I Moved Again

On June 30 six years ago we put my mother's mother's ashes in the ground after celebrating her life.

On June 30 three years ago I bought a train ticket and rode the train tracks north on the Hudson River, until I was met at the station by my friend Brad.  He brought me home the final hour ride, and dropped me off at the head of our road.  I walked the final mile, past the Christmas Tree Farm where I had my first job, down the hill, up the hill, onto our property, the fields and trees green in June, and then finally to our house, which I had been away from for the longest period of my life at that time.  My sister screamed when she saw me through the window, and my mom accidentally swore in surprise and gave me a very long hug, and my dad was napping so I walked upstairs and poked him in his belly with my bamboo stick and told him I was home.  A few nights later I had a campfire with my friends, and I was in the best mood of my life.  I was still alive, and I'd seen what I wanted to see and done what I'd wanted to do.  7 months of traveling from New York to India, through ten countries, and several plane flights, cost a little over $7,000.  The cost of living in any major city in America would have easily exceeded that during that interval of time.

A year ago I woke up in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I had been sleeping without a tent up on these rocks in the forest, and I could see the faces of the men I'd read about to get pumped up for the journey across the land named America.  I drove through the Black Hills all day, into Wyoming, where I arrived at the first national monument, Devil's Tower, shortly after 10 pm.  The last visitors were leaving, and I faced the fear of walking alone through the dark and walked the circle around the tower in the moonlight, as opposed to doing anything crazy like trying to climb it.  It was truly peaceful yet completely silent in a necessarily eerie way.  I only saw one animal, but it ran away quickly, whatever it was.  I remember when I was a young suburban kid and I was afraid of going in the basement.

I stared and studied the Devil's Tower with respect and awe.  It was magnificent and surreal and one of the strangest things I've ever seen in my life, especially when illuminated by moonlight.  I walked the circle around it.  Devil's Tower is only one more option worthy of our awareness, but ultimately worth walking around and then returning home.  I've never climbed it though.  I wonder what it's like up there.  Perhaps like the top of a rock.

After that I got back in the car and spent hours in the northwest corner of the Black Hills trying to find a place to camp.  Every site was taken, and that search took between midnight and 2 am with all the back roads.  I finally said keep moving and went back to the same area where I'd started the day.  I slept so that I would wake up with the driver's steering wheel in front of me.

Today I finished moving from San Francisco to the East Bay, where I'm living in a nice two story apartment house on a quiet residential street.  It's not far from downtown Berkeley and the University of California.  It's only for a month, but it's a welcome change of pace from the 101 highway and a huge hill every day.  I enjoyed the view from the hill when I was willing to walk up it, which was often.  I loved the experience of having my own place in San Francisco, even if there were cars rushing by and people fighting from time to time.  I had a balcony when I needed not so fresh air, and plenty of room to learn, imagine and create.  It was the perfect artist space to inspire creativity and perhaps the strangest way to begin my reintegration into residential American society. 

It was a simple move, but I stretched it out over a few days so I didn't burn out over it.  Strangely, my old roommate Terence moved back in today after having left a few months ago, so we talked and caught up in my empty room.  Then I went upstairs and got to talking with a new tenant who had just moved into the room of the dramatic woman who had been evicted weeks ago.  This new woman I had met before, as she is close friend's with the house manager and mother of the landlord.  Apparently his dad and her ex-husband was one of the Olympic athletes famous for that photo holding his fist in the air.  This new woman is her best friend.  She's also a poet, an artist, a sculptor and a songwriter.  She was gushing with information and advice and breaking out into recited poetry with a paint brush in her hand.  The paint brush reminded me of where this whole journey started, painting houses in Cambridge to save money for India.

She kept saying to me, "Choose where you want to go.  Your mind is truly a spaceship, and if you focus your intention on what you want, you'll get there before you even know.  But keep moving and living and don't stress about your journey because you're still on it.  But choose what you want to do.  You have to drive.  You have to choose based on the inner drive you feel," and she grabbed her chest and patted it for the beat beneath.

We walked up to the corner and I showed her the Pyramid of the Sun, which she had never noticed before in all of her years of visiting this house.  She said, "God Bless You," and wished me well on my journey.  I stood in front of the pyramid painting for a minute and thought about where I wanted to go, and the choices I have to make to get there in a style that is most pleasing to the universe and those who might await me at the destination I choose.

Then I got in the car, put my foot on the pedal and steered the wheel to my newest place to be.

The 29th

Today is a very special day for me.  For the past three years it has reminded me just how lucky and fortunate I have been to experience life's opportunities, and to see everything I could see and be with everyone with whom I could be.

In 2010 I returned to America after seven months away on my own.  I'd been to the strangest and most stressful places I'd ever been, and also saw more amazing beauty and magic of the universe than I could have imagined before I summoned the courage and found the encouragement to go on an unknown adventure which appealed to me.  I was very happy to be home, very lucky to still be moving and much more appreciative of my life, the people in it and whatever the world made itself that enabled me to experience it that way.

_____________________

When I arrived in California a few months ago, one of my friends remarked that there was something cynical about my travels because I wasn't a refugee or hadn't risen up from poverty.  I was just a privileged educated white guy in his prime doing whatever he wanted, albeit on a shoestring budget compared to some other travelers.

A few nights ago someone referred to my travels as "traipsing about like a high school or college student," and that although I had "been near" suffering in the world, I hadn't experienced any because I didn't grow up in true poverty, only slightly below the national average, so my encouragement to others to seek their own journey isn't fair to others because they don't have the life and the background and the opportunities I did, especially financially, because my parents were civil servants who turned down more lucrative opportunities in the private sector.

A week ago, when I asked my students how to spend our charity money, one of the students attempting to get in my good graces with respect to attendance wrote that they should give the money to me so that I could go travel and see more of the wonders of the world and come back and share my discoveries and experiences with everyone.

I think I'll give him an A.

Anyway, three years ago I got back to New York City after seven months away on the amazing journey.  At the time I had no idea I would be so lucky as to experience several more in different ways.  To anyone who wishes they could do what I've done, I wish you the best of luck in doing it your own way.  Figure out what your strengths are, figure out the windows the world opens for you to use them in a way that profits your soul and others', and keep moving forward with your dreams in focus.

To anyone who thinks it's crazy or irresponsible or worst of all, immature, I say that I don't care at all what anyone thinks about that, because I had the absolute best time of my life, and it's my life, and I lived it that way.  Many other people enjoyed that journey with me while living their own journey, and I still carry the lessons of that voyage with me.  Although my pain, loneliness, confusion, doubt, extreme discomfort and existence separated from all familiar love of friends and family may have been temporary and chosen, it was more challenging and rewarding than my other options, which were to continue temping or to go to law school.

Six years ago today I walked away from my job as a banking paralegal in Rockefeller Center.  Three years ago I returned from India-Ireland and celebrated by finally standing on Top of the Rock.  It was the perfect time of day, atop Manhattan around 7:30 in late June, watching the sunset on one of the greatest metropolises on the beautiful ball.  I had this pass the entire time I worked across the street, but never used it.  This time I was in the mood for doing the types of things that were always there and I'd never bothered to explore, so I bought a ticket and enjoyed the view.

I know I made the choice that brought me and other humans the most joy.

You'll do what you will with that.  If you want to see the world, the gates are open.  You just might have to take time imagining and creating the keys to set you free.

You Will Dreams

...Waves Live and Life Waves and Waves Life and Life Waves…

...Up and down....

Thumbs

 

Up

All I can tell you is you must find your own best way to learn to flow up and down and enjoy the up and down and eventually it will be even and peaceful and you can learn to enjoy that too, but then need to steer right and left when the waves come, and some of them you have to charge into and fly over, and others you have to steer around, and sometimes you have to keep steering or paddling or swimming or doing whatever it is with whatever it is the universe has equipped you with to navigate the flow of A Sea of I Can Dreams.  What can you dream?  Can you do it?  What do you have to do right now to get there?  What about later tonight?  Tomorrow morning?  Within a week from now?  How about a month?  What about a year?  How many steps can you take toward your dream in a year?  Maybe you don't even need that many steps, but assuming you might be alive a year from now, how much extra-equipped would you like to be to help you navigate the flow of I Can See Dreams, however strange it seems?

 The artists and the lovers say that there is love here, and we only need to find it... that feeling... and spread it...

            It’s true.

            The only question is how to keep that feeling flowing through you…

            I won’t tell you what to do.  That’s always up to you.  I can only give you advice from my experience as it has been flown through me every moment of my destiny.  Inner truth tells me not to worry and to just keep moving and flowing and paddling and steering and yelling out screams of joy and excitement and wearing contented peaceful smiles of approval and getting angry and challenging it just so we can both experience something more intense, and then keep my mind’s heart’s eyes’ ears’ open to the world and I will feel more of the universe with seemingly separately sensing soul.

Making Moves

I’m on a hill in San Francisco watching the sun make its rounds by Asia and so forth until tomorrow, and I’ve been living near this hill for half a year.  I am listening to this Hiromi song that’s really soothing and dynamic at the same time, and that's helping me think about where I am, where I’m going and where I’ve been.  Music is such a vital key to the world's joy.  

Tomorrow I’m picking up the keys to my new place on the east side of the bay, near the University of California.  We’ll see how that goes.  I’ve come from many journeys.  I am very lucky to experience them the way that I do, as with all of life so far.  The lesson is always keep it going and if you can, keep it getting better.  Remember Dan Thompson’s “continuous improvement” tattoo, and Mike Thompson’s “respect for and curiosity toward everything.”  They know the secrets.

Today started strange, once again.  I found out that my five most skilled, interested and talkative students had to advance to the next level even though they didn’t want to.  It’s hard to watch the students move on to their necessary continuous improvement.  But there is always someone to continuously improve with.

Three years ago I was in Ireland, as I keep saying.  In this town called Cork.  It’s really beautiful and relaxing and European and all of that, and if you get anywhere outside the city it’s incredibly green, but that’s also because most of the time it’s gray and rainy.  But if you stay at least a week, you’re bound to get some sweet sunshine.  I was exploring the town with a stranger who was already a friend after a day of simply meeting each other at the right place and time.  We had a great time sharing the mysteries of life and the journey.

Two years ago I was in Japan, living with strangers from around the world and teaching Japanese people how to speak English by conversing with them like a civilized adult and playing with/leading them like they were little kindergartners, because they were.

One year ago I was camping in the great adventurous land of the United States of America.  I woke up at the bottom of this cavern with two photography journeyers who were incredibly adventurous and skilled at hiking and refined camera work.  We shrugged off the bats from the little semi-cave we camped in, and then got up at 4 or 5 am to climb out of there to see the sunrise.  It was much harder to hike out than in because of the incredibly steep part with no grips that I had merely slid down before.  But this time, after the incredibly limber and nimble Eric raced up the side with his little pack, I tried my best with my biggest hiking backpack, and made it about halfway and realized there was no grip nearby, and after hanging for a while I had to let go and try to veer left and slide down to safety, making sure not to run into Jack at the bottom, who was blocking this enormous perilous black hole, of which there were several in the area.  We never could quite see the bottom of those.  Then Eric remembered he had carabineer lines, and we got my big bag up.  Then it was easy to go.  I’d already scraped up my left arm quite a bit, but it was fine.  We had plenty of that medical stuff to take care of that.  Then we saw an amazing sunrise, and we greeted another day of freedom in our homeland of the brave.  Also, their company is called “I Live in Beauty,” and you should check out their website.  They do some amazing photography work, and have much better pictures than those I have of the Badlands, or as I said, earlier, Great Unique Kind of Different But Still Excellent Lands.  They also have great taste in music, and insisted with enthusiasm that I listen to dozens of artists.

                Then we hiked into this other area above all of these crazy rock formations, and had an adventure, and escaped a lightning storm in the morning, and then we said good bye and I drove on west.

                And here I am.  Tomorrow I’m getting the keys, and then I’m free from this hill, but still going to San Francisco every day.  Just remember the freeway is inside, and you don’t have to live next to a highway to remember that all the time.

                Then I’ll move, and I’ll live in this new place with these new people, and pretty much say good bye for the most part to these people I live with now, even though I had a good time with some of them.  I’ve got a lot of intense, beautiful, and painful memories from my stay here.  Somewhere in there I started creating a lot, and sharing a lot, regardless of who’s been reading, but keeping an audience in mind, and seeing what I would find.

                Earlier today I was a little sad to realize that four of my favorite students were moving on to the next class, since I’ve been here almost four months now.  Especially since we found out officially about a few hours before it happened.  They were the ones who always answered questions and gave it their best and smiled and laughed a lot.  When I called on them for an opinion, they always gave the most articulately expressed and insightful answers. 

Even stranger, a lot of the students are asking me how long I’m going to stick around, as if they expect that from my travel resume I would be off somewhere exotic and mysterious by now.  Well, for now I’m heading east.

We said quick farewells, I tried my best to grade everyone, and then I drove home because it was a Thursday.  I ate some food and then watched Jay-Z get interviewed by Charlie Rose, who’s this PBS reporter my parents are always watching. He’s a good interviewer but he’s the total opposite of Jay-Z in background.  But Jay-Z poignantly pointed out how all of the basic issues they talked about in their songs, beyond the specifics, resonate with the deepest and most important battles and decisions you face in any kind of life that’s somewhat interesting.  He’s a very interesting and influential flow of imagination.  He kept talking about the “universe” when it came to the important times in your life and figuring out where and how you’ll move with all of this.  He said he really didn’t think he’d make it at his creative love, and didn’t have confidence when he was 26, right until he made it.  He also talked a lot about relationships becoming more mature as he grew older because a lot of young rappers are getting meaningless play when they’re on the road.  He was pretty funny and clearly comfortable expressing himself, although very modestly in front of such a strange crowd of the type of people who go to Charlie Rose interviews.

It was amazing to witness the imagination's combination of all of the dark dangerous adventures Jay-Z had experienced during his journey through the ghettos of New York and the underground drug trade with such a worldly yet seemingly tame interviewer.  Yet they can talk to each other and each make the wheels of the world spin in their own way.

             I’m writing on this hill now.  I’ll miss it, but it will be here any time I want to drive here, as with any other place I’ve driven so far on this journey.  If I’ve learned anything, you gotta be driven, and that means inner drive making all of this thrive.

               Keep hustling our show with the flow you know

The surprising concert performed on the piano that had been left there by unknown artists closed the evening with David Bowie's "Changes."

Of course it did.