Some Thoughts: 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.