Back to the Magic Tree House

I remember riding on the backs of beautifully spirited boys motor bicycles. It was India, it was Rishikesh. The banks of the River Ganga to our right, the highway soared up high into the vibrantly green mountainside.

I remember seeing temples both below us and up above. On our way 20 miles north for a few bottles of that Old Monk, the finest of Indian rums to make the dry holy city of Rishikesh a little wet for the evening.
Popped off the back of his bike and all the town boys starred like the the town boys did no matter where I was.
On our way back with the booze I remember the motor bike boy yelling as we turned the corner before Rishikesh, “Hide the bottles, no fines for me today.” We spent the rest of the evening in the magical tree house laid next to the river. We drank till the sound of the monkey’s didn’t spook us anymore. We drank till we dipped in the beloved river of Ganga under the moonlight on that warm summer night and become old monks ourselves losing count of how many times we submerged under the cool flowing waters.

I remember it like was a dream from yesterday. Was it? No, I have the scars and glowing memory of being there.

Now I’m awake and worn in the ends of some middle of nowhere in Alaska. The days are blurred but now with less hash and less Old Monk. Beer turns bitter and the whiskey makes you angry. From up here you see all the things come and go everywhere else. Impermanence use to feel so much more uplifting. Yet still there is no where else I’d rather be. Everywhere else down there in the ‘lower’ states seems rotten, crude, and withered beyond its stretching capacity.

Still there is no where I’d rather be than here just trying to get back there. To my land of milk and honey and beautiful things. Of bright glowing wander and mystery.
Still there is no where I’d rather be than here. Just wanting to get back to there.