Let's Remove Our Clothes and Frolic Naked Among the Rocks

Yesterday we were scampering on the Morroccan granite and sitting in a saucer of milk; today I did wend my way out to the farthest marshes of the Kansas Road. You were right, Jophet - I was unprepared for the punch of Unity I would feel when the blue cottages of the Strawberry Patch came into view. I drove in and parked where I always had, in between the second and third cabins, got out and saw all around me exhausted bodies curled up together in bunks, sprawled in the grass strewn with empties, working out the kinks of "Dirty Old Town" or "Frauline", bringing a stack of plates and Sriratch out to the picnic tables, brushing their teeth at the spigot, giving/receiving piggy back rides to and from the lunch truck (Dame de tu lonche, mami!)retiring by 9pm, and etcetera.

A little farther up the road was the bathing stream where shimmery ghosts scrubbed themselves clean with pebbles and the greek olive oil soap was passed around until it finally came to rest in its Teddy Peanut Butter Jar.

I stopped for fuel at the Airline Diner and relieved them of their last whoopie pie (it was whipped creamy), and then I drove for five more hours back to Santa Clara. I stopped in on Frank and Paloma and we caught up for a bit. I told Frank what Jophet had said, about how some people in Cherryfield think that the Strawberry Patch housing is exploitative, and he shot back a lovely, familiar dismissive look as he noted that it was always better than where we were living for the rest of those years - "Running water right next to the house!" "Reliable stoves!" "A refridgerator!" "An outlet!" "Showers!" They loaded me up with fat blueberries and snap peas and sent me on my way back to Bloomsburg.