onward

three and a half years ago i was sitting in a dark internet cafe in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  it was about 16:00 and the people inside were beginning to stir over my presence in the cafe, or rather the dangerousness of being in this particular Central American capital after dark.  i had some thoughts to let out.  i had half written notebook entries of emotions i had not been offered a chance to sort through.  it wasn't my first of travels i had taken however it was a travel that really began to shake things up inside of me.

i thought back to the strange island where i had come to spend my birthday.  the island, La Isla de Ometepe,  is a really curious place nestled in the center of Lago de Nicaragua.  It is made of two conjoined volcanoes and boasts to be the only place in the world where you can find fresh-water sharks; blind ones that resemble the hammerhead.  that island was a place of escape for me.  it was almost like a dream.  Ometepe is surrounded by eerie clouds and the moment you arrive you completely forget about the world across the shore.  i found part of myself there in the form of the cardboard face of a wall clock with no back and no hands.  this is an allusion to something i will never explain, that one goes with me. 

a million stories were written into the stars on that travel both to myself and to the people whose paths have been crossed.  it took me somewhere and gave me reassurance that i know what i'm doing out here in the world.  i ended first with a trip to an internet cafe and second with an ill-fated trip to my final bar in Central America where i found myself diving into the back of a taxi screaming 'aeropuerto!'.

its cliche, but i'll say it.  'here i am'.  Kathmandu, Nepal 16:33 on September 4th, 2012.  my plans for the evening include buying a small pair of scissors to trim my beard, figuring out a way to get the blue dye i spilled off the white wall of my hotel (or cover it with a curtain and chair), getting tipsy for the last time with my dear friends and stuffing my face with dhal bhat.

this world has been fucking great to me.  i cant figure out why i've been blessed this way but i have and i never take gifts for granted.  my only true obligation to this world is to not cause harm to people and to make sure i dont lost my mind out here; its great and i'm good at it.  i dont really care anymore what people think of me or what they dont think, but then again i never really have.

somehow i always play the same song every time i leave from exceptionally faraway locales, the song is called 'sounds of life outside' by pendulum.  its drum n' bass and if you dont like it, it's probably because you dont like drum n' bass.  my friend Sid put this on the iPod that i was sent for Christmas when i was in the Peace Corps.  i heard this song on repeat when i watched rain pour from the red-tinted windows of the village bus in Samoa.  uncertainty and chance were the only things i knew back then and i really haven't come to know much more since. 

it's funny really; everything is kind of funny.  i've been told the real world has passed me by a long time ago and i think i'm too far away to try to make up for any lost ground.  and so it goes that i keep on doing the only things i know how to do, and get better at them.

happy 600th, mookblog :)