Librarians, we’re the worst, we never rest, men in black will march to the reference desk, muzzle cries of access, freedom to read, information privacy, making inner worlds safe for democracy, enriched and courageous, one worth embracing.

My reflection smug in mirrored glasses GUILTY! they’ll cuff me, drag me kicking from the beastly, brutalist Austin Public Library.

It’s true! I’m not a terrorist! And after a six-month hiring process, I will be a librarian at Faulk Central Library in downtown Austin, Texas. I am over the moon tower, inside and out my body and mind, familiar feelings flooding of packing up my life pre-exodus for Vancouver—the wistfulness, decisiveness, excitement and stern. This gem I’m taking with. This junk I’m throwing away.

It’s strange, though. I thought Minneapolis was home, especially when away from it, learning how to become a librarian in Canada. After I returned in 2009, I mostly ached for BC but was determined to make the Cities new again, and I did. They were. But still. It’s not that something’s missing. “Home” has not failed me. I don’t want “more” in the sense that I’m lacking, and lawd I’m going to miss my family.

Nevertheless…adventure awaits. A new, fun city to poke around the edges of, bike clear across, find the beating heart and claim my favorite veins. Swimming holes to clean my sweat off in. The best damn boy with the best imagination, in his bird mask, with his map of the universe, his actor dog that rules the roost and other dog with the name of a fish that sounds like a cat and acts like maniac but still wins hearts.

I can’t wait.

Friday was my last day of old work, bittersweet for the colleagues I’ll miss and the hole I leave behind. Friends pooled money to bestow this majesty:

LOVE OVERFLOWING! I’m blessed with opportunity. I’m blessed with friends and family who want nothing but the best for me, Midwest stoic hide the bleak emotions eclipsed by wishing me well.

Thanks, everyone. I treasure you all. I can’t wait to tell you stories of tacos and dust, bats and fire ants, book clubs and my crappy Spanish, street bands, Shiner Bock, cacti blooms and shadows I swear are snake bodies and chasing down comets with my love.

BUT WHO KNOWS! Time does things. Knots your bootstraps and puts you to sleep. Gilds and Instagrams the edges of memory, then Tom Sawyer-style extols the grandeur of labor, whitewash in broad strokes it calls a clean slate.

Who the hell was I, anyway?

Competing but not competitive, unless I really have changed. My brothers trap me into playing a parlor game but I cringe out after a couple of rounds, citing psychological distress.

I’m not a cheat. I’m not a liar. I’m not a spy.

Love is me.

This cheery afternoon the crows are nowhere to be found, but I make the best of laced boots and prowl my old ‘hood.

I’ve always loved the west side of Joe’s Chicken Shack.

HOTTEA(-esque?) yarn lacing the fence.

The silly, sad, wonderful things we want before we die.

I liked the murder on facebook. Next time I’ll be ready.

Have a happy one!

We talked about skeletons.

We turned into lions.

What if we’re late?

We speed across Texas that for all it pulls faces I must admit is beautiful—out here, in nowhere, with scattered alien industry, ancient oil pumps slurping the earth breathing fire, wind turbines as far as the eye can see.

It was dark by the time we hit the mountains, winding through the night with lightning flashing over ridges, just around the bend, to the McDonald Observatory Star Party. We are right on time for the clouds to disappear and peep in giant telescopes to wonder at Albireo, numbered nebulae and Andromeda rushing toward us.

We feel big and small and normal sized in quick succession and set up camp in the dark to wake to gorgeousness,

all kinds of garbage melting out of us.

We want a picture of us with the observatory in the distance, the massive domes seen from Davis Mountains State Park.

But operating under duress—batteries about to die, the sunglare intense—we can’t catch all of us.

There.

Where?

There.

The light is only eight minutes old this time but so bright it blinds us from getting it right and out of nowhere Arthur’s arm turns into the mountain.

A year later and my favorite trick is still how he becomes the horizon.