That's How the Light Gets In

On South Beach, everything is beautiful and perfect all the time. 

The world's hippest lighthouse,
South Pointe Park @
Miami Beach

Because it seems that way. The weather's so good that when it dips below 70, the weathermen react the way they do in Detroit when it snows 14 inches. And I've never been in a town where there's such an attention to design in the DNA of the city itself. You couldn't possibly build your new office as a squatty little brick building, because you'd be laughed out of town. I can take pictures that make me look like a professional photographer with no effort at all because there are vistas to do it simply everywhere, literally all the time. The beauty per capita is through the roof, you should have bought a long time ago, got in on the ground floor. The shops are beautiful, the bars with their outdoor seating that consists of big loungy pillows and wicker swings are beautiful, the water, the breeze, the cruise ships leaving port at sunset Sunday, they're all just beautiful, the long-legged Colombian, Cuban, Italian and American women are beautiful, everything is just fucking beautiful. 

Which is why Cynical Joe just wants to distrust the crap out of it.

Because it's just not the nature of the world to be that way. Beauty exists because there is a thing that we can look at and say "That is not beautiful." Nothing is this good all the time.

But... what if it is...? For us, I mean.

We live close to the touristy part of town, so we're mistaken for tourists all the time. Which I've finally come to realize, we are. We are cherry-picking what we want from a city, staying in our ~$60/night "hotel," and getting exactly what we want from this town. And the next one. And the next one. Until we don't. 

Hipster Santa: Still an Epic Fail
(But a good cartoon: gricklethings.blogspot.com)

I am nostalgic for Portland, it's true. I worked a week there recently and the danger of just being in town for a while was apparent. It's Christmas, the big tree on Pioneer Courthouse Square was making me long for Hipster Santa, and all the stuff that annoyed me about P-town (The indifferent service that is somehow viewed as a Mark of Distinction by the servers who give it to you; The long slow Chinese water torture that is a Portland winter, etc etc blah blah blah) was somehow a distant memory. That's why they tell ya don't ever live somewhere when you've only been there on vacation. 

Knowing all that, the smell of the pine trees that just hangs in the air as a part of life there just overwhelmed me. I lived there 5+ years and it never got old, never ceased to be fascinating to me to step outside and realize how close to all this primal beauty you were all the damn time, to be able to go to Mount Tabor in the cold morning air and walk around realizing to yourself "I'm on top of a goddamn volcano." I was quite ready to just start campaigning with Monica for us to go back to Portland when our lease runs out here in May. But then over drinks, one of my friends said "Yeah, it's easy to come back here, you can come back anytime and it'll be pretty much the same," and in terms of the town itself, I bought in to that. I believe it enough that in an instant, it changed my thinking about coming back immediately. And it let me relax into Miami so far and see the fun in it, in this experience, without having to be afraid that I'd somehow be carried away into another place, into somewhere I didn't want to be. I can enjoy this, now. And whatever comes next, well, that's not today and the decision will happen when it needs to.

So when they ask me "What did you learn about yourself in Miami?", the thing I'll be adding to the list is that it's a necessary part of life-- my life, anyway-- to try new things, to keep expanding my mind, my world, and at the same time, to walk my own path on deciding an outcome.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen

It's Not a Resume' Builder (Joe)

The ability to stand emotionally naked before someone you love is a vastly underrated skill.

The Dock and The Rope (Joe)

He believed in the Confluence of Experience. He believed that you were led to places—Geographical or spiritual--- For reasons you do not comprehend. So he circled his problems, stalking them with a spear and shield, always seeing the same prey to be caught, not realizing that he was walking in different circles.


He found a woman who allowed him to take advantage of his newfound ability to challenge himself. He let her enroll them in a yoga class, that kind where they heat the room up to make sure you’ll sweat. She was a True Believer, bought in to the guru’s philosophy. He was pretty sure the heat thing was all a gimmick, the way a business will take something that people in other parts of the world have to suffer through and re-package it for Americans and have them pay for it (“Dumpster Diving! The Easy Way To Weight Loss! Buy the Online Seminar Now!”).


He eventually had to admit to himself there were poses he couldn’t do. He gave himself permission to stop, a triumph of sorts, given that his usual course of action for things he didn’t know how to do was not to go near them. When the instructor came to him after class and said “I saw how red you were getting and I was afraid something was really wrong,” he knew he was on the right track. Keep pushing yourself, but don’t go down as The Guy Who Keeled Over in Yoga Class.


He listened to the instructors saying that savasana, the corpse pose, is the hardest one because of the deep relaxation required and the need to blah blah blah blah – Never a problem. He could lay there for 90 minutes, the whole class, if he had to. So as he was laying down, listening to the movement around him, visualizing success at the stretches he couldn’t do yet, it happened.


He had his Yoga Revelation.


The instructor was having the class do a quick floor pose and then rest. It’s just a few seconds, then a quick situp and on into the next pose. At this point, the instructor claps twice, sharply and quickly, to set the pace for the coming pose. And that’s when the light went on.


He thought about how sounds and smells put you back into a certain Time And Place. Grilled onions always made him think of drawing designs in the condensation on the kitchen windows of his childhood house, because his mother always made them for his father’s steak during the crunchy-cold Ohio winters. He always kept music paramount in his life, remembering the exact layout of the tiny college radio station studio he was in during his first-ever on-air shift any time he heard “Cars” by Gary Numan, because that was the first song he ever played there.

It was the sound that provided the memory then: The clapping created an almost physical desire to want to run away. Deep in his gut, he felt…. inadequate.


It was his father.


The father used to do this thing when he wanted you to hurry up where he snapped his fingers, quickly and sharply. As the man lying in corpse pose thought about becoming a teenager, he remembered listening to what turned into a lifelong litany of reasons why some idea he had (A business to start, what college to go in, what to major in, etc) would never come to fruition, and he remembered how he began to associate the snapping fingers with his father, and with his father’s Caution-First approach to life that became the perfect way to take a young person with vision and put into his head a questioning voice that would follow him his whole life, would cause him to doubt himself at every turn, would cause him to live his life from a scarcity rather than an abundance standpoint.


The snapping fingers. The clapping hands. The recoil whenever anyone demanded something of him. The years of keeping people at bay with sarcasm and other battle swords. That’s where it all came from.


The Confluence of Experience brought him here. It could have been any yoga studio, it could have been any instructor. But it wasn’t. It was this studio in Miami Beach, Florida, where the question of “What will our lesson be in our 6 months here?” had seemingly just been answered. It was that instructor, the one with the jangling loud clapping and the edge in his voice that said “You’re not good enough” if you listened hard enough.


He wanted to cry, laying there. Then just as quickly, he wanted to laugh. Instead, he just watched a waking dream, watched the pictures in his head and saw this rope that had anchored him to the shore burning, almost instantaneously like phosphorus exposed to air, leaving him bobbing in a boat that was larger and more powerful than he remembered. It seemed as though it had been far too long since he inspected the boat and its capabilities. He thought to himself that if only he’d known the strength of the engine he could have fired it up at any time and broken free of these moorings whenever he wanted.


It could have been any time. But it wasn’t. It was December in Florida.


And there he was, young and free and in love with himself and her and the world and it could have been anyone but it wasn’t. It was him.


And he could have felt anything right then, but he didn’t. He just felt free, and he had to come to Miami Beach to get there. Right there, at the Confluence of Experience.

What Yoga is teaching me (Monica)

This morning I went to Bikram Yoga.  This is 90 minutes of Yoga in a 100+ degree, humid room. This is an official Bikram studio, and the instructors are a little like Nazi Robot Auctioneers. The prattle off exactly what you are to be doing, every second if you were performing each posture to perfection. You are to listen to your own body, challenge yourself to do more, but also pace yourself so you don’t pass out. This is not always an easy task -- finding this balance.

Yesterday I took the day off from Yoga after a stretch of 5 days in a row. I figured the day off would allow me to be stronger today, capable to complete all of the postures in a strong way. That was my intention going into class.  Yoga has taught me, physically, at the cellular level, that setting my intention is key to success. So, before class began, I lay in Savasana and thought about how I wanted this upcoming class to be the strongest class I’ve ever completed. I would fulfill all of the postures with strength and put my best effort toward them. I would be rewarded by observing my body going a little deeper into the correct postures. 

Well, about 15 minutes into class, I realized my plan wasn’t coming true. I felt dizzy and nauseous. This feeling is common with new students to Bikram, but I hadn’t felt it in several weeks. However, I did eat some oatmeal less than 1 hour before class, and I was sure that was the problem. I forgot to be careful about the rule to not eat 2 hours before class. I began to mentally beat myself up for not following this precaution. I had gotten lazy, or arrogant thinking the rule no longer applied to me now that I was feeling mostly good in class. Yoga is teaching me humility. 

So, plans don’t always go as planned... here I am in class now, with over an hour still to go, and I have a decision to make. I can leave the classroom, or I can stay and rest more than I really need to, focusing on my sick feelings, or I can try to put the nausea aside as much as possible, stay 100% in the moment, listening carefully to my body, rest when I truly need to and push myself when I can. Basically, Yoga is teaching me to be present in the moment, put forward my best effort, while also listening to my body so that I can finish the class as strong as when I started. 

Yoga is teaching me endurance is really just completing one posture at a time until the end. We do each posture 2 times. I ended up resting 1 set of a couple of the postures, laying in Savasana instead of attempting the posture. During this time, I both relaxed fully to let my body rest and my heart rate come down, and I also mentally geared up to complete the next set. I thought of my good friend who just completed her 6th or 7th Ironman race who was vomiting the last section of the marathon run. She was saying to herself then - I just need to finish. “It isn’t that hard to simply finish. You just don’t stop". Yoga is teaching me this too.  One foot in front of the other, one more posture, one more class. It feels so good when I am done that I can’t wait to go back.  

Intentions for 180 v1 (Monica)

One of the things we decided to do each 6 months, each location, is to clarify our intentions or goals for the upcoming period.  Here are mine, placed here in writing for an extra measure of accountability. 

These all have a deadline of May 16, 2012:  

1. Complete a business plan for a new business. (figure out my next career / way to make money for living). 
2. Be able to speak and understand Spanish at an intermediate conversational level.  (Hay mucho de oportunidades en Miami para practicando espanol)  
3. Lose at least ten pounds.  (this should be very do-able in Miami Beach, land of the beautiful people, healthy food, warm weather and ample opportunity to exercise.)

I really like the 6 month cycle for this vs. a year as we do with resolutions.  Things seem more urgent, and it also seems like I need to focus more, finally realizing at the age of 45 that I cannot do everything!  I had a long list of goals and wishes, but I decided to narrow it down to 3. And, #1 and #2 are related in a way as I believe I will need #2 in order to do #1. 

  

I also intend to stay in connection with friends in other places and to put myself out there a bit more than I’m naturally inclined to do to meet new friends here. There is no measurable goal here, this is just something I want to keep in mind and act on daily.

So, here we go.... 180 degrees version 1.  We’ll see how it goes, revise and repeat in 6 months.   

The Drive (Monica)

It is 2 weeks and 2 days after leaving Sacramento, and the time has flown by.  It took us 6 days to drive across the country and nearly a week to get settled into our new condo and town.  The week of getting settled in involved a combination of unpacking, errands to setup house and a good mix of exploring the neighborhood and doing a few fun things. We even did hot yoga 2x this first week.   

It seems like a long time and a short time ago that we were driving across the country.  In summary it went like this:  Day 1 (Monday November 21) leaving just after noon: Sacramento to Palm Dessert.  Day 2:  to Las Cruces New Mexico (nearly to El Paso Texas).  Day 3: to Austin, Texas -- Texas is a very wide state!  Day 4: Thanksgiving!  We decided to rest this day in Austin and check it out since it is on our list of possible cities to live in next. It was a very good decision because both Joe and I were exhausted mentally and physically from the packing and prior trips to Arcata (and work trips for him).  Day 5: Austin to Marianna Florida, Day 6: to our new home in South Beach. We were at our new condo before dark Saturday.    

Most days we drove about 10 hours and covered approximately 600 miles.  In the beginning, we diligently kept a log of every milestone event (every time 100 miles flipped on the odometer, every hour, every time we switched drivers, every time we got gas -- we logged what was happening - where we were, what song was playing, what silly thing one of us had just said).  Our diligence and excitement to log everything waned slowly over time as the trip wore on.  Perhaps it was because the silly things we were saying had waned too, as things seemed a little less exciting and more tedious.  Don’t get me wrong, we traveled well together, but it is a long trip and the country side across Hwy 10 isn’t the most interesting for the greater part of it. By Day 3 we were only logging end of day time and mileage.  

Spending this much time together in the car, with minimal space to move provided us with ample time to talk and dream about the next 6 months.  We also drafted a list of possible cities to live in over the next 2-3 years. We joked a lot, and enjoyed each other’s company. We were grateful each evening for our safety and the support of our friends and family and that we are able to do what we are doing.  

One of the things we did during the trip was to discuss and clarify our intentions for the next 6 months. This looked a lot like a new years resolution, or goal setting exercise, but it feels different because our goals are clearly time boxed with the May 16th deadline -- a little LESS than 6 months away!   

There were times of doubt, at least for me.  As we drove through Blythe California I thought about my Grandparents moving with my 2 or 3 year old mother to live in a tent and farm flax. They were setting out on an adventure seeking riches (or at least a livelihood). They did not find riches and the land eventually won the battle; sending them back to the coastal region of the state to seek more traditional work. My adventure is of a different sort. I’m seeking the ‘what’s next’, without really knowing what that might even be!  I am just trusting that it will come if I am out there and following my dream of traveling and learning more about the world. Along parts of the drive, when I was tired, I heard the voices of the people who love me but who think I’m crazy for doing this. There were times when I thought that perhaps they were right. Maybe it is stupid to go the expense in time and money to travel away from friends and family without a (traditional) meaningful reason such as a job. The feelings of doubt don’t last for me though, and if indeed this turns out to be a bad idea, we can simply call it quits, pick a city and settle down.  I know I will be richer for the experiences either way. 

The Storm Before the Calm

Lots going to storage, we're on the road to FL tomorrow or Tuesday....

Obstacles: over, under or around (Monica)

The realities of moving every 6 months require that we be light. It is economically and environmentally unfriendly to move a household of furniture and personal items across the country twice a year. It would have cost about $4,000 to move a 1 bedroom apartment from California to Florida.

Here are 2 solutions that we employed to work around this obstacle:

1) Rent Furnished and just take your clothes and personal items.

This is what we are doing for Miami. Renting a fully furnished condo was a bit more expensive, but considering the cost savings in not moving our furniture, it was a bargain. I figure for 6 months, the difference in renting furnished will be $1,200 vs. $4,000 to move our stuff, and we get to live with cool, modern "design out-of-reach" type furniture. When we leave for Miami, we will be taking only what fits in the back of the Element, plus the 2 bikes on the roof racks.

2) Garage Sales - buy when you get there, sell when you leave.

When we moved from Portland to Sacramento 7 months ago, we did not bring a lot of furniture. We needed to supplement what we brought. 2 days of craigslist and yard sales and about $120 purchased the following: 2 leather chairs as you might find at Dania or Scan Design or another high-end Scandinavian furniture store, a coffee table, a dining room table that we used as a desk, 2 dinning room chairs, a TV, a vacuum cleaner, some side-tables and some pots for plants. The photo above is a picture of what we sold 2 weeks ago at a 4 hour yard sale. The items we sold consisted mostly of what we had bought in April (plus a few other things like Joe's naked lady painting). What didn't sell, went immediately to Goodwill, but I think we grossed just over $100. Bottom line: we effectively rented a half a house of furniture for 6 months for about $20!

I'm sure we will be faced with other obstacles with our next move. It is fun to find creative ways around the challenges. This is one of the reasons we are doing this.

Of Apparent Importance (Joe)

You might think the details of moving across the country would suck all the romance out of the operation.

Quite the contrary. In the planning of a trip, one assures oneself the trip will be taken.

While I work in New England, my beautiful partner works away back in California arranging our move: Obtaining signatures from barely-competent real estate agents^[1] on our lease, adding her boyfriend to her suddenly-Floridized auto insurance^[2], and lining up a storage unit for the possessions we've decided to keep, leaving our stuff at a variety of locations like consumerist pod people^[3].

It's that third one that's been an interesting path. I don't know about you, but I've always had a particular path when decluttering: I ask myself

"What would I have to do to replace this if I needed it later and didn't have it?"

It leads me to keep some mementos, but fewer than you think: After all, do I need to keep every single crayon drawing my kids did for me when they were 8, or can I keep a select few to convince myself of their nascent genius? Do I need every class picture from 1st grade on up? You know the answer.

Find me. It ain't that hard, I was on the short side.

Bottom line, we're looking at a couple small (twin) mattresses and deciding their fate. Monica says to me today, if they fit in storage, great, if not we can donate them. My response was "Let's save them if we can. There's a cross-country 'Sleep in the back of the Honda Element' trip in our future."

Could we get another couple mattresses anywhere? Sure. Sometimes, though, it feels right to hold on to a symbol, to help sculpt your future. Possessions are kinda funny that way. Happy travels.

---

[1] The only thing more frightening than the property owner's agent-- Who doesn't return phone calls and takes a minimum of 8 hours to answer emails-- is the prospect that, given the law of averages, the reason s/he's still in business is that there are people worse at this job than they are. Monica and I took turns on the phone last night exchanging adjectives to describe their 'professionalism' for a solid 25-30 seconds. I'm told this is something endemic to Miami Beach, where "that guy driving your taxi can probably sell you a house."
[2] Predictably, higher. Lots higher. The feeling of being Floridized is apparently what spawned the phrase "Next time at least kiss me first."
[3] Just Portland and Sacramento. For now. No, really.

Pondering the manifestation of small treasures (Monica)

It was on a walk at Ma-le’l Dunes beach at low tide. We’d seen hundreds of sand dollars all week, but none that were whole. I said to him I’ve never seen a whole one before, that they must be very fragile, and therefore rare to find without damage.

Then, that time at low tide, I thought to myself, if one were to be found whole, it would likely be here at low tide. Almost instantly, one appeared. It was nearly unbroken, was still a whole disk, but it had a small hole in the front. I presented it to him. He said, I should keep looking for a perfect one. I told him not to be greedy, that we were lucky to find this one.

Then, 10 minutes or so later, after pondering my response, I decided it was silly to dismiss the possibility of finding a perfect sand dollar. I started to expect that I would find one, and that I just needed to walk ‘over there’. I walked ‘over there’ for about a minute and it appeared: the perfectly whole and unbroken sand dollar.

Was it just a coincidence all of this internal dialog that I had, or did I manifest the shell as in ‘The Secret’. I hate to think it was the later because magical thinking is simply delusional (my grandmother was practicing magical thinking when she decided she was recovering from her brain tumor days before her death). On the other hand, a part of me likes to think that perhaps we do have a way of influencing the physical with our beliefs.

Or, perhaps, and I’d like to think this is most likely: I just needed to keep looking.

Journey to the Center of your Mind (Joe)

I started doing yoga to indulge her. Because that's what I do, not just because I'm a Wonderful Partner (hee), but if it's important to her, if she sees value in it, then by definition there must be something there. This has been going on for about 6 weeks now, her telling me "You don't have to keep doing it if you don't want to," and me tossing back my snide little barbs so she knows I'm Doing This For Her. When I tell her "I function better when I'm in a relationship," that's what I'm talking about. A lot of the good things I do for myself, I might not already be doing if she wasn't there crooking her finger at me to come along with her.

So yes, the physical aspect of yoga is what drew me to it, to unkink my 50-ish Eastern European frame.. Or at least that's the reason I rationalized to keep going. I could sense rather than feel that there was something else there, some deeper spiritual aspect, even though I resisted, cackling internally when the New Agey instructors prattled on about "breathing into your root Chakra," and "releasing your negative energy."

Then last night, a switch flipped. It was the first time in class where no one else mattered, as far as my need to rank myself vs. my fellow humans. I decided to push myself, I decided to see what I had in me. I decided it was time, and how it all came out, was completely up to me.

It felt incredible.

For maybe the first time in my life, I'm glimpsing the person I can grow into if I wish. I'm understanding how the moat I built around the castle didn't just keep the other horses out, it kept me in. I'm understanding that calcification can happen in the body as well as the mind (And that ain't pretty), and it's best to catch that early.

My bottom line? Sure, this blog, our trip, our 6-Month Sojourn might seem to some people like we're indulging in some hair-brained scheme that leverages a Geographical Cure. That's not it at all. What this experience taught me is that when you're adventurous in your mind, the adventure in your life just manifests naturally.

Happy Savasana, y'all.

P.S. Yoga's cool, but don't be This Guy.

'In Seed Time, Learn. In Harvest, Teach...' (Joe)

I'm not saying I never want to hunker down in some log cabin with only a fireplace and a pile of logs in between me and some forecast that ends with "...and a wind chill of...".

I'm just saying that, for now, I've had enough winter in my life. Every body needs to feel the passing of the seasons. This winter, though, the turkey will be carved at a restaurant somewhere between here and Florida, on our drive to our new home. When we get there, Santa Claus is just as likely to be in board shorts singing "Feliz Navidad" when the inevitable onslaught of Christmas comes.

There will be a winter with that fireplace and that forecast, and when it happens, I will love and embrace it because I chose it.

This year, though, I'm polishing my Spanish and finding bicycle routes I can discover in February.

'In seed time, learn. In harvest, teach. In winter, enjoy.'

--William Blake

Too High a Spirit (Joe)

We had dinner with the friends we're housesitting for last night before their wee-hours flight this morning. They're more Monica's friends than mine, so I asked: Why this vacation out of the country, and why now? The short answer was, because we're not getting any younger, because we have close friends who had Bad Things happen and never got to realize their dreams, and because every day is a gift.

Someone who merely parrots this as from a greeting card, that sentiment rings hollow. They merely articulated, though, what I'd been trying to put my finger on about them since we met earlier that afternoon. They actually do live their whole life that way. What he is, what she is, comes through so clearly, so transparently in the look of their home, the work they do-and-love, the love they show their dogs (present) and their adult children (not present, but so much on their minds), and to me especially, a stranger before today but treated like a college frat brother. My own openness to revealing myself to new people is palpable to me here, reflected in the warmth it allows me to get back. Instant karma.

In addition to running his own business, our host is active in providing quick-construction housing to stricken areas here (Think Katrina) and abroad. I asked him how this came to be a passion of his, and if I hadn't I suspect he never would have told the story, he doesn't seem the self-aggrandizing sort. Almost sheepishly, he wove the tale of his activist post-college days and an "If not for the Grace of God there go I" tragedy that galvanized his future path. It struck me that I don't meet too many men who I instantly respect, admire.

So I don't know that I am privy to the complete reality that encompasses the reason Monica and I have undertaken Doing A 180, for "now we see in a mirror, darkly," if you will. But today, one of the reasons is that I am opening myself up to more people like this. A one-time meeting or a lifelong friend, it's clear that I am charged to understand the give-and-take of the situation, and the gifts of our Selves that we give each other in these small ways.

Foreplay (Joe)

Sometimes a journey of 3000 miles from Sacramento to Miami Beach beings with a single step. And sometimes it begins with a 3-week detour to Arcata, CA to dog-sit for a friend before you take that single step.

Willits, CA: Our overnight stopover, about halfway between SF
and Arcata. Try the Old West Inn (They have theme rooms, and we got the
Livery Stable room. Draw your own conclusions).

4 step process for really and truly cleaning out your closet (Monica)

I've been working on this project for 4 years now. Every time I do this, I review each article of clothing, decide to keep or throw away. I've tried several methods from living simple books such as turning hangers backwards and in 6 months throwing out all things that are still hanging backwards and therefore must not have been worn. I still had too many things hanging around that I didn't wear but I couldn't seem to part with.

So, I invented my own strategy which I must admit I think is brilliant Of course this may be obvious to other people and perhaps I'm not the first one to think of it. But, in case you haven't thought of it, hear goes:

My 4 step process for really and truly cleaning out your closet.

Step 1) Decide on your outfit categories.

This is what types of outfits you need in your life. Mine were: casual (lunches out, shopping), very casual (hanging around the house, going to the beach), work warm weather, work cold weather, yoga, cycling, and dressy (going out).

Step 2) Decide how many outfits of each category you think you need.

For Miami (6 months) I decided I needed 6 casual outfits, 6 very casual, 2 yoga, 2 cycling, 6 warm weather work, 4 cold weather work and 4 dressy outfits.

Step 3) Build your outfits from your closet.

Lay out the outfits in different parts of the room. dressy on the bed, casual on the sofa, etc. Make sure you are building entire outfits. If the same pair of pants can be paired with two different tops, that is great - but count it as 2 outfits. Start with your favorite outfits and then continue until you have the number you decided you needed. Leave all the clothing that doesn't go with outfits needed. I cheated a bit here because I found that I had 6 dressy outfits and I wasn't going to part with any of them. Fine! I left it that way.

Step 4) Cull the clothes left in the closet.

I wish I could say I gave away ALL of the clothes that were in the closet after making my outfits. I did not. But, I gave away over 1/2 of them and this was a huge amount compared to what I'd been able to give away at any one time before. The other clothes that I just couldn't part with, I decided to take photos of, box up and they will go into storage. If I haven't missed them after Miami or some time down the road, they will be a lot easier to let go of.

Ah.... no! (Monica)

Renting a furnished apartment has its challenges.

Avoiding the state of always moving (Monica)

I don't want to ALWAYS be moving. If you think about your past moves, how long does it take?

You have to prepare to move, then you move, then you get moved in. I don't know about you, but in my past moves, this has easily taken 6 months in order to complete the process. Most of the time is spent 'moving in', with boxes still unpacked from the April move to Sacramento.

So, If we are moving every 6 months, then this could mean that we'd always be moving. Not something I'm interested in.

Working to avoid the always moving status will lead me to several of the keys to our "doing a 180" plan:

1) I must live more in the moment. I can't say to myself: "I'm moving in 1 month, so what is the point in meeting someone new, or checking out that new biking group". No, I must make the most of today. Isn't this something we all should be doing anyway?

2) I must minimize my stuff. I have to think more about what is important to live with, and question new purchases to determine if they really will be worth carrying through this life. The benefits of this are immense.

3) I must minimize my life processes, automate bill paying, reduce the number of accounts. Simplifying these mundane, repetitive life tasks leads to more free time. This can be done whether you are moving or not. But, the moving requires it. The internet allows for all of this.

4) I need to leverage other people's time where possible. I should not be shy about using people that stand to benefit in helping us move. In order to find an apartment in Miami, the plan is to get property managers in South Beach looking for the perfect place for us to live vs. us combing through 100s of on-line advertisements. (Unfortunately, this hasn't been easy so far as perhaps South Beach is so popular that property managers don't feel the need to return their phone calls and emails). I'll let you know if I find one that does a good job!

The Adventurous Life (Joe)

Back since the days when I carried a Franklin Planner, circa 1995, I've had this quote with me. I haven't had the planner since before Y2K, but somehow through a move from the midwest to Oregon to California and now on to Miami Beach and then Question Mark, it has always stayed with me. I wish you luck in your own Adventurous Life.

Draw the Flashes (Joe)

When we tell you about our plans, I am finding out something. Something about you.

I tell you we're moving to Miami and then moving again every 6 months, and we don't know where, and of course we're going to keep working because this is the year 2-thousand-freakin'-11 and have you heard of the interwebs and how we've set our lives up in such a way as to be able to be "location transparent."

If you react "What a great adventure," I know something about you. If you cluck your tongue and tell me it's a "crazy scheme," I know something else. If you immediately recite a story to me about [1] Florida's lethal bugs, or [2] How there's "so many murders" in Miami, or [3] how shallow everyone (Everyone?) in Miami Beach is, then-- again-- I know something else.

I know how you view the world. Interestingly, I've only found a very few friends who are able to simply say, "I give you to your journey but I wish you wouldn't go."

Our path isn't for everyone. If it were, honestly, it wouldn't be so damn attractive. And the more you tell me it won't work (How could it not work? It's 6 months. If it sucks, if I get sick of 85-degree weather and sunshine, I can just... move again), the more I think it will. If everyone in the world is writing emails, I'm writing postal service letters long-hand. If everyone else is turning left, I'm turning right and backing down the street. Just the way I am.

Again, my path isn't for everyone, I know that. And I don't begrudge you your concern, your criticism, your questions. Just understand that when I tell you about my new adventure, you know something about me. When you react to the news, I know something about you.

Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.” --Theodor Reik

Thoughts on leaving a place (Monica)

It is funny... now that I'm getting ready to leave Sacramento, I'm finding myself making lists of all the things that I need to DO before I leave. Which bike routes haven't I taken? Which hikes haven't we done? Which restaurants have I wanted to try that I still need to go to? I never did get to that 'new in town' meetup or the spanish language practice group. Of course, there will be lots of things TO DO in the new place, although they will be different. So, the pressure to DO things isn't real. Perhaps this is obvious, but I'm just realizing this now.

Of course there are people here that I will miss. Some friends that I've known forever, and others who are new but also special. And so, as we get ready to move in 2 months time, my focus will be on spending quality time with these people. Oh, and maybe some of this friend time will be at the restaurants I've yet to try.

Being Where You Are (Joe)

Today, a simple paean to letting go, to loving where you are, and reveling in the person you're with. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you've designed this life for yourself. Enjoy it:

Edwin Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: "Home"

(Is it just the Portlander in me, or are those the steps on Mount Tabor she's running up at 1:55?)

"Home, let me come home / Home is wherever I'm with you."

Simplicity (Monica)

As I sit here listing large, expensive, but unneeded stereo equipment on Craigslist and working to get a handle on various personal financial items, it occurs to me that my life has gotten WAY TOO COMPLEX. And, I know that many of my friend's lives are equally if not more complex.

It seems that we accumulate THINGS - and these THINGS are not only physical possessions, but also related to 'taking advantage of certain deals/offers', that cause us to waste time managing them. They own us more than we own them.

Here are some examples:

I have 585,000 Alaska Airlines miles, about $500 in Wallet funds, but it was cheaper to simply buy 2 tickets to Ohio to visit Joe's family (Unless we wanted a 24 hour each way travel time).

I have too many credit cards. Each with various rewards points and schemes... do these really add value to my life? Does it serve me to try to jump through hoops to try to use these points, while typically paying higher annual fees for rewards cards?

I have a timeshare thing that proves time consuming to manage.

I've purchased Groupons to save money, only to further complicate my life by trying to use them (I have to go through several steps to book a facial out 3 months from now for example).

I have 6 bank accounts (This is down from a recent 8, and on its way to 4).

I had two 401ks, an IRA, and an after tax investment account (This has since all been consolidated).

I have 3 layers of emails - each with its own spam folder that needs to be monitored.

So, I'm working on simplifying everything. Not just the physical. This will open up space for what is next.

Inner Cartography, Part I (Joe)

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say, "That's exactly how this grace thing works"
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

--“Roll Away Your Stone”, Mumford & Sons

In the week since making the decision to move to Miami, I’ve felt myself bumping up against long-held fears. Monica’s certainty and enthusiasm only make me want to pull back more, investigate it, get more information, suss out The Facts, all the while knowing that more Facts is not at all why I feel this way. When it’s done and we’re there, wherever there is, this time, this transition, will be told in the histories as a stark inevitability. It feels much less so now.

Maybe this is more about staking out a place inside. Maybe my fear as we get ready to launch off into Doing A 180° is that I’ll be pulled this-way-and-that by the vicissitudes of our daily life, like the tourist who thinks he wants to live in every beautiful place he’s only seen from the hotel window and the art district cafes.

Maybe the real definition of adventure has nothing to do with not knowing the answers before you go, but not even knowing the questions. That could mean I’m forgetting to factor something into the project plan, or it could mean that there’s nothing left to fear. I’ve spent so long living with the former, it’s hard getting used to the latter.

Regardless of how the anxiety manifests, it’s only now that I’m able to swallow and admit that it has nothing to do with the particular place we’re contemplating. It has more to do with trying on a metaphorical new set of clothes, in a style I’ve never worn before. It could be Miami, Quebec, Santiago, Kurdistan. My fears have to do with letting go of crutches, of dropping this lifelong habit I’ve developed of allowing myself to be less than I could be because of the obstacles I’ve put in my way.

You see, now I am naked to myself and my world. I am moving rapidly toward becoming the person I want to be, removing distractions, rooting out bad habits, doing instead of watching, being instead of wishing. I am 50 years old, but it doesn’t feel that way. I feel as if my life is just beginning, as if Doing A 180° is a declaration of adulthood, something you would do in your 20s when you finally Discovered Yourself. I am being where I want so that I can be who I want. This is not the Geographical Cure. This is geography as the cure.

So as I look that 23-year old me in the mirror square in the eyes, and tell him how You Need To Do This, and Everything Will Be Better-Than-OK, I squirm with the inner knowing that maybe, just maybe, there are new questions out there. As I decide to myself that yes, this will happen, and I look at the cheap fold-‘em-up map of the United States taped to our closet door in the living room, with its circles, X’s and question marks to denote the Yes, No and Maybe of our possible landing spots, I think to myself, yes, questions. Bring me more questions.

First Stop Decided (Monica)

Miami! South Beach. Warm ocean swimming. Major Airport. I can learn Spanish from the Cubans.

~Monica

Trade-Offs (Joe)

"What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road." [William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways]

We had dinner last night at the home of some friends. After the Trader Joe's cheese and salami appetizer ("Take this away or I'll finish it!"), after the caprese salad, after the grilled snapper, when the awkwardness of reconnecting had passed and the fuzziness of two glasses of moscato had taken hold, our hosts insisted that we tour their garden.

As we walked up the steps behind the house, narrow concrete winding two tiers up, she recounted the trials of the previous growing season, the health of the plants couched in time relative to their standing during some heady personal and relationship strife-- The markers we give our life.

We walked up more stairs to the second tier, tried to imagine the overgrowth of berry vines she described. I tried to put myself in her shoes, her partner's, their kneepads, digging out vine by vine, dirt, sweat, rain, earth, the mineral-plant mix of smells, the dog shoving his nose in, mindful that their attention was turned elsewhere. They are, literally, rooted there, in that garden.
I turned toward the fading sun, felt myself swallowed by the view over the Northwest Portland hills, feeling rather than seeing Mount Hood, awed and scared and buzzing with excitement.

Because tonight was learning about trade-offs, and realizing that Doing A 180° meant that though there would be yesterdays, they wouldn't stretch back far enough for the garden to survive. In our world, we'd be gone to another experience, leaving the vine-pulling and the nurturing and cooing over "how well the tomatoes recovered" to The Next Tenant.

If I've not embraced the idea of where to root my garden, then maybe that's exactly what this journey is all about. Whether we end up moving once, twice, 10 or 12 times, or perhaps ultimately (and we must admit this as a possibility), not at all, part of the process is nights like this, asking the question:

What does who I am have to do with where I am?

Tell God Your Plans (Joe)

"...You have to develop a knowledge of the truth that rises above the romance of the situation and be able to say that yes, this gives me what I need for these reasons, and I will be able to handle it because I've been working on myself in these ways." (from fear.less magazine)

Sometimes you don't know what you want until you hear yourself saying it. Sometimes you don't know exactly why you've been working toward a personal goal except that you know there's a person, a place, a situation, that's on the radar in the near future. It is elusive, inscrutable, until that moment.

It's an unrepeatable moment. Maybe it's that moment when you're standing at the kitchen island with the woman who, in a half a year's time you will have been in love with for 6 months. It's the moment when you watch yourself getting flushed, feel a shiver run through you, as you describe these feelings, this dream, to this woman who you're pretty sure is a karmatic payoff for several dozen lifetimes lived in the faceless black of broken societies, on the fringes of existence. And of course you feel this way, it's the second date after all.

Then in that moment you watch your own mouth moving as you spill out this dream you've had for your whole life but tamped down so hard and so well. Because to allow it space to breathe was to foster the disappointment of that 5-year old who'd been told for All of Time that his dreams weren't special. His parents were too busy with their own neuroses and addictions. His parents loved him by limiting him. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, but even taking shots is dangerous. And the 5-year old believed them.

Now it all comes spilling out, because you've done all that work. Because it took a couple months, but when you were spinning out your tale of woe to a good friend and she said "Why not just get your shit together?" you eventually listened. You stopped leaving when they wouldn't serve you anymore and started not going at all. You rediscovered the sunrise, and goddamn if it didn't hurt to crank it up that early for a while, but it all cascaded from there. You remembered who you were, who you'd never been yet, because you hadn't let yourself.

Then you told her, yes, I want to travel to everywhere, I want to help people, I want to build something that lives beyond me, something to write on my gravestone. You told her all that with a detail that you'd never felt before, feeling it for the first time but knowing it innately, like an itch you'd had since the Disappointed 5-Year Old.

= = =

And that's how it started for me: A dream I never knew I had. In the middle of our whirlwind life together so far, Monica and I have already moved to Sacramento, had a job change, health challenges, long bike rides and nights on the patio with the Delta breezes blowing, sipping wine and planning our next move.

(Stolen from Liberadio just
because I like the picture)

This is how we come to be the combination we are. She is a planner, but also a dreamer. I admire her tenacity, her willingness to take risks. I hear stories from her younger days about headstrong behavior. Knowing her now, with those tales as mere chimera, what I see today is not someone who jumps off a cliff hoping to grow wings, but a beautiful woman--- No, a beautiful person, who has been waiting for me as long as I have for her. A person who already has wings, and knows how to use them.

We've decided to move, every 6 months give or take. In the detailing of Where Are We Going Next, though, what I've realized is that I can't tell the story of our next move without repeating in my head the story of the tempest that brought us here: In love within 2 weeks (Laugh if you want, I know the truth), packing and moving together literally within 3 weeks of making the decision, standing emotionally naked before each other time and time again, day after day, night after night, with so many chances to close up, to be regular, to let it slide, to retreat to safely-built and long-held defenses, and never taking the bait.

What we do next, in part, scares the shit out of me. At the same time, though, I feel that my whole life to this point has prepared me for this next leap. I don't know what's going to happen, and as Monica's fond of saying "Sometimes plans don't go as planned" (T-shirts with that phrase available soon on our website, now under construction). I do know that we've chosen each other as partners because we have an unique set of strengths, flaws, character and blind spots.

I can't imagine starting this journey with anyone else. I am ready to leap.

Because before her, I never imagined the journey was possible.

~Joe

How we got here (Monica)

It is a simple idea. Move to a new city roughly every 6 months. Why? Because there are so many cities in which I want to live. And, I like the process of moving and what it means. It is a challenge. It forces minimalism. It means I must stretch to make new friends and find ways to stay connected to old friends. It means finding work while maintaining freedom of time and place. It means I can live in Miami one winter, and then move to Maine in the summer. It means discovery of the unknown. I am an Adventurer. No doubt.

I’ve been intrigued for about 2 years with the idea of Vagabonding - a term used by Rolf Potts to mean long-term travel on the cheap. For him, and many others preceding him and following him, this means leaving HOME to travel for several months. Potts’ Vagabonding philosophy values taking the time to LIVE vs. spending so much time working to make money. The idea of Vagabonding appealed to me because I love exploring new places and meeting people and seeing new cultures. I am not a history buff, and I am not into seeing all of the tourist sights when I travel. I love traveling without a firm plan. Vagabonding may involve buying a one-way ticket to a city in Mexico and then depending on what you find there, you may meet someone, or hear of the next place. You’ll take a bus there, spend a few weeks and repeat, never having a firm itinerary. On a daily basis, you’d head out into a strange city for the day, not exactly sure what you will find or who you will meet. The other thing that appealed to me about this type of long-term travel is that it pays to minimize your possessions and commitments. Potts proposes working for a period of time, saving money and then traveling on the cheap until the money you budgeted for this travel runs out and then repeating the process. He also suggests looking into doing odd-jobs on the road--perhaps tending bar or teaching English as a second language.

I was making plans to do just this - to travel in Latin America, starting at a Spanish language school for a month and then moving on to whatever I may find for period of time somewhere between 3 and 6 months. I had been on a long term consulting project for over a year, and had been saving money. My plan was to have this project end in November and leave.

In February of 2011 I met Joe. We fell in love with each other quickly. We rapidly discovered we shared a thirst for adventure. He wanted to travel with me. Over time, it seemed to me that he didn’t really understand what this meant (adventurers can be impulsive), but he was game in concept. Fast forward to April 18, and we moved, together to Sacramento, California from Portland, Oregon. I was traveling back and forth between Portland and Sacramento where my consulting job was located. Joe was traveling most weeks for his work as a computer programming trainer. If we were to see each other more than 1 day a week, it would be best if only one of us was traveling all the time! So, less than 2 months after meeting each other, we moved. The plan was to move to Sacramento, then in November put our things in storage and travel together for about 3 months.

The move to Sacramento was a wonderful experience for me in many ways. It provided another level of culling of my possessions -- something I had started 5 years ago. If I was going to move for a short period of time, I didn’t want to take anything that wasn’t frequently used. It was exciting being in a new city. When I was working here during the week, I only had energy to work, eat dinner, exercise and sleep. I didn’t get out into the city to discover interesting coffee shops and restaurants. I learned that I really like discovering a new home city.

2 months after moving, I was struggling with a health challenge, and the project was not going well. I decided to leave the project, several months earlier than planned. (sometimes plans don’t go as planned). We decided to stay in Sacramento anyway.

On Friday, August 19, 2011, I was walking around San Francisco by myself, while Joe was teaching a class. I had come to the city to hang out with him in the evenings since I was not currently working. While I was walking around, just exploring a small slice of the city on foot, It occurred to me that we could MOVE to San Francisco if we wanted to. And, then we could MOVE to someplace else. If we had only the possessions that we really needed, we could do this fairly frequently. How exciting of a life would that be?!? That night, I discussed this with Joe and we agreed to give it a go. So, this entry is the start of our plan to arrange our lives to be flexible enough to actually do this. It is exciting to me to think about what this means. It means we will be designing our lives. It means taking control, while at the same time being adaptable to change. For me, this blog will be a place to discover and express the challenges and rewards of living this way. It does seem to be unique way of life, so I know there will be much to figure out.

So, almost 6 months to the day of when I met Joe, we begin this next 6 months phase. We are currently looking ahead at the coming year and will be planning 2-3 6 month cycles (at 6 months, they come up quick!) One thing that we did make clear to each other, is that we are not going to be time Nazi’s about this. We both recognize the need to be flexible. So, whether the actual cycle is 3, 5, 6 or 9 months, the spirit is to have a new place, and a different or perhaps simply refined life each cycle.

~Monica