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?