"Tramps like us, baby we were born to run"

Springsteen

"Train roll on, all down the line, please take me far away"

Van Zant

It's one of those special moments

with Lily the cat beside me and beautiful music on the radio.  In the dark before dawn.  Cool, clean mountain air.  I live for these ineffable moments.  Not created by me.  Crickets, night birds.   Healing silence.  There is a new pathway in the dawn.   There is a way to love better.  There is a way to speak the radical truth.   There is a way to stand up for justice.   There is a way to stand beside the working poor.   There is a way to love the Stones without getting stoned.  There is a way to be yourself, regardless of what anyone else says.  "You don't know how it feels, to be me"        

Now there is the sound of gentle rain.  Now there are the bird cries.  And now Lily sleeps on the stool beside.   I've come a long way since that overdose in Massachusetts.  Since overdose, failed relationships, homelessness, violation of boundaries.  A long way since falling asleep on the road after a night shift job.  Come a long way, but it's still me,

no longer enslaved by my own desperate need...