lost in space

this is that weird time between change of season and pending new travels when i'm not really sure if i should be running around with no shoes on or hiding in a dark corner somewhere. winter has left us and again there is that injection of rebirth in our veins yet it always leaves me so discomforted at first. maybe something like a cosmic jet-lag from wandering so far out of orbit for so long. but i have great things to look forward to and great challenges yet to overcome. i welcome challenge and i'm on good terms with the pesky ghosts that follow me and their random visits to my life.

i wonder what india will bring for me. i wonder if anyone else thinks its strange that i've never put much consideration into traveling there until one random moment of awakening i felt a few weeks ago when all i wanted was to feel something colorful.

meeting with the well-traveled is a cool experience and useful source of information because somehow it comes that the well-traveled have all been to india (specifically in the same whim and calling as that which has beckoned me). its all part of a bigger picture and i rarely confess things beyond my blog which i'm pretty sure nobody reads anymore but this is merely my training and only the beginning of my plans falsest the gods call me back into the nothingness before my travels have finished.

its no secret. i want to go to africa. i want to disappear into the motherland and i want to be well-trained before i do so. africa is no first step for a traveler and i've been receiving plenty of experience in the mean time. it all seems to be one step by one step closer to the motherland and one day i'll be here at journal entry number 500 having the same tingling and silly smile i have right now while thinking of india and nepal.

there is a difference between a traveler and a normal person; we want to more. be warned however, wide-eyed wanderer, that your lust for this planet can easily turn into greed should you not learn from your travels. please take a few notes from your wanderings and remember that you are a guest on this planet, be respectful to its generous hospitality.

give i jah wisdom

a few big steps closer today

but let i not forget the beauty and wonder of the place upon which i currently reside

how strange it is...

one day a long time ago i was sitting on the balcony above the peace corps office in apia, samoa with some friends talking about times come and gone. i believe the man i was talking to was named brian and he had been away from home much longer than i had ever been and i'll never forget something he said to me. he told me 'the world will continue to turn with or without you' and it really sunk deep inside of me. i thought of my friends dan and beth, who at that time were engaged to be married, and it although it didn't hurt to be gone it did make me realize that i had wandered far far away from anything i've ever called home.

i remember thinking that day about all the people in the world who have ever felt love from another human being. what a shame it is that we can only spend so little time together and we take for granted every breath we are given. but thats just life. we will one day die and our remains will slowly dust off along with all memories of us and the concept is simply too great for us to fathom or question; we simply accept it and are better off for not thinking too much about it.

i've become an anthropologist or as i like to call it, an 'archaeologist without a shovel'. i've seen the dust of civilization and i've seen the stones we've stacked in the memory of humans. some are great pyramids and monuments to the gods while others are small tombstones in homage to our lost loved ones may the gods rest them.

the passing of time is enjoyable. seventy-some years seems like a lifetime yet 5.000 years seems like the blink of an eye yet so much has happened. i'm no religious person, more of an evolutionary biologist and although i think humans are humbled before their own advancements i still think we have been dealt some amazing cards, i.e. bipedialism or the missionary position (dont laugh. its a phenomenon of the human species that allowed us to continue our evolution into upright mammals.)

in our achievements we've left behind these fascinating stone structures that really blow my mind and i've seen them on essentially every continent. sometimes i like to muse myself with out of this world theories about the aliens who left them behind or the portals they hide from under. i ask myself questions about why they occurred so congruently around the world in essentially the same manner however unbeknownst to other civilizations.. or perhaps there weren't (and aren't) any coincidences.

moreover it is in these great monuments to man that i think of the simplicity of things. i think of dan and beth and the friends i've made. i think of our abilities as humans to form such meaningful relationships that become the foundations of our existence. i think about the achievements of man and my complete and utter disinterest in adding to our accomplishments. i'm simply a wanderer and forever a learner, perpetually curious about humans. i'm 30 and i feel the same as i did when i was 8 years old thinking i was a tiny alien mixed in with the humans lost from my tiny spaceship. i spent a long time disliking this world and for that i'm very sorry, however by the time the tides of teenage angst had receded i again found myself curious and thirsty for learning.

i'll wander and continue to wander while drawing little pictures on mirrors or leaving insightful words on scraps of paper in strangers' pockets. i think this world has turned out to be pretty cool and even if it turns with or without me i'm just glad its spinning at all.

oh yeah.. i'm going to india soon and hopefully nepal. thats fucking great :)

love what you do

galata kulesi - istanbul

things don't always go the way you plan - that's the beauty of it

this must be the place :)

fuck-it-all forays to detroit (a term coined by joseph kirk scott)

visiting home feels to me like a giant portal from the other side of the world. you step into this huge flying machine and after one and a half 'vegetarian' meals, three ginger ales and some lightly salted pretzels you find yourself at those heroic gates exiting the airport to be greeted into the arms of someone you once knew; i'm lucky because my mom comes to pick me up and her hugs are always the same.

coming home is naturally weird but for short visits i have learned to adapt to differences and actually it gets only weirder the longer i have been gone. everyone seems to think that the increasing number of babies hanging out in my tribe are responsible for my culture shock but i think its absolutely amazing. its actually the babies who have made my visit very joyful and proud moreover. i've got some really amazing friends and i've watched them turn into amazing fathers and mothers. its quite a blessing and they are almost as lucky as their children are.



so as the first day closes to an end i grab a glass bottle of unsweetened lipton ice tea and a can of pringles and i comfortably drift off to sleep on my parents blue couch where i've rested my traveling head so many times before. but its the next morning when the fun begins.

you never know where the hell you are when you wake up that morning. in fact, if it weren't for the looming painting of a lighthouse keeper hung above my parents couch i would really need some time for morning adjustment. i think this is when it actually begins to hit me that i'm home. i've spent the evening with my family and a few aunts and uncles and cousins and now its time to bridge that last gap between my past and future in all of its beautiful oblivion: my friends.

seeing your friends is fucking amazing. its so amazing that you lose appropriate adjectives to describe how amazing it is. you run through your head the thousands of stories you want to share but instead you dont care so much, you'd rather make new stories in that short week that you are together. thats exactly what happened this week and its funny to me when my parents ask me about my friends and whats going on in their lives and really i dont know, i just know that its great to spend some time with them and howl at the moon together for a while. morning coffee is the time to catch up on each others' lives, nighttime is when we simply celebrate our togetherness.

and here i am again.. widdled down to my final day and final night in detroit and its expectedly introspective. its days like this that i begin to wonder about what to do next. this glorious year 2012 is going to take me almost farther than i've ever gone in this world (samoa doesn't count.. thats really really far). i'm off to see the end of this world and 2012 is a perfectly appropriate year to do so.



there it is.. patagonia, argentina - the end of the world as we know it. this story is about to get really really interesting.

mystery of taksim - leyla teras