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