Some Thoughts: 2014

As we journey with life, we learn from experience and share the treasures gained from our explorations, offering them to whoever may have use for them in the pursuit of their own happiness. This is what I have to offer you today:

On 161214, I began the day in the underground and saw a bear. That is, I saw someone reading a book I knew very well, and a bear was on the cover. The guy who wrote the book about hiking the Appalachian Trail didn't even finish the thing, but wrote about it well enough to interest plenty of paying readers, so that’s why I saw his book that morning. I started to feel tough and brave, because if a man could tell a story about braving black bear country with his friend and not even reaching his goal, then I could tell a story about braving grizzly bear country by myself. Then I got on the train and saw an advertisement for a book written by a woman who hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail by herself. I thought, “Yeah, well she didn't go to India by herself…” Then I remembered meeting that 19 year old German girl in India who had been traveling by herself for one month, just like I had, but had gone twice as many places and was infinitely better at haggling than I. That’s when I also remembered that the only competition is with yourself to live the best life you can. I’m going to stop comparing myself to everyone else, because that’s when I’m happiest and improve the most anyway.

As part of that pursuit, I went to work to teach foreigners how to improve their English language skills. It’s not the best I can give, but it’s a unique situation that is preparing me for higher levels of communication, so I’m doing it as I write. Although I have broken up a fight during class, it’s pretty much a safe adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. Two of the examples in the book that morning were about separate news stories involving bears. I used this chance to review the conditional tense with the students: “What would you do if you found a bear in your apartment?” When one of them said he would play dead (as opposed to closing the door and calling the authorities), I couldn’t help but explain to them what to do in situations involving bears. I don’t speak from direct experience, thankfully, but only from what I've been taught over and over again while hiking in the wild. Just a few months ago a college student was killed in New Jersey because he took pictures as the bear approached, and then everyone in his group split up and ran away, which is the first thing they tell you not to do, even in elementary school (at least the one I went to), because bears can run faster than the New York City speed limit (even the old one). Anyway, to illustrate how not to act around bears, I showed them a scene from The Simpsons where a bear enters the town and everyone freaks out while spouting hyperbole about the town being overrun by bears. Of course, their over-hyped complaints put pressure on the mayor’s office, which promptly responds with over-the-top bear protection including bear patrol vans and stealth fighter jets, which in turn causes the citizens to loudly complain about the “smallest tax increase in history.” Naturally, the mayor falls back on his ace scapegoat in the hole: “All of your problems are caused by illegal immigrants.” And that’s when the real story begins.

3 years ago I was living a 30 minute train ride from the heart of the most populous gathering of humans in the world: Tokyo, Japan. I had been a temporary resident of their island nation for more than seven months, and correctly imagined that I would live there for three months more. Since quantifying the infinite is a fun way to use time, I’ll say that I had seven activities which kept me motivated, focused and busy during my stay in a tiny room (New York has no idea how spacious it really is) in a quiet neighborhood a five minute walk from the nearest train station.

The first activity was meeting Japanese people through conducting conversations in English at a small club in Saitama. I had one hour conversations with paying customers. In any given hourly session there could be anywhere between one and five students at a table. They were all there to improve their overall English abilities, but especially to improve speaking, listening and conversation. Of course, cultural and personal experiential exchanges were inevitably part of the bargain as well. There weren’t any text books or reference materials, with the exception of a small map of the United States of America, as most of the teachers were from there, and the owner of the club, a Japanese man in his 50s, had once spent a decent amount of time there in the 70s. I will always remember most how kind the people were to me every day during my stay. They not only gave me literal gifts I still have with me and use to this day, but they also made my transition smooth and enjoyable. Speaking one-on-one, one-on-two, one-on-three, one-on-four, and even, rarely, one-on-five with beginner, intermediate and advanced students aged 14 to 60 several afternoons and evenings a week made me a better communicator, conversationalist, teacher, writer, and human.

That wasn’t my only job, though. My other occupation was teaching kindergarten students in the mornings. That was more of an entertaining show than real teaching, as the entire program, that is, script, had already been formatted by the company which outsourced our “native voices” to private kindergartens in the greater Saitama area. This involved at least 40 minutes of travel by car in the morning and train in the afternoon or evening, depending on whether or not it was a day involving classes with first and second graders in the late afternoon. These lessons required an enormous expense of physical energy, as leading groups of excited kids so early in the morning hadn’t been part of my daily routine when I sat behind a desk in Manhattan just a few years earlier. Then again, as tiring as it was, it was also tons of fun. All the smiles and excitement definitely gave me positive creative and mental energy for the rest of the day, and put me in a good mood when I spoke to students in the evenings. It also helped me forget that I was in a... creative visa situation with respect to working, and I was doing what I had to do to get by. I'm happy that the authorities finally granted me the proper visa when I proved to them just how much I loved working and living with its people.

This was how I learned to teach and why I have a job teaching groups of adults and a few teenagers in Manhattan now. But developing my teaching skills wasn’t my only goal in Japan. The overall goal is always to improve who I am so that life is enjoyed more, which involves further enhancement of what I already know how to do well, while adding new talents and habits to the mix as I go along. Back then I already knew how to write, as I’d been doing it since age five, although with varying levels of commitment and enthusiasm along the way, I must say. Then again, writing is fueled by life, and although I may not have been sitting and typing for hours every day when I was growing up, I was writing, reading, listening, conversing, socializing, learning, creating and working in school, at jobs, with my friends, in solitude and with my family. I would never trade those moments for more time spent learning the rules of fiction and so on. People who made that their bliss in the past inspired me and helped me on my path, but that doesn’t mean theirs is mine, as many have helped me along this way, and we can’t emulate everyone as we pursue happiness. The bliss I know involves language, communication, and words. I’ve drawn just as much joy from hearing soulful sound, but I’m not as skilled at producing it. That’s why I began writing every single day in Japan. I began with the 1,000 word rule of minimums: I had to write at least that much about a photograph every day, but it was also perfectly okay for me to get carried away, so I often went for 2 or 3 thousand, and on some inspired afternoons or evenings, I’d dash off 5 thousand words. Once I wrote 11,000 words in two hours, although I can’t say the entire piece was easy to follow. Even so, the inspiration, dedication, and enthusiasm were finally in place. On top of that, I was also motivated to make my room appear bigger and more beautiful. I could only place pictures of my journeys on the walls if I had first written about them. So I did that, and although I don’t do that particular photo exercise much anymore, I still have the writing habit, wherever I am.

The fourth activity involved creating more experiences worthy of being pictures worth writing about. That meant getting out of the apartment and into the city, although often, on busy days and nights, I would simply take a twenty minute walk to a nearby shrine with pools, fountains, artwork and intricate sculptures amongst the trees. I also sometimes walked to these train tracks that had an overpass, and I would listen to music while watching the (1111) trains racing underneath me. On top of that, I could get the best view of the night sky as one could expect in such a populous city. Then, sometimes, usually on an impulse, I would go into the real city and wander around, taking pictures of everything that intrigued me, which one can imagine was plenty (1141).

Alright, four done, three to go. If you want to live and love art, you have to stay alive. Thus, I wanted to eat healthier and learn to cook for myself. That is, I wanted to finally be able to make something more complex than breaded chicken cutlets in an oven, string beans in a pan, tuna sandwiches, eggs with whole wheat bread (a lesson I'd learned from a politics professor) or beef with pasta, tomato sauce and peppers of any color. Come to think of it, considering how picky an eater I’d been growing up, I think that wasn’t so bad for someone a few years out of college. Still though, there was more than enough room for improvement. Luckily, Japanese grocery stores have plenty of great selection of fresh items. Also, fortunately for my arms, the store was a fifteen minute walk, and I shared a fridge with between five and seven people during any given month, so we couldn’t really stock up in bulk. That meant we had to do things the Japanese way: buy fresh food almost every day. Furthermore, there was this aura of health, efficiency and discipline that pervaded the air of society there. That’s how I got into broccoli, carrots, onions, more bell peppers, mushrooms (especially shiitake) and eggplant. I also got into Kikkoman soy sauce. (1334) I ate some combination of the above just about every afternoon or night. Sometimes, when I wasn’t lazy, I would also cook rice, but I was getting enough carbs through the rest of my diet anyway. After about a month or so I decided to give substituting tofu for chicken a try, and (1365) I was amazed by the results. I bought the firm kind, so I don’t know if that’s the healthiest, but tofu is pretty damn healthy anyway, so I figured the switch was good enough. It was less expensive than chicken, easier to slice, took less time to prepare, was healthier in many ways while still providing plenty of protein, spared a few living creatures, and actually even tasted better! I (1434) eat whatever I think is best for me to represent this life experience for the complex and mysterious universe, and that means I do many things that give me joy and make me stronger, and one of those is eating meat, but another one of those is eating tofu more often than I eat meat. In fact, in 2014, many varieties of beans, and in recent months, sardines, have become new additions as my daily sources of protein. Complementing the healthy food I was consuming were the foods I wasn’t consuming anymore. The Japanese aren’t as big on sweets as Americans are, so I slimmed quite a bit when sweet cookies weren’t available. But they still had potato chips, and even better, they had C.C. Lemon, the greatest vitamin C soda drink in the world. I also drank a lot of tomato juice on a daily basis. Jason Webley once signed an autograph telling me to “trust [my] tomato.” He also wrote the “Train Tracks” song about holy passports and magic beans, constantly encourages his audience to eat more vegetables (“Back to the Garden”), and happily employs stuffed vegetables as props during his performances. After years of following his advice, I must say he was on to something. Anyway, carrying those grocery bags and eating their contents every day made me much stronger in body, mind and spirit.

Speaking of health, my sixth activity involved developing a habit that I’m sure will become a lifelong (1614) joy. Because I had to sit at a table across from smiling enthusiastic people from my host country for six hours at a time, with ten minute breaks in between each conversation, I had to stay awake, alert, focused and energetic. I also needed to be somewhat relaxed, pleasant, and especially patient for the students to feel comfortable expressing themselves. They also needed to believe they were getting their time and money’s worth listening to me talking and explaining things about the English language, American culture, and the world as I knew it from experiencing life. That’s where the new habit helped.

With all honesty I should say (1718) that this whole addiction truly (1724) began when I went abroad on my own for the first time in my life (1741), to New Zealand in 2004. There I took an advanced politics seminar focusing on economic, social and gender inequality in New Zealand, which the conservative head of my university’s government department tried to make me admit didn’t have too much of an influence on the rest of the world, my being from the United States and all. I thought of pointing out that he apparently didn’t know the whole point of living abroad, cultural exchange and all that, but I decided to just smile and wait for him to sign the freaking papers. He would later “mistakenly” skip my name when calling us up for graduation diplomas the next year, but that might have had something more to do with my not wearing a shirt than anything else (I did wear a tie though, and got the best sun tan ever. I was just doing my best fashionable rendition of the Big Red Bear).

Anyway, the teacher of my class in New Zealand was the exact opposite of that guy. When I first met him, we were both confused about where the introductory session for our first class was supposed to be, as it was a special event with other professors that wasn’t on the normal schedule. Even so, I thought it funny that he was just as confused as I was, and that he told me to run after him as we went from building to building and eventually found the correct auditorium, with him going on stage to join the other professors, and I into the audience. As for the normal class which commenced the next week, it was three hours long, and he made a big deal about his fight with the university’s bureaucracy to get a 30 minute tea break in the middle of the class. And that’s how the whole tea thing started. I don’t even remember what kind I would drink. I do remember being slightly worried as all of the Kiwis, steeped in British culture from the get go, knew exactly what they wanted, where to get hot water, and how long to steep the bags in the cups. Then we would stand around and talk, usually about South Park. I never made it at home or pursued it anywhere outside of those breaks during the seminars while in New Zealand, and I probably only had it a few times at coffee shops on campus when I returned to America for my senior year, but still, I think that’s where it all started.

When I decided to go abroad again, I started in India, and the very first day merchants were calling me into their tiny shops and offering me chai’s while they offered me other things I didn’t want. After that, every morning on overnight train rides we would be woken up from our crowded bunks to hear a man ringing a bell and yelling that we should buy tea from him.

That was everywhere, including the seventeen hour ride to the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains on the eastern edge of Nepal in the northeast corner of India, in a town famous for tea. The town was misty and brisk, but a relief from the chaos and culture shock of Delhi and Varanasi, the capital city where they'd first offered me tea and the 5,000 year old holy Hindu city on the banks of the Ganges, respectively. Although they lived at the entryway to some of the world's most divine and audacious beauty, they sometimes wouldn’t have any electric power for hours on end. Once I had to take a bucket bath with ice cold water during a power outage, unaware that there were hot buckets of water available at the desk upon request. When I was upstairs wearing just about everything I had with me, that peppermint tea really saved the day, as did talking with fellow travelers, and then writing in my notebook, illuminated with candlelight as the old man hummed a soothing tune while stoking the fire.

The next day I was in the Himalaya Mountains, with a guide named Buddha. I didn’t think I would make it on the five day trek, and I was only five minutes into the excursion when I was ready to call it quits. But I persevered, mostly thanks to seeing Buddha walk ahead of me, showing me it was possible. Besides, I was bigger and had stronger muscles, and Buddha chain smoked cigarettes, so if only I would learn how to use my body, I would be able to walk up and down mountains as effortlessly as he. I would do that eventually, over a period of years, but I didn’t know that back then. You can imagine my relief when we took a break from the eerie mist several thousand feet above sea level and came upon a small group of huts. We entered one of them to see a few Nepalese people, a small TV blaring something I didn’t understand, and a table with two chairs. An older woman motioned for us to have a seat, and she soon served us ramen noodles with cups of tea. That was actually the first time I experienced the joy of ramen. The best meal I’ve ever had. I know I previously wrote that tacos in Mexico City held that honor, specifically the ones I enjoyed after walking up the Pyramid of the Sun (four years ago, today!), but do you remember the first time you had ramen? Yes. I thought so. Of course, that naturally doesn't include New York City pizza, as that is native to my homeland.

12/17/09

12/18/09

A month later I was in southern India, where I explored the hillside town of Munnar with other travelers. Munnar's mighty hills and mountains are lined with tea plantations. The first day some fellow travelers decided to celebrate our first tea tour by getting high and running around the plantation right next to our hotel, because they weren't fenced in and anybody was free to walk around. The next day we rented bikes, and the day after that we drove motorbikes for the first time, winding around narrow mountain roads lined with glorious scenery, tea bushes, and barbed wire to keep us from crashing into any of the tea.

The tea continued in the Asian countries, especially China. The shelter from the cold mountains theme continued at times, but the best experience was with a retired Chinese man who owned a hotel on secluded Lake Lugu (Lugu Hu). He had been high up in the party with various positions in the bank and foreign ministry, yet he was very liberal, outspoken and open-minded. He’d seen me reading Tolstoy and struck up a conversation with me one afternoon while I ate in his hotel, and invited me back for tea that evening. His wife was often present, albeit silent due to her lack of English. But she did keep appearing to refill the tea for us, which I loved to no end. He told me all about his thoughts on life, God, science, religion, politics, freedom and whatever else came to mind, even though it was difficult for him because his English wasn’t perfect, although good enough to hold me spellbound for hours. Besides him, I remember meeting some people on the street in one city and having tea with them in their shop, and then buying some local Yunnan province loose leaf tea and carrying it with me on the rest of the journey. There were always a few raised eyebrows when I went through airport customs after that, but never any problems. When I returned home, I was happy to finally do a reasonably authentic Marco Polo impression by presenting exotic tea leaves obtained while adventuring in the orient. I still wasn’t that interested in tea though, so I let the plastic bag sit in my underwear drawer at home. I probably should have told my mom there was a brick of brown tea in there, so she didn’t assume I had some other kind of contraband. It’s still there, actually. The people at the tea shop say it might still be good.

A couple years after that I was in Japan, where they have so much green tea they even serve it hot in vending machines on train platforms, something I often took advantage of while rushing to work, aware that I was on the way to energizing a bunch of young humans. When I’d done that duty for the day, I would often share tea with other teachers in between breaks, a strange English club camaraderie that came from being roommates as well as colleagues. We lived in cramped quarters, and many of us had to hi-five up to 100 little germ transport hubs every morning, so during the winter we had to work very hard not to get sick. Of course we all did, many times over, since someone was always spreading it to someone else, but we couldn’t miss work (they’re not as lazy as we are), so vegetables, juices, C.C. Lemon, teas and lemon vitamin water mixed with honey formed the bare necessities, which, just like Mowgli, I’d begun to learn about in India. And although we loved our students, it wasn’t always easy to keep our enthusiasm levels high for six straight conversations where we were also acting as instructors, prompters and active listeners. That’s when tea moved up from a random pleasure to a necessity. Some of the teachers drank coffee, and even challenged my manhood based on my choice of beverage, despite the fact that women drink coffee too. Besides, my body’s never agreed with coffee or felt the positive effects of those other magic beans, so that’s why I have the offerings of my experiences with tea. And those teachers, as much as I loved them, would rather watch Disney movies in their rooms than run through the wild growling, “Hey Bear!” so I’m going to drink as much tea as I please.

When I returned to the US, I was mostly outdoors for the first half year, because I was driving around the country and camping most of the time. Even so, I had a gas cooker, and although I didn’t do it often on account of the summer heat, I loved the feeling I got from waking up in the wild and then returning to my car, where I would be able to boil some water and drink green tea while gazing upon the most beautiful landscapes in America, wondering where the path would take me next.

I eventually moved to the city of San Francisco, in the rainy month of November, having lived outdoors for six months. This is when I started to combine drinking tea and writing. After living in a tent in all sorts of circumstances for so long, it made me feel civilized again. I didn’t have much, and my location kept changing, but the healthy food, the shelter and the feeling of warmth and hospitality given by a cup of tea were always there for me.

When I first looked at my only long term residence in the Bay Area, I wasn’t so sure about it at first, because it was near a very loud freeway, and there were nine strangers living there. However, one of the roommates was a friendly student of African history and cultures. He had a small goatee, long dreadlocks, and character worthy of description as one of the most peaceful and smiley of any person I've ever met, even if he was oft-discouraged with society. He even laughed just like The Simpsons’ Dr. Hibbert. I would soon learn that not all of the roommates were so mellow. Even so, I got the feeling that somehow, despite the rough edges, the house would be an important place to be for me, and for some reason, all it took was the roommate offering me a cup of tea. He said it was authentic Chinese. I would later learn he was into many… different ideas about the world, but he was right about the tea, which we continued to share with each other. I remember when I moved away I gave him half a pack of red rooibos from South Africa because I’d never really gotten into it, but he was bowled over. Since then I’ve re-investigated, and now I drink it several times a week. I recommend it when you don’t want caffeine but you also don’t want to fall asleep just yet.

I lived in that home for six months, with the cars racing by constantly, but I survived with the skills I’d learned on the road: in New Zealand, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the United States of America, Japan, and exploring the grandeur of nature's wild harmonic beauty. I wrote thousands of pages, explored the city and surrounding areas, took thousands of photographs, arranged them into collages working with all the space I had, walked thirty minutes to buy healthier food, walked up and over a hill with incredible views of the city to help me forget that I was carrying several bags of life energy in each arm, cooked the food with people of different styles, ages, genders, races and life stories often sharing the kitchen with me, and, naturally, drank healthy tea frequently.

As long as we're taking a walk down memory lane, there are certain cups of tea worthy of mention in this story: the one I sipped by candlelight in the hotel, the first one in the hut in the Himalaya, the green tea at the picnic area of Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota after one too many 100 degree mornings waking up in the front seat of my car, the first one at the house in San Francisco, and two more after I got settled.

After several months of living on savings so I could focus on creative endeavors, I began the job search. At first I was discouraged when my initial tip from a fellow tea drinking teacher in Tokyo had no vacancies for the foreseeable future. I remember feeling slightly panicked at the time. So I went job hunting again the next day, handed out a few resumes, and decided to regroup on the weekend before attacking the field again. It just so happened that the house manager—who is the mother of the child (my landlord) of the man who gave the Human Rights Salute at the Olympics in Mexico City years ago—wanted to clean the clutter in the apartment. I’d already been to Golden Gate Park to get a dime to help me stay inspired and transcend the traffic flying on the highway that was always active in the window, so when I returned to see a cleaner, more spacious apartment, I got into the spirit and began moving things wherever she would ask.

The same roommate who had given me tea had a stereo and a table he couldn’t fit in his room (which was filled with books), so that’s how I got my first desk, although it was really more of a coffee table. I didn’t drink coffee, but I do drink something else, and I had a lot of writing to continue, so the timing was perfect. I enjoyed a special type of recently acquired green “tea” before enjoying a real cup of herbal tea. This specific tisane had various healthy herbs mixed together, and several of them were spices I recognized from India. Soon I was meditating with a candle, transporting myself to the mystic mountains of the East, ignoring the loud horns and sirens from the streets below. After several minutes of listening to ethereal music on the stereo, something very strange happened. I swear to life, God, the universe, love, whatever you say, that the photograph of the sign, the spirit and the sea stood out from the heart and floated to the floor, offering itself as prime potential for inspirational art. I breathed deep, and got an idea. The next morning I met an acquaintance for tea at an outdoor café next to a park at the foot of the hill, and the conversation really got my mind going. That afternoon I began my first book, which I completed over the course of the next ten days. I wrote about that photo which had chosen freedom from the wall.

That being said, the most memorable tea for me was on the morning of the fifth day of the book about the photo. That day I just woke up and decided to start writing about growing up and living somewhere different, learning about other people with differences, how sports could bring people together, and how the world was poetry. Soon I knew I was onto something important but needed to sustain the energy without taking a long break to eat, so I heated some water and drank some green tea before writing some more. That cup refreshed me more than usual. Then I had a little bit of the other green “tea” before editing, and I was able to produce one of my favorite pieces of writing I’ve ever put on a page.

Somewhere amidst the whirlwind of words that week, I got a job teaching English. Every morning they offered me a free beverage for my services, so...

Now I live in New York, and if you ask any of my friends, they’d say I have an unusual obsession with not so much drinking tea as offering it to everyone else. I think I miss the camaraderie from the conversation school, the huts in the mountains, and the candlelit common areas of hotels and hostels. I usually drink between three and seven cups per day, although sometimes, as a matter of independence, I don’t drink any. Teaching gives me the frequent opportunity to imbibe, because it keeps me fresh and alert in front of the students, and there’s an electric kettle near my room. Although sometimes I get away with leaning on the desk while we’re reading from the text book, I pretty much have to be on my feet all day, so that’s why I crave the extra energy. That’s also why I’m so in love with this chair most evenings.

On a normal day I’ll drink a black or green tea on the train to work, which is even better now because it’s winter and the warmth makes the canyons of cold concrete bearable. After the first one I'll have whichever color I haven’t had yet. Some days that’s all I need, but I often add white tea or oolong tea for number three. In the afternoon I might have a cup of herbal, but I usually wait until the evening to enjoy a vast variety of invigorating herbal tisanes.

If you weren’t aware of the terminology, tea refers specifically to the plant camellia sinensis, whereas the various colors of tea are all related to how long they oxidize them. White tea is only slightly oxidized, yellow tea slightly more so, then green, oolong, black and pu-erh. The less processing they undergo means the more antioxidants they retain and are able to give to you when you drink. Then again, when I told the clerk at Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company (who has happily sold me loads of tea recently) about how I was getting into white tea because it was supposedly the healthiest, she said that if you’re drinking tea, you’re already probably pretty healthy regardless of which one you choose. If you've never had tea before, know that although “herbal” tea probably might make you think it's the healthiest, there isn't any caffeine, unless it's a blend with a real tea from the plant mentioned above. The many varieties mostly known as herbal tea are indeed incredibly healthy, but they aren't actually tea. When people say herbal tea, they mean tisanes, a term which refers to any herb, spice or other plant steeped in boiled water for some desired effect, which often brings stress relief, relaxation, and sometimes, even sleep.

My current tea stash consists of green, white, black, yellow, oolong, pu-erh tea and yerba mate (a caffeinated plant from Brazil). This is mostly responsible for energizing me while teaching and then having enough vitality to continue being productive after work. On the other hand, my tisane stash helps me relax in myriad ways. In recent months, often on rainy afternoons and winter evenings, I've learned the pleasures of peppermint (Egypt and Pacific US), chamomile (Egypt), valerian root (recent acquisition), hibiscus (Middle East and Okinawa, Japan), and lavender (somewhere), all of which I might sometimes enjoy later at night when I want to relax, listen to music, or sleep. In the afternoon or early evening I often go for rooibos (aka red tea, from South Africa), chrysanthemum (because a Chinese student who graduated traditional medical school said it's a healthy tradition there, and I loved being there), chicory root (because it tastes awesome), ginseng, damiana leaf, and nettle leaf (which helps me breathe on Broadway).

If you’re a guy who’s becoming slightly curious yet also worried about removing his Viking hat and sitting down to enjoy drinks commonly associated with the elderly, snooty imperialists and 5,000 year old stories, I’ll have you know that ginseng and damiana have been shown to work as powerful aphrodisiacs. As for England, I think their best musicians have been known to enjoy tea while living lives of inspiring creativity. If you need more, I'll remind you that this post began with references to adventures in lands with living bears, and that I have been balancing my life with unpredictable adventures in strange lands and adapting to my best definition of domestication in various cities, whether New York, San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland. I've been learning what I can to balance rugged virtues with sophisticated civilization. I’ll happily howl and growl atop a mountain peak any night you invite me. Until then, I’m making my body happier than it was before. Running around a lightning storm and warming yourself inside with a hot beverage is a stellar combination. If you've got balls but for some reason are insecure about your manhood, I recommend that you taste some Lapsang Souchong tea, which has a very smoky, earthy flavor. A few deep breaths of that in the morning will make you ready to tackle your day, Viking helmet and all. If you're secure in who you are, the world is always there for you to enjoy in full.

This is why I go on and on about (161) how great it is to be inside with a room and a chair and the necessities that The Jungle Book classified as “bear.” As I'm sure you do or have done in your way on your path with the universe, I know what it’s like to be hunting for a home, looking for shelter and comfort, or any safe place to be that’s warm and refreshing. Of course, when I have that, I (4214) soon get the desire to run around in the wild, but that’s the way of the world.

This (4233) leads us, finally, to the seventh activity that brought me to Japan: enhancing life through familiarity, understanding, and embrace of the very same. That means meeting people and places while looking into and listening to many different faces. There are many ways to do this.

Which brings me back to those immigrants. I’m currently sitting in a chair in Harlem, where I can look through the window and see people walking in the rain on the street. Most of them are minorities. On this block, they are mostly from the Dominican Republic, although many are from Mexico and Latin America. I’ve taught (4326) many of them in the Bronx (4334). They were all smiley, friendly people who were working hard to enhance their lives and those of the people they loved. I enjoyed their company, and they (4361) made me a better person, writer, traveler and teacher. They improved my communication, understanding and patience, all of which help me enjoy and enhance life more. I continued that journey today, and will continue again tomorrow. This is the final week for my current group. I will miss their smiles and laughs, as always. I won’t miss their smart phones. Then again, I’m sure the next group will have plenty attention-distracting devices with them, and I’ll love their smiles anyway.

These people come and go, but some people stay in your life wherever you are on the ball. For me, four of those people are my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law and my friend Brad. My mother’s birthday was Friday, 12/12. She has taught me to be compassionate toward other people, to try to understand people with differences, and to spread intelligence and kindness wherever I go. I don’t always do that, but I do it more than I would if it weren’t for her. She also hooks me up with some primo organic tea from the food co-op where she volunteers.

As if December weren’t already a busy gift-giving season, my sister’s birthday was Sunday, 12/14. She has taught me to be brave when facing pressure, pain and new experiences, to embrace other cultures, to expand my mind and my comfort zone, and to never condemn other cultures as inferior when they were really just foreign to my understanding of the world. I wouldn’t have traveled, taught or enjoyed the boons of all the qualities those experiences have imparted to me if it weren’t for her shining pioneering spirit. Meanwhile, her husband has the same birthday! I love him anyway, but I’ll always love him for having a great conversation with me the evening before I embarked on my first journey, giving me confidence to encounter strangers and converse with them as much as possible.

With respect to my friend Brad, it was his birthday Monday, 12/15. I have been friends with him since sixth grade, and we’ve been competing academically ever since. He’s more on the numbers side of things now, but I’ll never forget that he got a better grade on the fiction writing assignment in 11th grade English. The thing was, he took his story structure from an episode of The Simpsons, which, to be fair, had borrowed their plot from a movie. All three of those stories weaved various character plot lines from around a town to show you how everyone experiences the world differently while all connected to each other by the same source, which is the love we live. I'll always remember one character from the story inspired by the other story inspired by the other story: a Mexican immigrant who swept floors and wished people would be nicer to him because he was working so hard in a foreign land where he felt like an outsider. Brad’s knowledge of Spanish made it feel even more authentic. This reinforced in me the importance of putting myself in other people’s shoes when I had the patience and imagination to do so. As the many live edits of this has shown, Brad has shown me that being focused on details and dotting the i's on your work represents your quality. I'll leave it to him to cross over to some tea's.

I give thanks for my family, my friends, my fellow humans and all the life that is making a better me so I can create a few more smiles in the soul symphony. Happy Birthday to all of you, even if you don’t have December birthdays I can plug into this thing.

As you are well aware of by now, I love to compare anything that’s there to a bear. Today that theme seems to have been handed down from the (4718) universal dream. I write this from my bear cave in the inner city, drinking tea from a large red and brown wooden cup gifted to me by one of my first ever conversation partners in Japan, a warm woman who often gave us vegetables from her garden, as did many of the other mothers who came to the club. Whenever I breathe the scents of my beloved brew rising from the cup she gave me, I think of how well I have been treated by everybody on the journey, and specifically how welcome, appreciated and valued I was made to feel by the Japanese. They truly went above and beyond to show their appreciation of helping them learn this popular language. I couldn’t be who I am now without their help. This is why I continue to try to treat the people visiting or living in this country with the same respect and dignity I would accord to any member of humanity. I would say “my country,” but it’s not “mine.” I am of the world, but it is not mine, or yours. The world is the world, and we enjoy as best we can. A cup of hot healthy and some conversation might help.

I’ll close with some advice from my young yet thankfully expansive experience. I advise you to explore this awesome mysterious world more, to push your boundaries enough so your heart beats blood to your body and makes you live longer and stronger, to welcome the foreign and supposedly strange so that you may grow and live a richer show, and to enjoy some water, heat and life giving leaves (or if you prefer, beans) while openly greeting eyes and smiles, making the moments of your life considerably more worthwhile.

Naturally, there are plenty of ways to do that. Journeys have always worked for me. Speaking of which, on December 15, 2010, I finally flew to Mexico from San Francisco after a 61 day journey hitchhiking, riding buses, staying with strangers and sleeping in a snow-surrounded tent. On 12/14/14 I was well aware of the date, partly for the previously stated reason, but more because it was the morning of my sister's (and her husband’s) birthday. I was trying to think of a good way to put their lessons into practice. It was cloudy, cold and a Sunday, so it appeared to be a perfect recipe for staying inside. But then I heard loud music, and I just had to see the show, strangely walking the same route toward the train station I used to take to work in the Bronx, where I did what I could to teach journeyers seeking life in a new land to express themselves with a language I love