Thank You for Making Smiles!

I was on the lake in the moonlight last night, and listening to Hiromi's "Time Travel," and decided to stand up again, on a whim, just like I had two years ago in Montana.  I was closer to shore this time, and the water was warmer, but it still felt special.  There's something about that song.  Then I had a fire on the beach, and the trees danced with the wind.

I paddled in the moonlight again tonight, and saw fireworks on three parts of the lake, including right behind me at our neighbor's!

I checked my journal, and two years ago was the night that I floated peacefully beneath the stars and smiling moon in a secluded cove in Glacier National Park, Montana, which will always be one of my favorite experiences of all time.

Vacation!

I've had a very fun, relaxing and bittersweet visit to upstate New York, and am looking forward to the rest of the week.

The intelligence in my spirit reminds me how lucky I am to have these friends, to still be able to visit my hometown at the age of 30 and to still have four to five people to catch up with.  I remember how many times in the past we've viewed various milestones as signals that we were all walking further down necessarily separate paths.  Then my heart not only reminds me of the current changes, but also relives the former, and although the feelings are sad, they remind me I'm alive.

I think the fact that I just turned 30 coupled with this being my first full summer back home after years of exploring has me viewing every little thing under a microscope. That being said, there are significant changes.  One friend who has always been in the area whenever I've come home from my many explorations is finally going on one of his own, moving five hours away to a much better town and hopefully a much better future.  I will always see him, but there's a difference now, because I can't just swing by and check in when I decide to visit town.  We'll have to coordinate reunions here and there, just like 99% of childhood friendships that manage to extend into adulthood.  Another great friend is having a baby at the end of the year, and thus beginning a different type of lifelong journey.  He's still in the area, and I'll always see him, but starting a family is starting a family.  A third is going to Europe to live for half a year or a full year.  I'm surprised and amazed, but also hope I see him again.  Now I'm starting to realize how some of my friends have felt the past few years.

All of these changes have revealed themselves in the past three to six weeks.  I'm excited for all of them, as they have been for me, but now I know what it's like to feel normal (as much as that's ever possible) while others are embarking on new ventures.

Then again, I will still see them, and it's not like we haven't been through big changes in our relationships before.  We still have the rest of our lives to catch up and reconnect.  It just happens less often with time.

I spent much of last night at a campfire spot on the hill.  I'd been catching up with my friend who is going to be a father, and when he left I went back up.  Although there wasn't enough wood to keep a fire going, I still read some of my favorites who reminded me why I've been taking the paths I've taken.  Then I listened to Hiromi's "Spirit," and "Firefly" (complete with real fireflies for the first time!) several times.  The latter has been in my head all day today.  There are so many memories to flashback to at that place... sometimes they make you happy that they ever happened, and sometimes you get hit with that painful nostalgia that reminds you life is always entering something new yet also leaving something you love behind.

As I said good bye and pulled out of my friend's driveway the other day, I listened to "Life Goes On" and it really helped me embrace that moment instead of becoming depressed, and then again when my other friend left last night, and again and again since then.  Luckily it's a very happy song, to remind you that life doesn't just go on because it has to, but because there are more new types of fun on the way.

Besides memory lane and inevitable change, I'm mostly just happy to be able to sleep more and breathe the fresh country air, surrounded by bright green and blue.  One of my friends (one of the few who isn't undergoing major changes) took me up a mountain above Lake George the other day, and then we went swimming in the Hudson River.  He had gotten me into mountains, but we hadn't hiked together in four years, so I was very happy about that.  All of the other changing friendship reunions have taken place since then though, so that's why the bulk of this writing is somewhat reflective and somber.

On the plus side, my parents are still great people, and I feel very lucky to have them in my life and be able to visit them from time to time.  It's a little easier to check in from New York than it is from California, Japan or India.

Life truly does go on, and comes back around.

When I was 22 years old I'd just moved to New York City.  Two of my greatest college friends were in town for one night, so we walked around Times Square.  One of them got sentimental in his post-graduation emotional state and said, "Wow, it's really ending now," which was strange to hear six weeks after our education together had officially completed.  But three weeks ago I celebrated my 30th birthday with the same friend, floating in a rowboat on my favorite lake, under the stars, happy to hear that he'd gotten engaged the week before.  I only see him once every year or two, but I still love to see him, because although his life has changed, he is still the same person deep inside.  As are all my friends.  I wish them the best in their continued growth and love of life.

Luckily these important relationships haven't ended.  They've just transformed.

Thanks for listening.

I'll be back with more in a few days.

1 Year

1 year ago I traveled from San Francisco, California to New York, New York and arrived around now.  I was returning to the state where I was born and I usually call home: New York.  I had been away for fourteen months, on a journey in this country.  That's the longest I've been away from home base.  I loved the couple of weeks I spent at home with friends and family, revisiting my favorite places.  That vacation motivated me to move here again, which I did at the start of 10/13.  I've been working, teaching, writing and living in various parts of New York City since.  All I have to do before my first vacation in a year commences is spark discussions about "family & friends" and "endurance tests."

7/18 Still alive!

7/19 1st day of the fourth decade.  I enjoy a canoe floating on a lake while sipping tea.  I enjoy being here.

7/20 Sun on the water, friends, food, music, laughter and relaxation.

7/21 Riding home, dinner with loving beautiful intelligent and kind parents, back to the city

7/22 Must move car for street cleaning, go to work, car is towed, very first day working in the city in this new decade, but on the walk to pay the towing fine I listen to my favorite new CD, and see a spectacular sight unique to the city which I had never seen, reminding me of who I am,

7/23 Getting the car back and enjoying the sunny drive in the city to begin the day, teaching a new beginner's class in the morning, followed by the third week of an intermediate speaking and listening class.

7/24 Running with the summer rain

7/25 I am invited to get paid to chaperone foreign students at the glowing exciting crazy theme park beach at the edge of the city on the same island where I'd been born thirty years before.

I have lived today with waking, the water in the body, the water flowing on the body, the food, more water in the body, the tea, the sunlight and car and the brief moment of steering the wheel before climbing the hill and riding the underground in close proximity to everybody, before wandering through an ethnic Asian neighborhood in search of six delicious teas, and then a Japanese lucky fish dessert with bean, and riding to the books in the library, where I found five books on inspiring humanity: Marco Polo, the first famous journeyer in the East, Leonardo da Vinci, the innovative and unparalleled versatile genius artist, inventor and thinker, Ulysses S. Grant, the general winner of the biggest war in the history between the currently most influential country for freedom and bravery, Andrew Carnegie, the man of steel from rags to riches who gave his wealth to better causes and was once the train track creating, first philanthropist (love humans) and richest man in the world, and Maya Angelou, the poet, writer, storyteller, traveler, dancer, singer, daughter, sister, mother, political organizer, director, and inauguration speaker, all of which I can read in the next six weeks to keep my reading, thinking and learning mind in peak, while drinking healthy tea, continuing to eat and move and exercise and interact healthily, and write a real story about a journey with the cosmic sea.

You should have a great time

Enjoy your life and I enjoy mine, and maybe we enjoy life together sometime in our prime, and spread this joy to others, and share with others, and allow the world to make us feel joyful, and embrace the love of loving people and the world and the journey with life and lovers and family and all imaginable varieties of living breathing feeling thinking and moving creativity.

You do well and will wow us.

Today reminds me that I have learned we have to be brave as we walk in the glow of the sunlight and in the uncertain mystery of the night.

Thinking of the above this way: seeing the lights on the waters won with the music, right as the memories of a very courageous, loving and hard-working human come, a light shines.  Wouldn't have seen that in the sunlight, though it shows us bright green, blue, red, orange, yellow, purple and white.

Thank you lights and waters from grandmothers and grandfathers, we, your grandsons and granddaughters, with mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and lovers of art from a heart.

The sun came first, but then so did the clouds, as the waters flowed where they always flow.  So I walked up the hill to where they sell life food.  When the paper had been given in a trade for some beans, a vegetable, and a fruit, I looked outside to see the sky had opened up and was pouring water while touching the world with powerful electricity.  That gave me the idea to walk back and change positions on the whole "I don't need plastic" decision, because I had musical devices and M.J.'s money leather in my pockets.  I wrapped up these treasures and ran into the flowing water of the sky, but I should have checked the traffic from the door first, because I had to wait for cars to race by.  Even so, I enjoyed the shower, and only had to run to the other side of the street to get to my door, where I smiled and grinned at the many huddled under shop awnings who couldn't afford to run home because their homes weren't as close as mine, yet they grinned back because they knew they would make it home eventually, and probably with drier clothes too.  Then I walked up the stairs and saw an older woman who was also very wet.  We just started laughing when we saw each other.  The sun comes too, and sometimes with the water.