Closing Remarks

It all started when the first man who let me couch surf with him when I was homeless in Corvallis, Brock Bristow, said I was the type of guy who should have a blog. Thus, this feed began out of thin air. It was an incredible write up. One day we'll have to print it all in diary form. Even some girls I had crushes on commented on them and made me feel good. For no reason, other than a handful of courageous (or dumb) people that I still love encouraging me to dream big and go far, I started to write.

I was 16 when I wrote my first book. I've written seven now by 24. I still have to admit, I did it for them--the amount that grew--and then for myself when I kinda messed with myself to see if I could do something that stops conversations.

In following Jesus, that aggressive mindset is refurbished to something I can't begin to talk about, but this is the last blog post I'm gonna have on this account for now.

I still have dreams and they're much larger than ever. I wanted to rant on a last post just because it's honorable to end with. I'm still gonna write, but for a separate Google account, calebcurtis.w@gmail.com


Three years later, I'm planting a Church in Portland with Brock.


I really wait on baited breath for what's ahead.


Forever,
Caleb

This is just for Tabitha

Sometimes I rebuttal to myself after having a conversation where I wish I could’ve used the rebuttal. I was handing out roses to lady customers at work today and a coworker asked me if I was doing my “real job.” It’s lazy leadership like that from corporate a mindset that gets me understanding some of my coworkers who have work decades for the company and have said it use to be better when we weren’t owned by a large company.

I saw that aforementioned coworker in passing after my lunch and I was bold enough to tell him that my rebuttal would’ve said, “My first priority at this job is customer service,” and I’m sure that giving free roses that makes people smile fits into the category of customer service. He was more worried about his identity and if he got what he concerned was respect for being a superior to me. I hate all of that pettiness so had to steep in that rebuttal, until now.

A lot of people are also petty and don’t like Lil’ Wayne for his “simplicity” and distant beliefs. Sure. Those people have stiff necks and wouldn’t hear my rebuttal for that neither. Wayne said in a documentary that he raps to get stuff off his mind. If you don’t think like he does than you wouldn’t understand, but I understand the need to process a gump of “feelings” that are often retained and tossed around until they can be construed however you make art or create.

I was in a meeting with a coworker before who was questioning me, and I responded in the way I do that sometimes gets people heated in moments.

I am trying to remember what she said.

I won’t exploit her, anyway, and will just say that sometimes I rebuttal or engage in a way that catches people so off guard that they stumble over a timely and proper response, and they get embarrassed for stumbling in a moment where I think they imagined they would have been perfect like a president at a press conference.

So I back off and move along. I’m sure I could give more grace, but I also think I could engage wiser to where the conversation would willingly go on and not just be snuffed out by each other’s expectations (and our lack to meet them).

I just wanted to write. I hope you aren’t offended. I know a girl who appreciates this and she use to date a kid who lied about me and said I kicked his cat. I think my mom beat me over that one. Keep on.

driftwood forest (excerpt of third book)

As it turned out, I took two adventures on the Saturday of my bike ride with Kaleb to New Highway 20. I went downtown for coffee and texted Dan that I was available; Dan then met me at a coffee shop thirty minutes later. Dan rolled by and hollered. I was seated away from the road, gawking at the sun on the side of a brick building. He drove a white truck from the late nineties that had a leaky canopy. I sat forward and spun. Dan had on sunglasses and looked like he was cruising on the day like a feather in the wind.

My plan with Dan was an adventure I wanted to have since years before. After my tour on the road that Fog on Fire chronicled, I thought of the places I had gone like badges. One badge I still needed was the second part of an educated guess and investigation about what I hoped to identify as the sweet spot of America in the succulent Pacific Northwest.

There were a series of three small towns that were east from the coast at the lower middle half of the state that I circled on a map as my best guesses to be the sweet spot of the PNW. That place would have rich soil, potential for economy, a cozy neighborhood, and would be full of beautiful spots to explore. When I approached the row of towns, I found them to be out of shape and a disappointment for what I had expected the area to behold.

My best memory in the area was selling a bowl pack of weed to motorcyclists on a tour from Canada. Not the sale, but their open interaction fused to my joy of sharing one of my favorite parts of life was what stuck.

While with Dan on that Saturday afternoon, he and I headed for an unchartered section to me of map that could be what I would appreciate after maturity as the most beautiful part of America. We set out on a loop of road that went southwest from Corvallis through a valley of the lower coast range to a town on the coast I hadn’t yet explored, Yachats, Oregon. He had exceptional spots of adventure in mind around where we took out that we could be men and climb things while the sun set further and a remarkable day wrapped up with finesse.

South on Highway 99 — a back road to Eugene — Dan asked if he could show me a scenic way out. I agreed and Dan turned off the straight road south and angled southwest through farmland and wide open meadows for the low coast hills through towns I had never heard of like Low Pass toward a town called Mapleton at the end of the coast range, twenty minutes from Florence, Oregon. I hadn’t been to Florence since the road and as we rode along I was excited for the places on the coast I hadn’t been back to in years that I once considered home.

While we road from Corvallis, the weather wasn’t as wet and predictable as the forecast said. The sky was layered with different types of clouds and variant levels of them in contrast to the blue sky that blanketed the background. We talked about anything that came to mind and I could dialogue with process the many of my thoughts and ideas. He had a dingy pair of sunglasses that I wore as we curved from the south toward Florence at west. Out of the coastal hills we were welcomed by the sun that took a prominent position in the sky before the clouds that framed the golden sun as it set behind a thin layer of clouds like a silk screen to a harsh light.

I was hungry with thoughts of fresh seafood while we approached the coast. Dan was as hungry and he asked where we should eat. I wanted to eat soon so I said Florence, but once he said, “We need to eat fast if we want to explore Yachats before dark,” I changed my mind. While we rode north on the coast from Florence, I pointed out a spot for Dan to take note of so he could have a visual in his head of it when he read the part of Florence in Fog on Fire.

I had gotten Dan a copy of FOG that he had yet to read all of, but as we rode the coast and I related stories from the road to him, he was more interested in the story. When I wrote the book, my chief goal was to have context for my friends whenever I wanted to tell them stories from the road. That would be the greatest reward for the rest of my life.

The stretch of coast from Florence to Yachats went through a ten-mile stretch that I had walked my bike along years before from Carl G. Washburne, a campground that I was dropped off by car at. The car ride I had gotten sped over a thirty minute drive from Waldport, south through Yachats, and then to Carl G. Washburne, where I walked from to Florence. I was mesmerized by the views as we rode north out of Florence along the Coast Highway that rose hundreds of feet above narrow coves, a lighthouse, and grand view of the cliffs cut from millennial erosion.

We parked at a cove minutes north of Florence that I had walked passed on the road before. The highway went north above a beautiful bridge that looked like the bridges train’s ride on as they cut over waterfalls through the mountains. At the north end of the bridge, we turned down the slope to a parking lot before the beach. The closest spots to park at were feet from where high tide left a forest of driftwood. Off the shore were a couple cliffs that rose to hundred foot peaks from the low tide that shifted and made its way closer to the driftwood forest.

I was giddy before Dan parked and I had the door open before he turned the engine off. I exclaimed, “I’m gonna climbs those cliffs,” and took off as his words, “Do it,” stuck with me.

Dan wasn’t far behind when I saw him turn back a few steps and fiddle with something in his hands. I assumed he had a stroke of genius and had to pen it before forgetting while following to supervise my ascent. As I furthered toward the angular point of Carl G. Washburne State Park, where the cliffs from the ocean rose up, I hopped around tide pools. The nearer I got to the cliffs I saw a split in my path from the main portion of land to the rocky shore.

                 I slowed to a strut and read the  K E E P  O U T  sign for the

                                                         _{B I R D  S A N C T U A R Y}

I climbed up the nearby slope of mainland for a better view. As I rose up on a higher rock to navigate new ground, I saw Dan climbing across the rocky shelf I had been stopped on by the oncoming tide. He started out responding to my remarks about the area. I was in awe of the beauty and for a linguist I’m ashamed that my most articulate remarks were, “Wow, it’s so beautiful.” He chuckled, “Yeah, isn’t it?” I admired the day so much that I responded to his rhetoric, “Yeah.”

We moved ahead of the tide and passed back along the rocky shelf of the cove along tide pools. The marine life stretched its way on shore, leaving behind anemone and a population of mussels. Dan led us back to the river, but looked over his shoulder once more with a thoughtful inspection of the rock I ventured to climb, “I’m sure you could make it. I’m pretty sure. I don’t think it would be a good idea. They would probably catch you when you got to the top.”

The waves crashed onto the sand and extended far up the shore as Dan and I neared its reach and watched it withdraw. I waddled with my hands in my pockets toward the salty foam as it was left where the water drew back from.

I challenged, “Let’s see who can get closest to the water without getting wet when it comes back.”

He followed behind me while I was occupied trying to find the parts of sand that would get me closest to the water and put me more at risk of getting wet. That section was then overcome from both sides and I raced away and made it out dry per usual. My cohorts who I draw into the same game have a habit of underestimating the ocean’s surge and end up wet. Dan didn’t.

The fresh water river was trickling on a new path near us while we walked toward its source. Dan pointed out, “This river isn’t usually here. This is a new overflow.”

We walked from the ocean’s shore up the river’s edge. Ahead of us was an older couple walking back, and ahead of them were there two dogs in the thicket that was a direct transition from sandy beach cove to forested river bank. When the dogs saw us, they trampled back for their parents. The little one, who looked well-pampered, started to come a little toward me in defense of the new territory his family and he had come upon. As we passed each other, I got down in his face and pretended to antagonize his well-to-do life. His mother soothed from behind, “Oh, he won’t hurt you.” I thought she was talking to the dog.

I laughed inside when Dan called back, “Oh, we know.”

The two pets passed us in a putter for their parents while Dan walked beside me into the brush. Within, we came upon a shard of jewel — if Yachats was a gem — of the Oregon Coast. It was manifested as a patch of sandy bank along the clear river. It was a mystical, therefore soothing sight to see the patch of territory that I would’ve loved to spend a while at. Dan heightened my imagination by asking, “Do you think you would you camp here?”

“If I was riding past here, I would come down to make camp for the night.”

It was approaching golden hour by the time we made our way over the driftwood and dry bramble barricade to the truck. We swung out for town and pulled in front of the Chamber of Commerce so we could walk to a pub. The town of Yachats was quaint and nestled together. I was filled even more to overflow with pleasure in deep satisfaction and words at the simple sight of golden light splashed against bay windows of homes that rose above each other in the coastal hill above town.  

We walked down to a pub full of old locals with sideways glares and up to the bar for food and a beer. We both ordered different beer but the same meal, a sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder. At our table, I watched the sun set over the crystalline ocean and enjoyed with Dan a flood of conversation and laughter.

Two days after the trip with Dan, I contracted a terrible virus that left me bedridden for an entire week. I stayed in bed with chills, wheezing, I felt light-headed, dizzy, pale, weak, and had an empty cough the entire time. The following Saturday I talked to Dan’s wife, Bridget who was a physician’s assistant, and visited her for a diagnosis.

Over the phone it sounded to her like I had pneumonia, but upon a few tests in person she withdrew that opinion and diagnosed my condition as a bacterial or viral infection that would pass in time. The two don’t have kids but are well fit for them.

RCTID

Thanks for inspiring me, George.

Even before I read his comment, while on a bike ride across the Willamette Valley, I considered what I had written yesterday and I came upon understanding that inspired me to write. The width of this blog will allow me to color more of my taste in rap music.

I wrote four books of poetry in high school. During homeroom in sophomore year, while I was cornered away from kids I went to elementary school with, I would watch videos of a young Tupac Shakur (who died at 25) in high school with rage for life. The classmates away from me were friends of mine in the early 2000’s until I went to private school in 2003. I was away from them four years before I left private school and returned home to New England.

The classmates and I sat over twenty feet apart from each other at computer desks. Their gathering was like a round table while I was locked in to candid videos of my favorite poet, 2Pac.

I won’t shy and say that I started liking rap music with 2Pac because I liked it most by Lil’ Wayne. The point I thought of today on my bike ride that inspired me to tell you more about my love for Lil’ Wayne is the amount of passion he puts into his music. He lives with care for each breath he takes toward vocals.

I just thought of another understanding.

In the shower I thought about how Lil’ Wayne was pushed to break new ground. He signed Drake before Drake rose to the top and went on to carry out his own ideas for entertainment, art, and rap music with a focus on the progression that Lil’ Wayne dug his heels into.

No Ceilings 2 seems like a passion project, like when Wayne first started rapping and his heart bled over each second of song. I feel Wayne’s music. His music is rooted in the south and I especially enjoy the roll bounce that it carries, in the same way I enjoy Curren$y, (but never have I liked Birdman).

These days there is a consideration to Wayne’s content, which encompasses a narrow range of topics with a colorful elaboration to them. I understand why he isn’t respected, but it is his work ethic, longevity, dedication, passion, and entertainment he puts into his work.

As for the sound, if you can listen to Wayne’s music with reverence for his continual part in progressive culture, then you will happen upon gems of sound that Wayne laid into and turned into a jewel of music. I hope, not just with Wayne, I can be a productive part of whatever I lay my hands to.

Thanks again, George

I hope someone reads this

In about 2007 I heard a song on 97.1 FM entitled Want You; I have been a Lil’ Wayne fan ever since.

It was Dwayne Michael Carter’s second portion of the mixtape, No Ceilings that inspired me to write this (It has been weeks since I last put down over 100 meaningful words). A friend of mine in film school told me that once I learned the fundamentals, I could “make a riff out of it.” I hope to live a life like that.

I hope to live a life where I learn the fundamentals and can go on to “make a riff out of it.”

No Ceilings 2 came out at the end of fall, when everyone away from the equator hunkered into a period of sadness as dark clouds and heavy winds ruled the land. When I discovered the album (No Ceilings 2) it had been six years since Wayne dropped No Ceilings.

(I hate this.):

If you defend him and go on to say, “Lil’ Wayne,” you flinch because there is stigma about Lil’ Wayne that attaches him to the expressive structure of rap music—whether goofy and black or angry and white.

I defend him.

Dwayne Michael Carter (Lil’ Wayne) has made thousands of songs, won excessive amounts of awards, and was the sound of my youth from ninth grade to a full-time job at 24 through homelessness and 4,000 miles on the road by bicycle. I was a senior in high school when Lil’ Wayne dropped the first portion of No Ceilings.

I bumped the tracks of No Ceilings as I slow-rode in my first car down a slope out of the mobile home park that my mom lived in.

“No ceilings, *****, good morning!”

It was on those streets that I was stopped by our landlord because my music was too loud and disrupted the old people who lived around us. The No Ceilings album was a mixtape where Wayne had hyper-improved since his days of I Can’t Feel My Face. Both were mixtapes but No Ceilings represented his fame since the feature he had when I first heard him on the radio in 2007 as a part of Lloyd’s single, Want You.

Lil’ Wayne pierces the complacency of genres to inspire mobility in creativity. Lil’ Wayne maximizes the potential of sound and has fun while doing it.

Lil’ Wayne is the best rapper ever.

I hate how stigma has swallowed Lil’ Wayne.

You’re gonna go on to rally and say how smart it is for me to say this about a man who had been buried as a demigod to pop culture. How smart it is that I could find beauty in the destroyed. It is there that I will say that there are many subjects that mean more to me than an analysis of my favorite music that I won’t get to harp on in the brief life we lead to live; although I hope I will in our future.

In conclusion, I am ecstatic to have a new Wayne album that is a prize for fans that enjoy what skills he garners.

Paradisus Amissus

I told a customer at work that I had a dream where one of my many bosses at work (I am a cashier) told me that our chip-reader for credit cards was working. There was a celebration in the dream that was parallel to how I would feel in real life. Our chip readers haven’t started to work yet; we have the hardware, just not the software.

This post comes from the encouragement and bright inspiration from a lady friend of mine who I use to work with (abCly). In my life, I romanticize the past with so much zeal I could make worthwhile projects from thousands of past moments. This woman—who I will keep nameless—but who deserves full recognition, is an epic poem of my life reflection.

I told the customer about my dream and he joked off that my dream was a bad one (because people think what I do sucks and any dream that relates to what I do is near a nightmare). I pleaded to differ. I have had nightmares that made me wake up because I couldn’t stay in them any longer, and when I woke up, I couldn’t go back to sleep; that is the worst, but actual.

For the sake of the unnamed inspiration that I am writing this for, I will go into the worst of my nightmares. I had a relationship in high school that I don’t mean to credit anymore than it deserves but will paint the full emotion of what I pang from in the dark hours of an early morning after I awake from the nightmare.

She and I were closer than I give myself credit in competence to construct, though I take responsibility for our relational decay, there was a silver lining that I may feel wed to for time to come. (I brag in that for the art to come). I dream about the girl sometimes, and only as it was in the best of our relationship. The scenes I dream up soften my heart to pillowcase tears in the morning (that happened once or twice). One of the times I could extract a thousand words for Clover that arc’d my main character in a way I was desperate to conjure.

In a conclusion fit for the sole audience I wrote this for, I wanted to accentuate the strokes that illustrate a fleeting part of us (as is most of us) to come upon once more before we forgot any longer. I have nightmares that inspire me and in all things I have still found life and can boast on that accord in short. Without a neat conclusion, I decorate your imagination to know I care for your heart and hope to have a further place in your life.

With love.

Over the Saddle

In Corvallis I had a regiment schedule that I had to complete in order to sustain. I know I had debt to pay back and a role to play in community. I hadn’t begun to pay back my thousands of dollars in debt and I had been off the grid of community—at least for long stints—while on the road for the nine months that I was. Needless to say, I was messy with my attempts to do either. The debt was easier because I could work and apply money to those loans while I watched them dissipate. Community on the other hand took a concise effort.

Other than flagship tough times, I found the most heart-breaking incident of settling down to be my lack of time in the wild or what was on the road. When I came to Corvallis I had just finished up a bicycle tour over 4,000 miles through four states where every day was new adventure. To land down in community was fine. I wanted that; but when I arrived there was so much complacency and a short window of time during my work week that I had to take trips or go on adventures.

There was my Portland Vacation that just took me back in ways that my spirit needed. There were also my trips to Scott’s house, floats on the river, hikes, or the similar that kicked me into gear. There was one event that shattered my patterns. I had a friend from work named Grant “G-Money, Geezy” Scauvignon who I met when we both worked together in the produce department.

When I first met him I said,  “You remind me of Ulysses S. Grant (because of his beard).”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“He’s on the $50 bill.”

I loaded up my cart with a few items to stock in the department and puttered around when he came out with valiant stride with six times as many items than me and he seemed to be carrying a fleet with him wherever he went. He had zing, stride, swagger, maturity, and was an impressive young man to be 22. He had already worked for our company six years.

He was a fermentation science major at Oregon State University and drank a lot. He walked me down the beer aisle and pointed out craft brews. In his free time he drank craft but was known as well to enjoy PBR or Hamm’s. When I became a cashier I would go visit Grant on my breaks or lunches to just hang out with him. I had ideas for us to hang out: river floats, but he didn’t want to get in the mercury-tainted water.

He texted me on one of our free days from work and I proposed over text that we go on a bicycle ride. We both had nice bikes. His was made of carbon fiber. My fork was made off carbon fiber. He was down and confessed when we met up that he thought we would ride to some sweet bar that I knew about. No; but kind of.

When I waited for him to meet up with me outside of my favorite coffee shop—Tried & True—I browsed online for popular bike routes in Corvallis. The list of them had their respective mile count. I looked for some with double digits. That was an exertion of mine and I figure for most of humanity—the heart to attempt the irregular. I wouldn’t go on a lengthy bike ride on my own or wouldn’t go for a hike on my own. I cherished the bond that people have with one another that can accomplish the unusual.

He showed up and we walked our bicycles up to one another. The first thing he said was that he didn’t want to go far and was already sore from both his own six mile ride into town as well because he had just walked his grandparents around campus. That blew some wind on a new flame of mine, but didn’t extinguish it. I told him I had a route picked out that was 24 miles. He gasped and joked that “No way” we would do that. He was just too tired. I said that I had a shorter one in mind, about four miles that would take us up a hill and down a fun descent.

I didn’t find out until we were 900 feet up a mountain that he had a one speed bike with no brakes. As we rode through downtown for the lighter route he shouted up to me with profanity, “[Fudge it], let’s take the long trip.” I had to accept that new wind to heighten my flame as I then saw the route as daunting. That complacent outlook collapsed as we took off for the hills.

Our route went up to a popular part of the area called Lewisburg Saddle. The bike route took us to the northwestern outskirts of town that began a steep ascent right when you crossed a perimeter road of the city. We had a steep ascent through switchbacks and a forest of old-growth for up to 1,000 feet. It was a gorgeous ride up with thickets of wood that took me back to road life in so many ways. I had 27 gears and led Grant all the way. I didn’t want to discourage him early on so I stayed far enough ahead where he had to keep going. I stayed on my bike until just about 100 feet from the summit. He had gotten off just before me—200 feet below the summit. He hated to have to get off his bike. It was a blow to his pride.

I thought at times he would turn back so I waited until I saw him around the bend and then would push on. I hadn’t worked out in a while, save a few runs here and there. My body yearned for the type of exercise that a tumultuous trip like that would need out of me. I was happy to push myself that far.

At the Lewisburg Saddle we got off our bikes and wandered around a bit. There were two hiking paths that spread off on either side of the road that we didn’t hike but thought to. We were very exhausted and had another 17 miles to go. I was told later on that there were old-growth firs off to the right side of the road but there was tape up because of tree harvesting. Cars were parked up to where people would hike to the left and into the thicker forest. It was up top that I learned he had no brakes.

What he had was a peddle system that was connected to his tires rotation. If he wanted to go slow he would have to peddle slow—difficult on such a steep ascent. We took off and I pulled over a few hundred feet down because I held on the brakes which could get too hot. I waited while my tires and brakes cooled. Grant came down behind me, “Don’t let me ruin the fun for you Caleb.”

On my next time down I flew like a car through the rest of forest and opened out to fields that stretched out in the valley. The sun was in full burst, a light wind cooled us, the view was American, and we both rode at top speeds by ourselves. We were at the reward of our efforts from this trip and in life altogether. We cruised in valiancy like we were made to and agreed that that section was our favorite.

At a crossroads we rode our bicycles in circles to escape a grip of hornets that hovered near us. We didn’t know which direction to go. I hadn’t had any water all trip. We had ten miles left to go. We decided on a direction and pressed to a rural highway with an adequate shoulder that was littered with traffic and just like that we left our prize where it may dwell for another. I kept an eye peered and turned us off at a convenient store where I got 44 ounces of lemonade for 99 cents. I drank half of it in the shade with Grant while he sipped a cherry-flavored Gatorade.

We had eight miles left and both decided to go to Block 15—a brewery and restaurant in downtown Corvallis. The final stretch was just a familiar press to the brewery where we locked up our bikes and got a table together upstairs. We split nachos and both got a couple pints of craft brews. We shared the conversations we had always wanted to go in depth on and continued the brotherhood I saw would thrive through his last school year in Corvallis before the workforce.