Austin affects

This is my 9th month in Austin over the last 2 years. So this blog is like giving birth to my Austin baby. This is longest I have spent anywhere since I left Miami, so I guess it's home. When people ask me, where's home base? I am stumped.

I decided for my 30^th birthday I would move to Austin Texas where I don’t know anyone. A fresh start. I get a place for January, a little cottage through craigslist. I wrote down the wrong address, so I think I was scammed when I arrive, but eventually I figure out where my cottage is and I have to climb the fence to get to it, as I am doing so a young woman walks by, I tell her that I am not a criminal, that I rented this place but they locked the gate, she agrees with me, that I am not a criminal and that is the only way to get in.
One month in Austin isn't enough for me, so I got a 6 month lease here.  

 

Its right across from Flightpath, a cool coffee shop in the Hyde Park neighborhood. I stumble out of bed every morning and hang out across the street. Flighpath has the best barista in Austin, maybe anywhere, we get to know each other through that few minute window of daily coffee ordering, she's from Detroit and she runs the shit out of that joint.
If Austin were a person, he would be a young, friendly dude. Easy going, openminded, plays the guitar, smokes pot, has a dog, well educated and easy to be around. I am pretty sure cities have genders.
 Moving here was spontaneous, unexpected. I was just in the process of finishing a rough draft of my first book, basically a kind of bi-polar memoir and it was very serious and drudged up all kinds of stories and feelings from the past. I didn't want to think about my past anymore. I wanted to do something fun, I wanted to sing, write songs and learn to make music, so that's what led me to Austin.
I buy a guitar in Austin, take a few lessons and just start teaching myself through the internet, it's not that hard, it just takes time. The first song I can officially play is called Florida by Patty Griffin. It's hard to explain the role Patty or her music has had in my life, but one day I will try. Just yesterday I got to see her live at Waterloo records. Wow! She was the real deal. With people like Patty, I used to obsess over and put on a pedestal. Now things have changed, I am more into my own life and my own process. These people that are so great and have achieved something, I still respect and appreciate a ton, its just that I no longer see them as different from myself, which I used to do. Having this poverty mentality of them being extraordinary and me needing them to help me like I am some begger.

I start to get antsy by the summertime, so I take a roadtrip out to California. Pass through Big Bend.

Big Bend is barren and has a stark beauty and I am alone and listen to a Grimes song, Oblivion on repeat. I wish I could share this with someone. After leaving Big Bend, I drive for maybe 5 hours without seeing a single soul. I am hoping with all my heart that my car doesn't break down. It doesn't and I drive through El Paso and Jaurez is on the left. This is one of the most unique places in the US to drive through or witness. Mexico is on the left, a huge wall, border patrol everywhere, America on the right. El Paso. I just drive through because I am anxious to get to Phoenix where I have accommodation. The city of Juarez and the amount of border patrol haunt me.