Goodbyes, Saturn Return, and Road Trippin'

"In a sense, Saturn is almost like a miniature solar system."

~Linda Spilker

Sandal on the accelerator.  Grey ribbon of highway.  Starbucks coffee in the cup holder.  Sleazy gas stations.  Lunching at diners.  Bruce Springsteen on the radio.

These are the things I love about Road Trippin', and on Wednesday I embark on another Road Trippin' extravaganza.  But first, the goodbyes and Saturn Return...

Goodbye Minneapolis.

When you're constantly away from home (as I was for the previous nine years), you become desensitized to goodbyes.  But live with your family for part of one year, and you realize the things you've missed.  As I leave Minneapolis, I am bracing for the hardest goodbye I've encountered, a goodbye that is tempered only by my excitement for the future.

Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Sister #4

As I bid farewell to family and Minneapolis, I also feel like I'm saying goodbye to my childhood.  A few weeks ago, I read about Saturn Return.  Saturn returns to the same point in it's orbit ever 29.4 years.  So, every 29 years Saturn occupies the same position it did at our birth (aka. Saturn Return).  In astrology, Saturn is associated with transformation and rebirth and Saturn Return is said to be a transition time from one life-phase to another. 

According to astrologers, the first Saturn Return coincides with a transition from childhood to adulthood.  The second Saturn Return (~age 58) a transition from adulthood to maturity.  And the third Saturn Return (~age 87) a transition from maturity to wisdom.

It's difficult, but if you're willing to make necessary changes during your Saturn Return, say astrologers, the entire universe conspires to help you.  

Minnesota wildflower.

Three years ago, I woke up one day and felt like an adult.  I'd recently returned from Afghanistan, and maybe that feeling of adulthood was more precipitated by my reintegration into civilian life than actual adulthood.  Either way, there must be something to Saturn Return, because I feel like an adult more intensely today than ever before.

One way is professionally.  Until the age of 28, I wasn't ready to commit to a profession, mostly because I didn't understand who I was as an individual.  I felt like I spent my 20s trying on dozens of costumes and reinventing myself.

But from this decades-long exploration process there emerged the idea of becoming a writer, an idea that I suppose has been staring me in the face since I first delighted in putting pen to paper at age five...

After these goodbyes, the road trip begins...

Pie.  An obsession.

First stop is Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  Fort Lost in the Woods is one of the Army's largest training facilities.  The surrounding area is a cultural dead spot (aside from a scattering of vineyards) and might be the American equivalent of Bulgaria.  Still, I'm thrilled to reunite with a few amigos.

Second stop is Lexington, Kentucky.  A Wikipedia search revealed the following: Lexington is Kentucky's 2nd largest city (after Louisville), it's nickname is "The Horse Capital of the World," the US Census Bureau identifies it as America's 10th most educated city (40% of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher), and Forbes named it one of the 17 cleanest cities in the world.

I know little about Kentucky, but reading about Lexington piqued my interest.  It would be fun to visit neighboring Louisville in May for the Kentucky Derby.  (Or maybe throw a Kentucky Derby viewing party in Roanoke, complete with mint juleps, fried chicken, polo t-shirts and oversized hats.)  

The third stop is Roanoke, Virginia, my new home.  It's a city of 97,000 nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The Appalachian Trail and an American Viticultural Area (winemaking region) are nearby.  And, political orientation aside, I'm reassured that two-thirds of Roanoke residents identify themselves as Democrat. (In my experience, that bodes well for farmer's markets, food co-ops, art house cinemas, granola, dreadlocks, and other delights.)  I can't wait to settle in and explore the area for three weeks before school starts.

More to follow as I cross America...

The True Friend Travel Test

Traveling helped me separate True Friends from Imposters.

And the people in the True Friends camp were not exactly the ones I expected.

I first noticed this phenomenon - I'll call it The True Friend Travel Test - on my 15-month deployment to Afghanistan.  Some of the people I assumed would send me letters, care packages and emails didn't.  And other people, people I didn't expect to give a hoot about me, did.  In fact, they showered me with letters, care packages and emails.

I've also noticed a similar phenomenon called The True Friend Dream Test. This year, when I summoned up the courage to dedicate myself to writing, to be myself, to be authentic, some of my "True Friends" didn't "get it."  No one's been outwardly critical of my aspirations, but indifference hurts more.

Like the True Friend Travel Test, the silver lining is that others - people I hadn't met before, people I considered mere acquaintances before I announced my dream to the world - have materialized.  They've commented on my blog, sent me emails.  They've rung me up to congratulate me, encourage me, and tell me that they're inspired.  They've given me strength.

Life is odd.

Again and again I see the parallels between traveling and following one's dreams.  Both are lonely, frightening, and uncertain.  But, I'm thankful for the slew of True Friends I've acquired (and reconfirmed) in the process.  I hope I can support them on their journeys as well as they've supported me.

What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

What to be when I grow up?  It's the age-old question.

A few people are born knowing the answer and sail effortlessly through life.  My sister, for example, decided to become a mechanical engineer at the age of five, and never looked back.  Now, at age 26, she is halfway through her PhD.     

Sometimes, I envy these people.  But mostly I'm glad to be myself.  I've taken a circuitous path through life, inventing and reinventing myself dozens of times.  But in the process, I've learned hundreds of life lessons and acquired hundreds of life experiences.  I believe, now, that these life lessons and life experiences were worth the angst of not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I started to (seriously) consider the answer to this age-old question when I was 18-years-old.  Over the next decade, I entertained dozens of alternatives.  Depending on when you met me between the ages of 18 and 28, I may have been a wannabe:  psychotherapist, allopathic physician, naturopathic physician, nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, public health practitioner, exercise physiologist, biologist, social worker, or writer.  (Note, that this is an abbreviated list.)   

At long last, at age 28, I've finally figured it out.  I want to be a writer.  It's been staring me in the face my entire life.  I know it's not an easy path.  I know I'll have to be creative, adaptive, and take a second job to supplement my income.  But I feel a great load taken off my shoulders.  I listened to my heart and I know I made the right decision.

Here is some comfort for all of you who still don't know:  the people born knowing what they want to be when they grow up are in the minority.  For the majority of us, it's a struggle...but it's a struggle with great potential for spiritual growth.

 
Here are seven realizations I made during my decade-long struggle to answer the age-old question of What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

Finding Your Path:  What should I be when I "grow up"??

1.  You're path is likely something you've been doing for a long time.  You may have been doing it as a "hobby" or for "fun."  You may have done it "instinctively" when you were a child at play.  (I wrote my first "book" when I was five years old.)

2.  It makes you feel authentic, real.  You like the person you are when you're doing this.  You are your true self.  Even some of your natural "faults" may lend themselves to this path.  (I never feel more like my real self than when I'm writing.  I'm also cluttered, weird, and don't mind spending time alone.  All of these characteristics have, at some point in my life been labeled as a "fault."  Yet, I see that they make me a better writer.)

3.  You lose track of time when you're doing it.  It almost doesn't feel like work.  Oftentimes, the time just slips away like it does when you're playing.  (When I write, I'll consult my watch when I take a break and oftentimes I'll be amazed to discover that two hours have passed in the "blink of an eye.")

4.  Overall it doesn't drain you of energy; it energizes you.  I admit it, when I was in my last job I'd often come home from work and be so mentally, emotionally and physically drained that it was all I could do to just make myself dinner before falling into bed.  Yet, when I write I often feel my energy return.  Even when I've been writing all day long.

5.  It often involves a risk or is riskier than an alternate path.  Getting out of the Army and forging my own path as a writer/"other odd job I have to supplement my writing income" was riskier (for me) than staying in the Army and on a familiar path.

6.  It empowers other people.  You may do it because it feels like play or it energizes you, but something about this path empowers other people.  The most successful people are the ones who realize (and act upon the fact) that the execution of their path is a valuable service to others.  For example, the best athletes and entertainers never forget their fan base.

7.  You can start it at any time in your life; there are no age limits.  My favorite quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, start whenever you want.  You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing.  We can make the best or the worst of it.  I hope you make the best of it.  I hope you see things that startle you.  I hope you feel things you never felt before.  I hope you meet people who have a different point of view.  I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." 

*  Pictures are from Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Nonconformity

We all have our own version of utopia (aka. bliss).  For some people, utopia is a spouse, children, and a 9-5 job.  For others, utopia is being single.  Or adopting kids.  Being childless.  Free-lance work.   Living in a high-rise in Manhattan.  Or a mud hut in Africa. 

At latest estimate, there are nearly 7 billion people on earth.  Which means there are 7 billion versions of utopia, right?  Unfortunately, no.  Instead of creating their own utopia, people routinely conform to a cookie-cutter version.

During my trip, I've observed that an obstacle holding people back from achieving dreams and traveling the globe is fear about how others will perceive and judge their utopia.

Whatever your utopia (you alone, are the only one who can figure that out), here is some inspiration to break away from the mold and create a life ruled by love, not fear.  Here are eight of my favorite nonconformity quotes from the world's finest thinkers:

"All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions."

~Adlai Stevenson

 

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to."

~Alan Keightley

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

~Sir Cecil Beaton

"They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own."

~Antonio Porchia

"A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Not all those who wander are lost."

~J.R.R. Tolkien

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

~Albert Camus

"How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception."

~Alfred de Musset

* Pictures are from Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Illusions

* Pictures are from Belgrade, Serbia.

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all -

young and old, rich and poor, good and evil,

the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly

to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom,

for clinging was their way of life,

and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging.

Though I cannot see it with my eyes,

I trust that the current knows where it is going.

I shall let go, and let it take me where it will.

Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'

The other creatures laughed and said,

'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you

tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks,

and you will die quicker than boredom!'

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,

and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again,

the current lifted him free from the bottom,

and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,

'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!

See the Messiah, come to save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more Messiah than you.

The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.

Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'

But they cried the more, 'Saviour!' all the while clinging

to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone,

and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.

~ Illusions by Richard D. Bach

Embracing Uncertainty and Living Your Dreams

On a lot of travel blogs, you see articles about following your dreams.  What does that have to do with travel?  An awful lot, I've realized.  Both travel and following your dreams require courage.  Both travel and following your dreams require a person to embrace uncertainty and conquer their fears.

At it's heart, travel (and following your dreams) is a truth-seeking journey.  What is the prerequisite for a truth-seeking journey?  I think it's a willingness to break from routine, to stop giving a hoot about what society thinks is "normal" or "prestigious" and to leave behind creature comforts and familiarity for the uncertainty of the unknown.

I've met a lot of people who are too afraid to travel or follow their dreams.  They would really love to quit their 9-5 and switch careers, to make money off of that "hobby," to pursue that burning passion.  Or they would really love to sell all of their belongings and travel the world for a year or more, maybe working along the way, but they are too afraid.

Their dreams keep calling out to them.  (It's hard to silence our hearts.  I know.  I've tried.)  But every time their heart starts talking, they start making excuses:  "It's too difficult to pay bills overseas."  "I'd have to find someone to rent my house or sublease my apartment."  "Only rich people can afford to travel."  "Who would take care of my goldfish?"  "Parting with my possessions is too difficult."  "I could never support myself."  "I can't travel or follow my dreams because I need money so that I can afford a bigger house, a nicer car, and better clothes so that I can impress other people."  "I'd fail and become disillusioned."  "My family and friends will think I'm weird, a disappointment."   

All those excuses are fear talking.

Recently I read a CNN Opinion article about how new college graduates are struggling to find a job (or a job in their field of study) right out of college.  It effectively said, "Don't become a journalism major."  "Don't become a history major, a geography major, a French major, a social work major."  Do something "sensible" like Engineering or Nursing.

On one hand, this article is right.  An Engineering or Nursing major is going to land a job easier, and a higher-paying one at that.  That's common sense.  That message has been drilled into me since the age of five.  But is a higher salary and promises of "security" worth selling your soul and your dreams?

This article is fear-mongering at it's finest.  I'd love to walk up to Carl E. Van Horn or Cliff Zukin and give them a titty twister.  Or maybe a swift kick to the balls.

After I read their article, I wondered how many dreams it crushed.  I wondered how many 20-year-olds read that article, let fear do all the talking, and relinquished their passions, never to follow their dreams again.  (It's amazing how many people give up their dreams early in life, years before they even enter the job market.)  I also wondered how many 40-year-olds, considering a mid-life career change, read that article and returned to their cubes, dejected and defeated, never to emerge.

Look, in following my dreams and becoming a writer I know I'm going to struggle.  I'll most likely have to take a second job to supplement my writing income.  I'm not going to be earning $90 to $100 K per year.  But you know what?  At least I'll be living life on my own terms.  At least I'll be able to look myself in the mirror every day and know that I'm living the mantra, "To Thy Own Self Be True."

Here is my take.  Life is short and we only have one.  Do that thing that you're really passionate about, that thing that energizes you, that thing that keeps you awake at night thinking about it, that thing you've wanted to do forever but were always too afraid to do.  Be creative.  Be adaptable.  Work hard.  If your dream is to become a writer, a photographer, a chef, a fashion designer, etc. realize that you are probably going to need to do unpaid work, unpaid internships, take a 2nd (or 3rd job) for a couple of years in order to break into the field.

Following your dreams are worth those sacrifices. 

Know what no one ever talks about?  The millions of "rich" but miserable people in the world.

I want to clarify one thing.  It's hard to know what we want to be when we grow up.  To quote Baz Luhrmann, "The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.  Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't."  Don't be afraid to switch jobs, to do volunteer work, to experiment.  Take classes, read books, ask questions, chip away at another degree.  All of these efforts will help you differentiate your "likes" from your "loves."

If you're not willing to work hard, to make sacrifices, to be creative, to be adaptable, etc. then you might be afraid.  Or it might not be your true passion.  There is a quote, "Distance to love is like wind to fire.  It extinguishes the small and kindles the great."  I think this quote should be reworded to read, "Stumbling blocks to dreams are like wind to fire.  They extinguish the small and kindle the great."   

And if you decide that your "love" is math or the hard sciences then don't shy away from it because you think it's too difficult, because you're scared to fail.  Don't become a liberal arts major just because you think it'll allow you a better social life or more time to sleep.  All of these things are examples of fear talking, too.

People tell me all the time that they are looking for the "truth" and that they can't seem to find it.  That they are stuck in a rut.  That they feel spiritually dead.  That they feel like there has to be more to life than this.  I think the biggest obstacle to a spiritual life, to a life of evolution, to a life of being true to oneself and following ones dreams is an over-reliance on SECURITY.  When we relinquish that need for security and embrace the unknown, that's when we really start to evolve, that's when we really start live.

"The search for security is an illusion. There's no evolution in it... Uncertainty, on the other hand, is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom. Everyday look for the excitement of what may occur in the field of possibilities. When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path..."

~Deepak Chopra 

 * Pictures are from the countryside near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. 

Whatever you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it.

In Budapest, Franz # 56 (real name:  Marco) helped me to confront my fears and embrace my dreams and destiny.  This is a spiritual, philosophical post.  I would like to share my conversation with Marco for all the dreamers out there.

After a boat ride down the Danube, Marco and I headed to a pub.  

Over a beer, Marco read my palms.  And he noted that my lifeline begins partway down my palm (as opposed to starting at the base of my fingers, like some peoples' lifelines do).  "What I'm reading," said Marco, "is that your life begins at 30."  

Talk about weird.

The priest in Varanasi, India told me something similar:  "Your luck will change for the better at 28."

In fact, come to think of it, I've always told myself the same thing.  I've had an intuition, for a long time now, that my 30's were going to blow my 20's to pieces, that my life was going to improve decade by decade, that I was going to get better and more sophisticated with age...like fine wine.

I told Marco that maybe the reason my lifeline begins at 30 is because it's taken me that long to figure out what my destiny is.  It's taken me that long to start following my dreams.

Then I told Marco that one of the hardest things for me as a dreamer is to put forth an effort, to ˝fight the good fight,˝ to attempt to make my name known in the world when I see how small and insignificant I really am.

I've never felt this way as keenly as I have on the trip.  When you catch a glimpse of how big the world is, how many people live in it and how diverse they all are, it is easy to comprehend how inconsequential you are, as one individual.

And then Marco said something I'll never forget, something so beautiful, though I've already forgotten exactly the words he used to say it.  

In essence, he said, "But you must try, you must work every day to achieve your dreams, despite it all, despite how small and inconsequential you may feel.  Because when you find your destiny and pursue your dreams you will began to 'vibrate' in tune with the universe.  You will tap into the creative energy of the universe.  And, at that moment, you're part of the whole, you're interconnected with every other being on the planet.  And when you realize your interconnectedness with six billion other people, you understand that you are no longer 'small and insignificant' and never will be again."

And then Marco looked at me and said, "You have potential."  

Potential.  It's something other people tell me from time to time, but something I so rarely tell myself.

And I realized, then, that I have no more excuses.  It's time to put 100% effort toward achieving my destiny and pursuing my dreams.

Yesterday, when reading a novel by Shauna Singh Baldwin, something in me knew that I was capable of writing a novel of that magnitude.  Somewhere within me I have the potential to produce sentences like Baldwin's, to craft stories like her's.  I'm not trying to sound egotistical.  I simply believe that we are all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.

Getting to that point as a writer will entail years of work, frustrations and failures.  It will entail more life experiences.  It will mean stretching myself far beyond whatever I thought possible as an artist.  But I can say this now, before all of my friends and family:  I've committed myself to the writing path.

And in making this committment in Budapest, I am aware that my writing needs to be about more than myself.  It needs to be about politics, it needs to be about poverty, it needs to be about inconvenient truths.  Because finding a destiny and pursuing a dream is, ultimately, a service to others.  

I need, I must, I am called upon to be an activist through my writing.  It is my life work.

What does your life work entail?

Paris, France

I'll say it upfront:  I love the way that French men smell.

I had this thought for the first time when I was 17 and riding the metro in Rome during World Youth Day.  I was boxed in by a group of French.  Boxed in does not adequately describe the overcrowdedness.  My head was very nearly shoved up some French man's hairy armpit.

When we left the metro, a person I was with commented that the French smelled horrible.  "They don't shave their armpits and I swear to God they don't wear deodorant in that damn country!" 

My reaction was quite different.  It was more along the lines of, "Mmmm baby, I want myself a French lover." 

Sadly, this was the last time I would smell French armpit for quite some time.

Eleven years later I read an article on CNN which confirmed that I'm not quite mad.  According to several large-scale studies, appreciating a person's natural smell is a sign that you are genetically compatible with them and would produce high quality offspring:

In two large studies led by Brown University olfactory expert Dr. Rachel Herz, women ranked a man's scent the most important feature for determining whether she would be sexually interested in him.


As it turns out, scent may be the main way in which women literally sniff out genetic compatibility with a potential mate.  How we smell is an external expression of the genes that make up our immune system.


Like fingerprints, each of us has our own unique "odor print," which is part of a region of genes known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC).  Women prefer the scent of men whose MHCs are different from their own.


So when we say that opposites attract, we may not be talking about differences in personality, but rather differences in immune systems.  This is one of Nature's ways of ensuring that we produce the healthiest offspring.

So, according to this article, I should move to Paris, find myself a nice French man and get to work producing the best and brightest spawn... 

But anyway, now that I've completely blacklisted myself, where to begin...

I adore Paris.

It is, without a doubt, the best city I've visited on my RTW trip.  There have only been three cities that I fell in love with at first sight:  New Orleans, Seattle, and Tel Aviv.  Paris was the fourth.  And as I write this I can already predict how much I'll miss Paris...even though I haven't left yet.

In three days, I've come to appreciate French culture, a culture that non-French people have repeatedly described as pompous. 

I understand now that the French are not so much pompous as fiercely proud of their culture and determined to preserve every vestige of it.

There are also cultural differences that may account for this misperception. 

I notice that people don't smile at me on the street.  Someone explains that the French do not believe that you have to smile in order to be polite.  A smile is only rendered when the person legitmately feels like smiling.  It's not like America where we give eachother hundreds of forced, fake smiles each day because we feel we must.

And I see that the smile analogy extends to all aspects of life... 

Little here is forced or fake.  Things are not done out of obligation but because the person genuinely wants to do them.  People don't buy mass quantities of healthy food.  Instead they buy small quantities of their favorite foods...the richest, most decadent foods...and they savor them slowly over three hour long meals. 

So many things endear me to Spain's cooler cousin.  I'm enchanted by the lyrical, cooing, whispered way that French words sound as they swirl out of someone's lips...

And the incredible artwork...the chic boutiques...the lazy Seine...the sun dappled tree canopies...the smoky, cavernous Bohemian cafes...the endless bottles of vin that are sipped rather than chugged...the male cyclists in spandex shorts... 

I mean, God, even Jim Morrison is buried here! 

...One evening in the Montmarte neighborhood of north Paris, I met a painter named Aloin.  And I let him sketch me in charcoal.    

It reminded me of that picture Javed's friend, Danesh, took of me at the Monsoon Palace in Udaiper on Valentine's Day.  I want to save Aloin's sketch so that I can look back on it one day and see an image of myself when I was still young and "almost fearless," still idealistic, unruined, living at the cusp of my late 20's and early 30's. 

I'm finally old enough to know how young I still am...

Aloin and I shared a bottle of rosè (blush wine) on a lawn near the Sacrè Coeuer.

Sacrè Coeuer.

Inside.

He conversed with me in French, and in two hours I relearned everything I absorbed in a semester of French classes at the Academy.  I'm amazed at how easy it is to learn a new language when a Parisian painter and a bottle of rosè are involved.

I asked Aloin to show me where else French is spoken in the world.  In typical artist fashion, he created a grand sketch of the earth in charcoal on a shred of napkin and he shaded in the countries where the people speak francaise. 

There is Madagascar, parts of west Africa, and the Carribbean.  And there's the south Pacific island of Tahiti, an island that I became fascinated with due to a song by Crosby Stills and Nash...

Ever since I heard that song on the radio on the way to work one rainy morning, I've wanted to take a sailing expedition around the Southern Islands.

After the bottle of vin was consumed, I left Aloin and walked the dark streets of the City of Lights.

I knew then what I've known about so many things in my life.  It was not a revelation reached in a logical, systematic, connect-the-dots sort of way.  Rather, it was a spontaneous leap of consciousness:  it was my intuition.

I knew at that moment that my life would continue to involve the French.  That one day I'd sail around the island of Tahiti, that I'd practice public health in a French speaking African nation, that I'd love a man who's smell I cherish...

I made a pact with myself somewhere on those dark streets of Paris:  I will learn French when I return to America.