I’ve been away for two months now - by far my longest absence since I made the bay my home - and I’m looking forward to being back at Oakland Yard. The weather in New York has changed noticeably over the last week. There is a crispness in the air, and the leaves are showing color and twirling to the ground. Today was the first sunrise of the season without a mosquito to interrupt our morning meditation. Male mosquitoes die off each fall, but the females hibernate, as do butterflies and bats, in holes in logs and roots, in animal burrows, and people’s basements.

I’ve done what I set out to do: I’ve seen more states than the handful I’d tread in my first forty-nine years, and I’ve wrapped my arms around many of the people I’ve been missing the most. I returned to the places I’ve lived the longest - my childhood home, my grandparents’ beach house, the Hudson River valley, and New York City - the spaces that ground me in their familiarity and remind me where I came from. I’ve had my fill of lobster rolls, and the only cases of wine I’ve carried of late were for my own consumption.

I’ve climbed Giant Mountain and reeled, as gusts blew thick fog from the peak, revealing all of Keene Valley and a dizzying view of remote lands the Iroquois once shared with Champlain, and I’ve watched the morning sun throw tree shadows onto a New Paltz meadow from a porch built when Abe Lincoln was president. Now I’m ready to get back to work, eager to see my friends out west, and to eat some fresh California vegetables. Back to the land where heating and cooling are more an afterthought than a matter of life and death, and where the sun falls into the ocean, three hours later, and in no rush. Thank you, Daniel, and the entire Oakland Yard crew for allowing me this journey, which has given me perspectives only distance can provide. I’ll see you all in two weeks, with new eyes, following one more adventure-filled drive across this wide and wondrous continent.

With gratitude,

Max