Realities

A text from a somewhat distant friend...

"Are you still going backpacking in south pacific?"

My response...

"Southeast Asia, Europe, into Canada, the East Coast, to Michigan, back home. Three months and Twenty days."

**

A coworker of mine, Kayla, is heading to Nicaragua in June. She's meeting a guy she was seeing when he lived in San Diego. He moved to Nicaragua to surf and run a surf camp. She plans to go for a few weeks. She knows exactly where she is going and a photo of her life there can likely be summed by a single photograph.

I've decided that not even the likes of Jackson Pollock could pull off a piece of art as complex as the one I'm about to embark on.

I heard myself tell Kayla today that, "if people would stop telling me how incredible and life changing this vagabonding is going to be...I would think I was going completely nuts."

"I know, I can't believe I'm doing this."

**

Jason wrote me today on Facebook. Language barriers, the incredibly unsettling feeling of not knowing which direction he was actually headed (for days.) He talked about the worn down drag that promises no comfort of you're own couch at night or your puppy greeting you at the end of the day with a little tail wagging and a tongue hanging from his little smile. He told me the frustration of having little control of situations due to the inevitable reliance's on others, of the only food he was given trashed (it had mayo on it), and he told me of the fear. In so many words. He also told me of the gold ring wearing Argentinean man that slipped him a 10 spot (so he could buy food) and of his safe arrival.

With not knowing if you're safe, if your bag/your entire life will be stolen, if you will be beat up at any moment because you stick out like an elephant among a blanket of orangutans, if you get lost or go the wrong direction, if you miss your bus or get there right in time because you chose to leave your hiding sunglasses at a place whose foundation was the last floor you slept on. With not knowing...

But trusting your instincts, trusting others to help you along, and trusting yourself in knowing that no matter what ---the moment is your reality. It is your choice to make it heaven or hell.

Three months and twenty days...............

THIS IS GOING TO BE NUTS!!!!!!!