Iceburg and Whitebread

That's who I'm traveling with, Iceburg and the White Breads. My dad and his friends should totally start a band and call themselves that. NOBODY STEAL IT! I'm copyrighting the name as we speak... or write... or read. Whatever.

This is an experience. A REEEEEEEEAL experience. In Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth, he says "If you think your enlightened, spend a week with your parents."

I'm not enlightened.

I'm currently sitting in a warm coffee shop in a cold town. A very small cold town. I'm in West Yellowstone, Montana. In one day I hit three states, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, on a snowmobile. The next day I did one hundred and twenty miles through Yellowstone National Park. Although it's been a fun and adventurous vacation, it hasn't been the easiest one.

I'm on this trip with my father and his shriner buddies. They are all motorcycle escort guys (like my father), all republicans (like my father), and nothing like me (like my father). In fact, when my father found out that one of the men invited his wife, he wasn't happy. It was supposed to be a boy's trip. He came into the kitchen one evening as my mom and I were cleaning up after dinner (we cook AND we clean while my father watches fox news, he's a traditional type) and with a somber tone and sad face said, "Do ya'll want to go on the snowmobile trip to Montana with me?"

My mom and I were flabbergasted. "Yes!" we replied.

"What happened? I thought it was an all guys trip?" I asked.

With the usual annoyed tone in his voice my father answered, "One of the other guys invited his wife so I figured I should invite ya'll."

We couldn't believe it. We'd never been invited on one of his guy trips before.

So here we are, day four of the guy trip and I'm feeling very mal-nurished. We spent day one and three riding through Yellowstone with a guide named Barney who my dad's friend Horace requested because he was his guide last year. This guy is the reason for my mal-nourishment. This guy is a grizzly bear of a man. He's about six foot four, three feet around in the mid-section, and has vericose veins popping out of his huge red cheeks. Needless to say, he's not the healthiest man I've ever met. This is who my dad's friends asked for dinner suggestions. I didn't quite realize the fate he set for my vacation until I sat down for dinner on night two and once again searched the menu for some sign of vegetable nourishment, but to no avail. Barney had once again sent us to a place where the only vegetarian item on the menu was an iceburg lettuce salad or a caesar salad. I asked the waitress if I could have the dinner salad with romaine and once again, same as the night before, I was shut down.
The next day we embarked on what should've been a one and a half hour ride to find the best cheeseburger joint on earth that you could only get to by snowmobile. It ended up taking four and half hours to find it because at every trail intersection all five men had to get off their snowmobiles, stare at the map, and try to figure out exactly where they were as my mom and I sat on our snowmobiles, silently staring at each other, our eyes saying it all, "Men."

"Crystal, you need to go ever there and look at the map. They're never gonna find this place," my mom pleaded.

None of us really minded the extra hours of travel this cheeseburger adventure took (even though I'm a "pescatarian" which means that I only eat stuff that swims in water or grows from the ground) because it was some of the most beautiful scenery any of us had ever seen. It was like something you'd imagine seeing on a sleigh ride through the north pole with Santa Claus. It was truly breathtaking. Faultless snow covered pines among sparkling crystal like hills edged the trail and winding rivers ran along side and under it. We even saw a moose which is very rare.

After acquiring directions from numerous strangers we finally found it, just as we were about to give up. The only vegetarian item on that menu was a grilled cheese and french fries. I ordered it with tomato to get at least some form of nutrients with it however small it may be. After we finished lunch the men all agreed that regardless of whether or not it was the best cheeseburger on earth, it was definitely the hardest cheeseburger to find. The group was worried about getting back. If we got lost again and took another four and a half hours to get back, we'd be riding in the dark. As the men were once again staring at the map and asking strangers what the quickest, easiest way to get back was, my mom finally lost her patience for their lack of intellect and suggested that they let me look at the map and guide them back. Surprisingly they were very willing to rid themselves of the map burden. Here I was. My chance to prove to them all that women are actually smart and capable beings. It was also my chance to pick up the pace a little. There were only a few of us that liked to ride fast. One man, Horace, acted like he liked it fast but every time we went over thirty miles per hour he complained. He was so bad that on his and my dad's motorcycle trip to the Artic Circle a year before, they fought like little girls over the pace my dad set for them, a mere sixty miles per hour on open road, but he wouldn't lead. He eventually had to call his son to come and pick him up in Tennessee.

I was by far the fastest rider and also the youngest by thirty years. I gave them no mercy though. I didn't take into account their aged bones and susceptibility to heart failure ONLY because of their machismo. No way was I going to let these guys continue to live with their false impression of the woman-being. It was on. I left those guys in my snow dust. On one straight away I got my beastly snow machine up to seventy miles per hour. At the end of the stretch there was a stop sign. I looked behind me to see them slowly catching up with me. Horace was so far behind that he was a little black dot on the snowscape. The path I was shone by the local man was not an easy path to follow. It crossed the highway and continued along it for awhile until suddenly we were riding perpendicular on a steep hill in soft snow and no trail could be seen. The fastest three of us went as far as we could until we reached a snow berm that blocked us from going any further. We turned around to see where the others were. They had stopped just a little ways back. I turned around to see what the problem was and just as I realized they were stuck I felt my snowmobile bog down in the soft snow as well. Five out of seven of us were stuck and it is no easy feat to dig an eight hundred pound snowmobile out of three feet of snow. As the men were still working on mobile one, I sat there wondering where I went wrong. I stared at the map and was exactly where I was supposed to be, so why wasn't there a trail? As I stood there confused and pondering our options - A. turn around and go back another twenty miles out of our way or, B. Call the snowmobile people to come and get us, I saw a burly, round man waddle his way across the highway. Thank god, it was a local. His first order of business was to show us idiots how to get a snowmobile out of three feet of snow.

"First clear the tracks of snow. Lift the back in, and you over there" pointing to me, "press the gas."

Second he asked us to get out of the way as he hopped on it and gunned it down the hill, through the field and back up to the highway without ever slowing down. He proceeded to help with the other machines and when that was done, he showed me the path. It turned out that the path had crossed the highway a little ways back, a minor detail the map had failed to display.
"Who ever drew this map didn't do a good job of it," he said.
He continued to give me very confusing directions and I half-heartedly told him I understood, only to ask him two more times to repeat the directions.
"Cross the highway, then cross it again and go between the stop sign and sub station [Like... a subway? Or a gas station... ? Or...?] then through the gate into the field and around that mountain toward the other big mountain then straight across to West Yellowstone."

I had my work cut out for me.

But I had to do it for woman-beings everywhere. I had to get us home.

We crossed the trail and somehow made it to the gate and into the field where the poles with the little orange triangles showed the way "around the mountain." Apparently I was going too fast because at one point I looked back and there were only three of us. I then saw my dad across the field and up a hill looking toward something else. I rode over there and it was my mom, stuck once again. She had lost site of everyone else and, in a panic, fled up a hill and off the trail... um, how was that supposed to help her catch up to us?

We dug her out and continued the mission of getting back before dark. Shortly after we reached an intersection with the first sign that had an arrow pointing toward West Yellowstone. The remainder of the fifteen miles back was extremely bumpy and curvy. I kept up my pace though because I was ready to get back. To my lack of surprise, Horace complained to my mother that I was going too fast. Remembering the stories of the Arctic Circle trip, I chose to ignore his complaints.

After a few sharp turns and lots of bumps I saw the last sign, "West Yellowstone 3 miles." I pictured the men patting me on the back, telling me what a great job I had done getting them home. The trip back had only taken an hour and a half of actual riding time.

When we got back to the large field that marked the entrance to West Yellowstone, we tested the machines to see just how fast they could go. I got mine over seventy and could have kept going, but didn't want to. At that speed it became harder and harder to hold on to the handle bars. The MEN got to about the same speed and made the same decision to not risk there life for another ten miles per hour.

We headed back to the rental shop and turned the machines in. No one said a word about the trip until our nightly "happy hour." The Iceburg and Whitebreads' version of happy hour was buying a twelver of bud light to drink in the lobby of the Kelly Inn (basically a Holiday Inn).

"Boy, that on there," pointing to me, "is a hard one to keep up with," Horace said. My dad chuckled a pridegful laugh, knowing full well that my love of speed was something he gave to me before birth. It was in our genes. He knew it. And I knew it. As much as he pretends to dislike my ways, he knows deep down that everything he dislikes in me, is him.

The others agreed. I was a fast one and their aching bones were not willing to try and keep up. Surprisingly, my mom and the oldest man in the group, Charley, who I LOVED, were the only two that didn't complain about my speed.

These were the only comments made. My mom later asked if any of the men thanked me for getting them home. I told her "no."

"That's men for you. That is just like them."

I didn't really think about it much until the next day. I overheard Horace telling Barney, "Crystal got us all kinds of lost yesterday."

"WHAT THE FUCK!" my insides screamed as my outter voice said, "I'm the one that got you home."

Barney knew. He said, "That's what we gotta do, call the women in to mop up our mess."

But Horace kept on. My blood was boiling.

"You got us all stuck and lost."

"No. You guys spent the entire morning lost. I was the one that got you home." I explained to him the complexities of the map vs the actual trail and he eventually said he was just kidding.

But he wasn't. I knew that little muthfucka was tryin to make me look bad and cover up his own inadequacies. He even brought it up again over our third meal of the week that consisted of iceburg, whitebread, and groundbeef: cheeseburgers, and anything else under the sun fried and overdone. I told him, "I am starting to get mad." I said it with a smile on my face, but just under the surface there was another old faithful that was about to explode: my temper. Thankfully someone changed the subject before I opened my can of woop-ass.

My mother and father later agreed in our hotel room that old Horace was definitely full of some... well, I won't go there.

A Walk Into the Void

"There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?"
-Rumi

This short quote says it all for me. There is something in me that wants to embark on a journey to anywhere and everywhere the gods want to take me and never come back. Not until I am a changed person, that is. The candle in my heart is on fire. There's no doubt about that. It's burning bright and it's light reflects on the many dreams, which then shine like tiny stars in that dark void that's wanting so badly to be filled. Sorry, I'm getting a little cheesy on you, but what would the world be like with out cheese?
Over these past few months that I've had to reflect on the next step, I've had so many dreams stroll their way across my mind-field, only to make it to the other side and vanish into the forest of my memories. I keep waiting for one dream to find itself some comfort in the field, stay awhile, graze on its grasses and maybe even outgrow the space and make its way into reality. But nothing quite has yet.
I spent a week filling out grad school applications but never sent them in. I bought a ticket to Guatemala to study Spanish but never used it. I applied to an Americorp program to be a volunteer in a non-profit who aided in developing small businesses in poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles, but to this day have still heard nothing from them. Over the past month alone my plans have included, but not been limited to, going back to LA to do another yoga teacher training, moving to New York to study Creative Writing, and moving to Symi, Greece to experience what it's like to live in a culture of happy, healthy people. I tried to apply to the JET program to teach english in Japan but found out that I missed the deadline by over a month and they weren't accepting applications again until September '09. I even looked into spending a year in the hills of Northern China in a Shaolin Monastery to study Kung Fu. These days when I write to friends I put an asterisk by my new plan and at the bottom of the e-mail it reads, "*subject to change."
What does a person do when they just can't figure it out? They do the exact opposite. They stop thinking completely, or at least, they try to. That's my new plan, and folks, I'm really gonna follow this one through. I'm attending a ten day Vipassana Meditation course in Southern Georgia. This will be my second and a half course. Three years ago I attended my first course and spent ten days in silence. We meditated from the time we woke up at 4AM to 8 PM with hour long breaks spread through out the day. I did my best to concentrate, but my boyfriend was also attending the meditation and, even though the boys and girls were separated, he was a huge distraction for me. Probably because something inside of me was screaming that he was the WRONG GUY. The next year I went back to serve the meditation and found myself cooking for the same guy who had recently become my ex-boyfriend (the day after we broke up I saw him out at a restaurant with his new girlfriend... yeah.) Serving that meditation was a great way to deal with any negative feelings I had been harboring towards him, and there were plenty, because through out the meditation we were encouraged to invoke feelings of love for the meditators. So I lovingly served him and participated in group meditations with him, and to this day we are still great friends.
This time there is no man to distract me, not within the meditation nor without (thankfully because if there were he'd have a real hard time keeping up with all THIS). I'm very excited about this opportunity to once again clear out the rubbish that has collected inside my unkept human mind. Even with the distractions of the past meditation, I left there with a feeling of purpose I hadn't felt for a long time. I left there feeling close to everything. Feeling connected to everything. There is no telling what I will feel after this meditation, but I'm hoping that after the rubbish is somewhat removed, my truth will be uncovered and I will follow its lead where ever it takes me. With no hesitation, and no regret, I will walk into the void.

On the Road Again... and Again... and Again.

That's the pattern in my life right now, traveling. Again and again. I am currently on a train to West Palm Beach to meet my sensitive drummer sailor friend Ben who I sailed with a couple of months ago. The one with the soon to be ex-quazi girlfriend. As soon as I arrived home from the retreat I got a text from him asking me to take a train to West Palm Beach where he would pick me up and I would accompany him to Key Weird (sailor lingo for Key West) to deliver a sailboat. Once there he would pay for all drinks, food and accommodations. Some may wonder why these sailors keep offering to pay for my trips to neat locations and no, I'm not sleeping with him. We're just friends. Sailors are just fun people and I guess they happen to like having me around. He also mentioned that he needed a party partner because he didn't want the Key Weirdians to hit on him.
It may seem strange that I accepted the offer, considering I just arrived home from a super spiritual health retreat and I must admit, my first instinct was to say no, be grounded, stay the spiritual course. But how can I resist an almost all expenses paid trip to the keys? I'm just not that spiritually evolved yet. And since I won't be settling down for at least another five or so years (per the advice of the vedic astrologer who also told me I would be able to give birth well into my forties - sweet!) - I can keep going. And going. And going. It's just what's in the cards for me right now. New places thrill me, and visiting old places that seem like home fill my soul.
So here I am, taking the AmTRIPPYtrack train to sunshine and blue water - two of my favorite things in the world. There is something to be said about trains. As WEIRD as they are - well - the trains themselves aren't weird - just the strangers who inhabit them. So anyway, as I was saying, as weird as they are - it's such a great way to travel. Yes it typically cost five times more than a flight and takes five times longer, but there is a sense of freedom that one feels while venturing the countryside by rail. I wish we had a system like Europe. And maybe a cart devoted to stretching - or a gym cart or something. Ooh! And a shower cart. OK, so there are some things lacking in the Amtrak system. Yes, your muscles do feel atrophied, like that of an eighty year old woman after a three day trip of immobility and truly terrible food, and we don't won't to talk about the smell. Lets leave that one out. BUT! The cool thing is that right now I am sitting in the dining car drinking a cup of coffee, my computer is plugged in and sitting on the table before me and as I'm writing to you, forests of pine and oak are flying by. Ok, and there's this really strange guy staring at me. He's kinda creeping me out. Ok, still staring. Annnnd I wish he'd stop.
Ok, so trains are weird. But I like them. Even though freak boy is still staring.

Or Maybe Not...

Maybe I won't go to South America. Let me know if you get tired of following my brain map around the world, but this is the evolution of my life right now. A constant bubbling of ideas that I myself can't quite keep up with. They come up so quickly and then just as quick they return to the place whence they came. I promise you! I have a really good reason for not going to South America. But let me start at the beginning, at least, the beginning of THIS particular part of the story.
I talked my mom into going to an ayurvedic retreat instead of the weird north carolina thing she wanted to go to. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.
For those of you who don't know what Ayurveda is, it's the ancient indian system of medicine that yogis have been using for 5,000 years. And it's pretty powerful stuff. It is based on the five elements of fire, water, air, earth, and ether (whatever that means) and the therapist determines which constitution you are by feeling your pulse and basically checking you out. There are three Dosha types: Pitta which is fire and water, Vata which is air and ether, and Kapha which is earth and water. Pitta people tend to be firey, intelligent, irritable people (guess which one I am). Vata people are airheads, ungrounded, friendly, fast moving types, and Kapha people tend to be heavier, more grounded, slightly lazy people. They believe that imbalances in the body lead to disease, so besides determining what dosha you are, they also determine what your imbalances you have and recommend treatments and nutrition that will balance you out. They believe that opposites are balancing. So if you have a vata imbalance for instance, it's good to eat warming, grounding foods such as soups, and stay away from things like coffee or alcohol that exasperate the airiness in you (guess which imbalance I have).
Now, I am the type of person, in case you haven't noticed, that is constantly questioning EVERYTHING. I think I learned this in college, in the QUESTION EVERYTHING 101 class. So when I walk into a place like this, and the cheesy yoga music is playing through out the house, and you hear running water somewhere but... where the hell is it? And the people are talking as if, should they raise their voice, the walls may crumble around them, I say to myself, "Really? Is this for real?" and I feel a certain level of discomfort as my new agey-phobia sets in. Now, if I'M feeling this way my MOM has got to be like, "Oh god, what is this place? Where has my strange, yet intriguing daughter takin me?" The discomfort was seething from my mother's pores which put me even more on edge.
The first thing we did was a health consultation with the therapist, Richard Masla. He determined quickly from my obnoxiously sweaty hands and feet and my sharp, cunning wit that I was a pitta person. He also determined after two seconds of listening to my current state of affairs that I had a major vata imbalance and recommended that I see an Ayurvedic psychologist. There it is. That WORD. Psychologist. Just the sound of it sends the heeby jeebies (is that how you spell heeby jeebie?) through my veins. But since it was an ayurvedic psychologist who wouldn't be prescribing me any tiny chemical deposits to cover up and drown my soul, I agreed. But what I REALLY wanted was a reading from a vedic astrologer. Vedic astrologers are different than our western astrologers. In India, astrologers are considered highly spiritual people and are respected guides. They are not considered freaky floozies and they mostly lead very yogic lives. So I inquired within and sure enough there was one available and a meeting was scheduled.
After our consultation we had our first Ayurvedic lunch which was amazing. Ayurvedic food consist of fresh, organic vegetables and whole grains cooked to perfection with some staple spices such as ginger, garlic, cumin, and tumeric.
Once my food settled I went in for my first treatment. It was a full body massage with a hot oil specifically prepared from a 5,000 year old recipe which consisted of many herbs and oils. It was fantastic. They even put the oil in my hair and massaged my scalp.
Feeling super relaxed after the massage, and not having anything else to do, I settled in on the upper deck and did some reading and writing. At six o'clock was my first yoga class. The type of yoga they taught was much different than any I had ever experienced. It was in no way, shape, or form athletic which I totally needed, even if it wasn't what I totally wanted. The soul purpose of the yoga class was to settle the mind and relax the body. To calm and pacify. Most of the class was done on the ground. We got up at one point to do a couple balancing poses before settling back down into Savasana. This was a TOTALLY foreign concept to me. But I surrendered and let things be as they may.
For the next few days we followed roughly the same schedule. We woke in the morning for yoga, ate a light breakfast, went to our treatment, then to therapy sessions, then my favorite time of the day: lunch. We had the afternoons off until our six o'clock yoga class. Then my second favorite part of the day: dinner. To end the day my mom and I would watch a movie in my room and pass out.
You're probably wondering what any of this has to do with my canceling my trip to South America. Having time to relax and think about things got me wondering if traveling south was such a good idea. I started thinking about what I want to do with the next portion of my life. I started thinking about how happy I was during my yoga training. How nice it'd be to open a GOOD yoga studio in Jax Beach. One with an Ayurvedic therapy center and a vegetarian restaurant. Well, when I had my session with the astrologer he got a very worried look on his face about my trip to South America. He said it would be a very dangerous time for me to go there. He saw a stalker, or even rape in my charts. He also told me that training would be a great way to use my time right now. He was so right on about everything else he said about me that I figured I should listen to him. So the session confirmed the feelings that had been welling up through my newly found clarity. It seemed heading back to Los Angeles and continuing my yoga education was the best choice for me at this time. Yes, I am disappointed that my travels won't be leading me any place terribly new and exciting. But I have a feeling that if I work hard right now, it will lead to more exciting and adventurous things in the future.

The First Stumble

Ok, so after making my first step I made my first stumble. I booked my ticket to Guatemala with all the enthusiasm of a person who has finally gathered the courage to go for something, to go for ANYTHING. Just something! And then as I was sitting back and picturing myself on the sandy beaches of guatemala, taking a weekend trip to El Salvador, or maybe even Costa Rica, handing them my passport at the border and...
"MY PASSPORT!? Where the hell is my passport?
"I last saw it in my bike bag which is currently en route from New York to Charleston, South Carolina in my friend Ben's big (FREE) truck. But I KNOW that I grabbed it on that sleepless morning upon leaving New York, didn't I? It must be in my back pack, OK, my suitcase, NO?! OK, it has to be in my bike bag. HAS TO BE! I don't loose things."
I called my friend Ben in New York and he searched the bag for me.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It's NOT THERE!" I cried with dismay.
I tore my parent's house apart three times over looking for it. "Where in the hell could it be?"
I called every person I had contact with in the past few weeks. It was nowhere to be found.
I looked into an expediting service. I'm now scheduled to leave in a week. Over $300 to get a new one by then.
"NO! NO! NO! Ok, breathe in, slow and long. Exhale, ahhhhhhhh. Surrender to the Universe. Ahhhhh.
"Fuck this shit I want my passport! FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
I couldn't afford to spend $300 on a new passport! Especially since I had the feeling that it WOULD turn up somewhere eventually.
And at the same time my mother was REVELING in her victory. The first thing she always says upon hearing a new dream of mine is, "NO!" And yes, this does fuck with one's head, just a little bit. But by now I am use to it and it is to be expected. She was adamantly against my traveling to Guatemala. She was basically adamantly against ANYTHING that didn't involve me getting a job, getting married and having a child FOR HER.
This was a huge victory FOR HER.
This was when the bribes came. "You can put off the trip, I'll pay for you to change the ticket and we can discuss something ELSE for you to do. Wouldn't you rather go to France for a week? I'll buy you a Prius if you stay here. How about a condo by the beach?"
My, my, my the devil works in strange ways. "Let go your hold of my beautiful loving mother evil one!"
Her most successful solicitation was a week long mother/daughter retreat to North Carolina where we would transform ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually by learning how to "prepare delicious, healthy food and juices and enjoy exercise in the great outdoors and all this in JUST FIVE DAYS!"
"OK, I'll take your week long retreat and raise you one. If I do this, you have to do the Landmark Education Forum with me."
"Deal."
And there it was. I postponed my trip to Central and South America in order to (A) Obtain a passport, and (B) transform myself mentally, physically and spiritually in a matter of nine days (the Landmark Forum being four additional days of transformation). That can be done, right? I guess if I am to set out on such a big adventure I should do my best to get my reckless brain in working order.
I was further comforted in my decision upon receiving a phone call from Brock. He was slated to leave for Uruguay within the week. For those of you who are like, "Where the hell is Uruguay?" It is a tiny country south of Brazil and East of Argentina. Eco owns a house on the beach near the border of Brazil. He spoke with Eco and they both happily extended an invitation for me to join them there. They are turning one of the bedrooms in her house by the beach into a recording studio and their plan is to live simply, play happily, and be free for awhile while making music. So after my month or so of spanish lessons in Guatemala I will travel south through numerous countries, especially those with waves, practicing my spanish, on my own little adventurous odyssey. And I will eventually end up in Uruguay in a house by the beach with a drummer, a singer/guitarista, and a recording studio, and I will make more music.
"That's the plan and I'm sticking to it, Mom!"
Fuck, what else is this life for if it can't be lived?

The First Step

Ahh, finally some peace. PEACE. PEACE. PEACE. The one thing someone needs in times of trouble is PEACE. Just to hear the wind blow through the leaves is enough to put one's heart at rest.
I'm staying with my teenhood friend Liz in St Augustine. She lives in this quaint little hobbit house in the woods behind a castle across the street from the beach. And yes, I said CASTLE. She lives behind a castle. It's the only castle I've ever seen in Florida so if you're from the area you know exactly where to find me.
It's a green house. Warmed by fire, compost toilet, the hole deal and I love it. Half of the square footage is the wrap around screened in porch. The entire yard consists of passageways cleared through the trees, no grass, just passageways.
Already I feel better as I sit here in front of the fire I just made with cedar and look out the open door to the forest.
Maybe I'm not a city girl at all. Actually, I think I'm totally not. I find happiness comes so easy when I'm someplace peaceful and slow. Someplace TIMELESS. But when I'm in the city - I have to try so hard just to hold onto my sanity. I enjoy the culture, the busyness, the people, but to maintain a grasp on myself takes so much effort. When I was living in LA my perfect daily ritual for happiness was to surf, THEN do yoga, THEN go to work, and THEN - what time do you have left for music with a schedule like that? But I HAD to work. I HAD to pay the bills. I HAD to surf and I HAD to do yoga to keep myself happy in a world that was constantly trying to climb up some sort of social latter to some sort of heaven made of stars and botox. God, all that climbing. It was one of those things where you see everyone running for the hills and you eventually think to yourself, "Damn, should I run too?" I made it out alive but not with out some wounds. It's amazing what a year can do to you.
Yeah, so I'm officially NOT a city girl UNLESS it is (A) for a period of less than a month in the United States or (B) in a foreign country for lets say - maybe a year? Which brings me to my next topic of conversation.
I've finally made my first step toward... toward what? What am I walking towards? If only I knew. All I know is I just bought a ticket to Guatemala for a month. I found a spanish school there that is cheap and located on a black sand beach that is known as "Guatemala's most beautiful beach." Not to mention some of Guatemala's best surfing. I've been wanting to learn spanish ever since I moved to California and realized that it's the first language there. You may THINK California is run by actors like Arnold Swarzwhatever but you are so wrong. California is run by Mexicans. In fact, if they were to team up and go on strike for say, CITIZENSHIP, the whole place would shut down.
When I was slingin fish at Ocean Ave Seafood the whole kitchen was Mexican. At first I was a shy gringo unsure of how to communicate with them, and believing full heartedly that they had no interest in communicating with me. But soon we were the best of friends and they took me on as one of them. They even called me "Paesana" which meanst in less than so many words "fellow mexican." This was my first immersion into the spanish language and they took me on as an apt pupil. In fact, to make the restaurant job a little easier on my soul, instead of saying I was going to work I would say, "I'm going to my spanish lesson."
They taught me very useful phrases such as "Tu eres mi swano mexicana," (you are my mexican dream) and "Essez es mi estylo," which means "That's my style bitches." As useful as these phrases were, I was ready to hit the big leagues.
I found a program that is so insanely cheap. It's cheaper for me to stay there, attend twenty hours of spanish instruction, and eat three times per day than it is for me to pay rent just about anywhere. That's my kind of place.
So I'm going to chill out by the ocean for a month, possibly longer. Who knows, maybe I'll keep traveling south. Until it turns cold and then head north again.
Hasta la vista! (does that make sense?)

All or Nothing

It didn't take long for the newness of Florida to wear off and for my brain to go back to its usual questioning, "What's next?"
The reason it was asking this so fervently was because I found out that the Ginger NInjas wouldn't be touring again anytime soon. MAYBE in January. Maybe not at all. Maybe not with me. There were a lot of maybes happening in my life. So I spent a shit ton of money to end up right back where I started, once again. And (once again) my future was so wide open I could throw a stadium through the hole of it. This was pretty much the most wide open I'd ever found myself. There were a million things I could do of course, but which dream to run with?
What is it about us humans that makes us so uncomfortable with that wide openess. There was a time when I basked in it. Loved it. Wanted it to always be that way. But now I wanted some kind of security. Was it because of that dirty number thirty that'd crept up on me? I felt like I had aged ten years in two months.
These were the things going through my head as I laid awake not sleeping when all of a sudden an idea floated through the chaos: What if I just spent the next year fulfilling EVERY dream I'd ever continued to have? Lets see: Live in France, play music in London, meditate in India, learn spanish, surfing in Costa Rica, become a rock star, write a book. Those were the main ones. What would it take to do something like that? Probably more money than I had, but if I really, truly believed in this whole MANIFEST YOUR DESTINY thing, if THE SECRET was really out, I should be able to accomplish it all. I could take what money I had and go on the adventure of a lifetime with TRUST as my career. I should be totally fine, right? Somehow everything I needed would be provided at the right time and place, right? I could travel around the world on TRUST. The ultimate trust. Just me, my backpack, keyboard, computer and TRUST. It would be like the movie Into the Wild except I'd be living large in Europe (maybe not large) and totally appreciating human companionship and I DEFINITELY wouldn't die of starvation at the end. If anything I would gain a few pounds because this is an abundant universe. OK, so it would be nothing like Into the Wild, you're right. But WILD it would be.
I felt like just saying fuck it and traveling. Steppin out the door of comfort zone, USA with a pocket full of trust and heading out into the wide open Universe. There's so much out there and there is this thing in me that feels the need to see, be, and DO everything. It'd probably be much cheaper to go to a psychiatrist but why not just try going for it. It would be a lot more fun and it would probably put me in a far better place than any professional mind washer.
Of course I've pictured myself doing exactly what my parents have been begging me to do ever since I first quit my last real job: GET A JOB, like a real one - with benefits and a paycheck that comes once every two weeks. But something about this vision made my stomach hurl. Something inside me kept saying that I had so much more to give to the world by living the way I DO live. Like maybe if I kept exploring I'd stumble upon SOME gem SOMEwhere. Believe me when I tell you that it's not easy. I envy the people whose biggest worry is getting their kids to the soccer game on time while still putting a healthy meal on the table. The idea of really going for it scares the hell out of me. So much so that I was hesitant to put this blog out. If I did, would I actually have to go for it?
"What if I change my mind? Maybe no one will read it and I won't be held accountable to my own dreams."
All of these dreams, all of these questions, all of these things, had been weighing on me. My chest felt like at any moment it would hit the floor. Then all of the sudden, the clouds parted and the next step could be seen so clearly. Finish and release my second album. (Just ONE more album!) then travel the world promoting it. Duh.
(but don't be mad if I chicken out)