Not Leaving, Arriving

I need to reboot, so I'm turning myself off. I'm putting away Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Skype, AIM, the whole lot of it. I'm turning my phone off. And I'm packing my things, and tomorrow I'm driving out to the ranch, where I can camp peacefully by the creek. Fortunately, the ranch is plenty large enough that I can safely count on not being seen or bothered by anyone. I plan to spend at least three days there without human contact. If I don't hike up by noon on the third morning, my father will know where I am and can come looking for me. If I decide to stay longer, I'll hike up to advise him and then return.

Gear list:

• Tent with fly (but I'll leave it off unless it rains)
• Canvas tarp
• Sleeping bag
• Foam mat (for both yoga and sleeping)
• Pillow
• 5 gallon jug of water and cup
• One change of clothes
• Boots
• Cast iron pot
• Cast iron skillet
• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Canned corn and beans
• Salt
• Tea
• iPod (yes, me di cuenta... but there'll only be one charge, so it's at least limited)
• Hammock and rope
• Journal and pens
• Knife
• Matches
• Basic first aid kit

I can dip in the creek when it's hot, snack on the mint that grows near it, and if I'm lucky find some berries. I'll watch the sun rise and set, and the Milky Way cross the sky at night. I'll hear the coyotes under the moon and the birds greet the morning. I still can't walk all too well (because of dislocating my knee while in the unforgiving jungle of Belize), so I'll have to plan my day treks well. I'll be maybe two miles from the nearest house, but just far enough to get a world away.

I was told by a good friend that I need to be alone. He didn't mean that I should go off and do this at all, but he was right. I need this desperately.

And if I do it right, I won't be leaving, I'll be arriving.

Epiphany Toilet I

Apparently, if I can't come up with solutions to my problems, I create new problems.

Oh what to do, when there's nothing left?

So much has changed in the last six years. Thank God. A quick glance at my long deceased livejournal proves as much. I took this personality test back then, so I took it again. Some parts shifted. I'm more wealth-consciencous now, and more extraverted. Still insanely "stable" and "intellectual." Adventurous and humanitarian I can agree with. Some other parts...not so sure. If I am such a damned free-spirit, why am I covered in so many chains?

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||||||| 70% Stability |||||||||||||||||||| 86% Orderliness |||||| 26% Accommodation |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Interdependence |||||||||||||| 56% Intellectual |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Mystical |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Artistic |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Religious |||||||||||||||| 70% Hedonism |||||||||||||| 56% Materialism || 10% Narcissism |||||||||||||| 56% Adventurousness |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Work ethic |||||||||||| 43% Humanitarian |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Conflict seeking |||||||||||||| 56% Need to dominate |||||||||||||||||| 76% Romantic |||||||||||||||||| 76% Avoidant || 10% Anti-authority |||||||||||||||||| 76% Wealth |||||||||||| 43% Dependency |||| 16% Change averse |||| 16% Cautiousness |||||||||| 36% Individuality |||||||||||||||| 70% Sexuality |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Peter pan complex |||||||||| 36% Family drive |||||| 30% Physical Fitness |||||||||||||||||||| % Histrionic || 10% Paranoia |||||||||||| 50% Vanity |||||||||||| 50% Honor |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Thriftiness |||||||||||||||||| 76%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

trait snapshot:

messy, disorganized, social, tough, outgoing, rarely worries, self revealing, open, risk taker, likes the unknown, likes large parties, makes friends easily, likes to stand out, likes to make fun of people, reckless, optimistic, positive, strong, does not like to be alone, ambivalent about chaos, abstract, impractical, not good at saving money, fearless, trusting, thrill seeker, not rule conscious, enjoys leadership, strange, loves food, abstract, rarely irritated, anti-authority, attracted to the counter culture

Thunderstorm Walk

It shakes the house and rattles the windowsills, sending flashes of light indoors in the middle of the night. The housecat scurries for cover, the house occupants groan at the noise. And I am in the world of the waxing gibbous, far away, and alone I seek nothing. Nothing of myself I want to find, nothing of the miseries I sow and reap for myself. There is nothing gentle out here, nothing holy. Rain pours on the trees, and on the grasses, and in the winding creek, and on me. Nothing holy. I carry a pocket light, but there's no need to turn it on. The world reveals itself in flashes and glimpses, as it always does. I walk barefoot against the wind until I can hardly walk any further. I have gone nowhere, and about a mile from the little shaking house. I can't walk any further because there is a mountain in front of me. From its high peak fear rushes down on me. Too, the rain beats down on me. I stare aimlessly at everything I have yet to do. I want to dance, be consumed in music, be carelessly silly. I am tired of emotion, tired of myself, tired of trying to fix it, tired of arriving at this mountain--all of that which I lack stands tall in front of me; I built it myself. There's no pickaxe, no boots, but the thunderstorm howls to hide the moon. The storm rages on. Not tonight. I turn and make the long walk back from the empty land. I stand for a moment--soaked--before entering the house again, to let the rain wash the little pieces of grass from my legs, to wash the little pieces of the mountain from my mind.

Reading list: Sum, by David Eagleman.

Pause in Chaos

I'm absolutely in love with the smell of wet tomato plants. That's sounds odd, but when you water them, they release the most lovely fragrance, one that take me back to my father's garden of my childhood. They're now in the 18 inch range, but have yet to bear fruit. My jalapenos, on the other hand, have begun to bloom.

Gardening puts food in perspective for me. If I had to grow everything I consume, I think I'd eat a lot less. Not necessarily because it would require more work, but because you get such a new respect for something that you care for as you watch it slowly grow out of the earth.

A pair of blue jays have made their home in the oak in my lawn, and have made it a personal battle against a particular young squirrel that also believes the oak is his home. They provide the perfect distraction from what I should be doing. What I will do, however, is take an hour to eat and meditate before I return to studying. There is simply too much to do and too much chaos surrounding me.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. We are not that way anymore.

Playlist: Ageless Beauty by Stars; What Makes a Man? by City and Colour

Pianka

He's the kind of person that catches you when you don't want to be caught. He's the kind you should hate. The kind that you would imagine should drink blood or eat babies or something. But he's not. He's passionate, courageous, and earnest. He preaches compassion, tolerance, and discipline. He looks monsters in the face, and tells them how it is. And he's wrong.

One of my professors, Eric Pianka, is infamous. Known as "Dr. Doom," he was famed for "advocating" the elimination of 90% of the population through an airborne strain of the Ebola virus. He was misquoted--Pianka's not stupid, you see. He was making a point about sustainability, about living in excess. The world can't support us all, not living the way we Americans do. Over the years, he's recieved death threats from angry Creationists and much agony over his lessons which slam religion. He's a bit of a misanthropist, and snaps at the students in his grouchy 70-year-old style. And then, suddenly, his Grinch mask comes off and it becomes apparent that all he wants is to be remembered. Despite his pleas for rationality, I still believe that there's a god out there, but I know I won't forget him soon. As we all sat in his class this semester and listened to his stories of Australia, I think at least a few of us saw ourselves in him. He's ten times smarter than me, ten times sadder. Once you get to know him, you can see his brilliance and good intentions. And even if he's wrong, he's worth listening to.

Playlist: Challenge by The New Pornographers, You Found Me by The Fray

Inappropriate Wanderlust

It comes and hits you in the face when you least expect it. It's not like we lived through a war zone, but we did do something very few people ever do, and we did it alone and at a very early age. Sometimes you'll get a dream in Castellano, or blurt out a phrase in Guarani; I still use Paraguayan hand gestures on a daily basis--a quirk Bon's had to adjust to. It seeps into your subconsciencous.

I got a call this morning from Belgium. One of the girls I had met, who had also been a foreign exchange student through AFS, had decided to see how things were going in the States. We sat around like old men telling war stories, stories you can't share with anyone else because it would be gibberish to them. Sometimes, it seems like gibberish to us, as we move on.

Those long (and short) twelve months I lived in Paraguay are one of those things that you have to leave to God to remember. We all faced danger, we all broke the law, we all fell in love, and we all paid for it. If you start thinking about it too much, you go crazy...wanderlust takes over your heart, and you begin to realize all the chains that bind you to this concrete world.

Thing is...sure, I like to reminisce. But I'd truly rather not. The people I cared for so much back then I still care for--in the way that they are my family, and forever will be. It's not a personal thing. It's just... I'd rather be writing another story, than thinking about an old one.

My father, who was drafted during Vietnam, said that Paraguay would be the equivalent for me, the highlight of my young life. I'm sure I replied with something along the lines of "I'd rather get cancer and die." After a while though, you have to start writing a new story, because we can only live in the present.

I enjoyed the call, but it came at an inappropriate time. I'm busy preparing out how this next tale will go. Even if Belize is just a hop, skip and jump away, I'll be spending three weeks after my fieldwork is done backpacking along the coast, out through the islands, and back into the jungle. I once backpacked across about a hundred miles of South American soil with a group of Communist hippies, and I've backpacked along the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier International, essentially the entire states of Colorado and New Mexico, and Olympic National Park in Washington state...but this will be another story, and far less easy. I can't wait.

Wanderlust is quite possibly the worst thing to catch when you ought to be studying for finals.