and prospects, reaping what you sow , enjoying and falling in love with the seasonal rush.  I wanted to find a new adventure in the backcountry, skis, skins, snowpack and the changing hills fit and fill me with a passion and love I do not have words for.  Reading at nights, trying to enjoy the shorter days, with a clean effort of what we need to do to prepare ourselves, our finances and souls, our hands and all they hope to hold.

There is a rhythm and hum of what all needs to be done.  A constant pulse of work and play, of bills and pay, and of loans and interest rates.  Lately its been my future love, this shop, this town, some woman who can house me, expand me and simply be with me, in those outlandish and quite times, equal intro and extrovert, and to each their own.

The elements shift like mood swings and our great mother has been brooding, overflowing and full of nourishment, I know that is also why I moved here, the Lost Sierra is my Soul Kitchen, her cupboards full and bright, filled with color, experiences, toil and effort, but the reward is tremendously high in both reward and gains, personal and financial.  They long told me of the winters and tightening up, I am lucky to have a low overhead for a man entering his fourth decade roaming this land, although I do have loans and guarantees, promises and words kept, and those who believed know I’ll work my fingers and ass to the bone.

The rain thunders down on the asphalt shingle roof, the power flickers, the southwest wind shivers great arms of pine n cedars, causing cones and needles, fat droplets of aquatic spheres thrown about the ground.  there is a steadiness and cause for storms, unlike temper tamptrums, they fill watersheds, clean out and thin the backcountry, causing more work for those who trim and cut trail, but seasons always need force and life cannot always be a beautiful  John Muir picture.  In truth, we all need to rage with energy, good and bad to create a cleansing new beginning and a end.

Attempting to be an entrepreneur of some sort, a business owner, friend, fixer and shop, to become an idealic member of this community, one that fits and fills a lack of family and longtime friends.  I find my allotment of personal pleasure is in the backseat to the reality and wanting of this idea, this creation to be done better and more personal than ever before.  It’s amazing the smattering of people who decide to make a little town their home.  The hills are dotted with brilliance and success, but with equal parts failure and hiding.   We all move to the same cord, just different tunings.  It all works as a muse for me, especially when a woman cannot.  The Brothers Comatose provide the music, as I reach for the pot of coffee to warm the steel and refresh ideas, its the only warmth’s in this otherwise typical Pacific Northwest day I grew up in.

Bikes and mountains, love and life.  Energy, currents, sometimes swelling sometimes swaying, cover and scare us, allowing us to float or reinforce boarders.  Passion and effort, the realization of a life’s work, a mentor of mine told me once you find your niche, your life’s work, you hone that and you’ll be alright.  Alone in these mountains, I know that I’m not, but the wheel is mine sometimes the strength wavers but the passion does not.  I believe in the ideal of the effort.  Outside the windows and shop door, the neon open sign shows the rain in a technicolor, giving a different perspective and beauty to an otherwise bleak day and reminds me I love my brain and oddness of thought, but mainly the ability to be still and see things how they evolve instead of forcing and ideal.

And that, is my morning in the Lost Sierra.

JP.