The Wilder Coast Turns One

A little over one year ago, living in a studio apartment in Seattle, I got up one morning and realized I wanted to do something different. So I gave away most of what I owned, packed up the rest and really pissed off my sister and a few friends by flying away. The tentative plan was to move to Asheville. What happened was a little different. I touched down in Burlington at the beginning of what proved to be the most brutal winter Vermont has seen in one hundred years. I had no plans, no friends, and no job. I didn't know what, if anything, was going to happen. Yet something strong had compelled me to move 3,000 miles and I had a feeling that whatever happened, it might be worth writing it down.

Thus the inception of The Wilder Coast. I was 23 years old when it began. I'm 24 years now but I won't be for long. This thing began as a debate: which coast should I live on, East or West? Seattle or Vermont? Now, things have become a considerable amount more complicated. I figured it might be a good idea, while I was at it, to explore the longest coast as well. The longest coast, those salted shores where Neruda wrote his tormented love sonnets, is also proving to be a good contender for wildest. And I'm being offered a nice oppertunity to live there, forever. But those same mysterious strings that yanked me out of my sweet, normal, caffeinated little life in Seattle seem to be pulling on me again to go somewhere else...without bothering to tell me where, of course.

So, in short, this blog has failed. I was supposed to have figured it out by now, and instead I've gotten thoroughly tangled. In the midst of all that failing, The Wilder Coast has accumulated 109 posts, been viewed by 4,742 people in over 23 countries (including a mysteriously large viewership in Brazil). Thank you everyone who has read, thanks more to those have commented, and the most thanks to my dog, Hometeam, who has been with me through every adventure. Except for those in Chile.

Considering all that's occured in the past 365 days, my brain shakes in my head wondering where I'll be this time in 2010. Whatever it is, it will promulgated here.