"We're selling the house."
We got the news a few days after Thanksgiving.
Earlier the very same day, my landlord had visited to look at repairing my door, water heater and washing machine.
We got the text a few hours later.
Since the Summer I had been toying with the idea of leaving the community I had come to love.
Suddenly, I had no excuses.
A wise man once said, "Bisbee is a great place to live, a better place to leave and and the best place to come back to."
At a show in Tucson in December, I asked the audience to close their eyes and repeat after me as I described my dream camper. A ritual.
I found the 16-foot Scamp online the following morning.
In the first week of 2024, I drove nine hours to St. George, Utah and bought my new home, towing it back to Bisbee in a weekend.
I set out in 2024 with the intention of making a lot of mistakes and learning as much as I could. A family superstition from the South that I have carried is thus: whatever you do on New Year's, you do for the rest of the year.
New Year's Eve 2024 I played one of the best shows of my life.
On a crowded Silver King patio, with fireworks bursting over the gulch, I was surrounded by friends dancing to my songs.
Why did I feel called to leave?
In my experience, Bisbee always gives you what you want.
What you really want.
I was almost five years into an online job. I worked in digital marketing for car dealerships. It had given me the freedom to move far away from home, and the financial backing to pursue music. I had unlimited vacation days (pending approval).
But, there was no passion in the work, no purpose.
Put the numbers on the screen.
Wait for the numbers on your screen to change.
Twice a month, like clockwork.
In April 2023 I began hiking the city trail that overlooked Bisbee daily. It gave me an excuse to expend anxious energy, get close to nature and see people in town.
One day I was on my phone, sitting on a rock at the trail's halfway point. A spot I have heard called "rock island."
A loud chirp jolted me from my anxious scrolling.
I looked up to see a roadrunner staring me in the face.
In some Indigenous Cultures, the roadrunner is a sacred messenger from the spirit world.
I have heard that the Apaches who lived in the sky islands in Southern Arizona and New Mexico refused to live in the range the colonizers came to call the Mule Mountains.
Rumor has it that the tribes had a rule about only staying so long, you were not to be in the canyons longer than three days.
Three days?
At the beginning of February, I packed up the camper and began the drive back to my parent's house in Alabama.
So began a long strange journey in my 27th year.
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