People as places as people

Modest Mouse "People As Places As People" from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

I'm packing up for another move. Anytime I move from place to place, it feels like a breakup with a lover.

Georgetown, TX

Georgetown was the guy next door. My first kiss. The one who I practiced sharing secrets with. Who I pretended to have a grown-up life with. But it was always Austin, his older and cooler brother, that I kept on my radar-- swearing that one day when I'm ready to settle, we'd commit to each other.

San Diego, CA

San Diego was a hot shot. His radiant energy ignited my ambitions and awakened my ego. He made me aware of my Texan accent, which I consequently worked to hide. I knew he was loved by many, to the point that I questioned whether or not I could ever really have an intimate relationship. There were few quiet and intimate spaces... he wore his heart on his sleeve for transients and their 5-7 night stands. It was like dating somebody who's always the life of the party. And it was fun while it lasted.

I think my parents had hoped all along that I'd settle with Dallas, the son of a wealthy oil tycoon who doesn't believe poverty exists. He would provide for me financially, and that's about it. But he's never been too fond of me either. Not wanting to be enslaved to a mysogynistic future with Dallas, I decide to take steps to initiate a partnership with China. There is very little passion, but I know that this strategic partnership will allow me to maintain my independence. This all makes sense in my head, but my feet move slow, and instead take me in a totally different direction...
__________________________________________________
"And the people you love, but you didn't quite know, they're the places that you wanted to go"
If this music video were the story of my life, I'd have brought home a saltwater fish or something from Oceania instead of a pine tree. Something so foreign to my upbringing that it makes my family a little uncomfortable.
__________________________________________________

(Independent/Western) Samoa

Samoa was like the former neighbor of a friend of a friend's cousin that I caught eyes with on a walk by the river one day that triggered my infatuation. But somehow he had already been on my radar, and I had heard that he lived out in the woods somewhere. The more I realized how little I knew about this guy, the more my infatuation grew. I saw him as the missing piece to who I wanted to be. Growing up, I felt stifled by gender roles and the idea of impersonal relationships. While I was with Samoa, he taught me how to be human again. For a moment, I felt complete, and I felt like I had found a home. This passed though, as it slowly sank in that my history and context lies in another time and place, and that if I stayed, one puzzle piece would remain, but the rest might fade away.

North Carolina

North Carolina was the quiet and understanding friend that let me cry in his bed all day after I had broken up with Samoa, only to realize it was too late for me to try to go back "home".

Homelessness/Free Love

It was somewhere in between NC and Georgia that I decided it's okay to be "homeless". And then once I'd grasped that, it was like 1960s free love all over the country. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Hampshire, Massachussets, Maine, and then Hawaii.

How I ended up back in the middle of the Pacific, I still don't know. They say that if you don't find closure when ending a relationship, you're bound to look for qualities from the former relationship in a new partner.


But no matter what, I'll always have my fish with me. Because we are the places that we wanted to go...

Roses and Garbage

5/2/11 (a previously unpublished but now relevant journal entry)
Nostalgia, Homesickness, Killing the Buddha and Spring Cleaning
The Peanut Gallery

Homesickness and nostalgia are diseases that are way too easy to catch. I'm writing this from the bedroom where I grew up, and yet I still feel a longing for a place that is no longer. I spent most of the morning watching old home videos where my brothers and I are rarely separate, and all are pardoned for being ignorant or naive.

Good Edifying Thangs

When I'm stuck thinking about what to do in the future, I (dangerously) draw on past memories of feeling fulfilled. In looking for "home" I am reminded of various people in various places that made me feel at home. Building forts with Molly, playing music with Thanasi and Kyle in the park, being in love (more than once)...

And being in this room, I'm reminded of the wall of dried flowers I affectionately referred to during my teenage years as the "relationship graveyard".

Matt Easley and I on our way to the band banquet. Pretty sure those flowers joined the graveyard. Mirka was a total upgrade :)

Nostalgia can confuse any relationship. As I found with my last partner, the first few months were joyous, and yet were so situationed in a very specific time and place that to hold onto those times in comparison to the present would naturally leave me unhappy. Moreover, it made it so that I could not even be in the present and see things as they were... I kept pining over what could have and should have been.



Killing the buddha-- it's a saying that for me, means that when you've found bliss in your life, don't try to hold onto it or expect it to flourish, but to kill it. For me anyway, this makes sense because I have a tendency to aggrandize my zen-like moments to the point where I defeat the purpose of the moments altogether.

Spring cleaning- Okay, so maybe for a less harsh metaphor, rather than killing the Buddha, maybe I'll just work on composting. What I mean, is that I just need to stop and evaluate what I can weed out of my life. This is easier said than done, as many people places and things have been associated with pleasure in the past. Therefore, initially I have a feeling that getting rid of these things mean removing pleasure from my life. However, it's this cleaning and composting process that allows me to make room for new things to come and my own self-betterment. Expecting the present moment (as good as it might be) to be as it was in the past is worse than just seeing the present moment for what it is even if "bad things" happen. Composting is taking things that were once fruitful but have since turned rotten and using them to assist in a new growth cycle.


11/17/11

I just lost a $3,300 car, a board bag worth at least $100, and a lot of my favorite t-shirts and collectibles to a really shady mechanic (do not let anyone you know go anywhere near Affordable Auto!). I bought this car off a craigslist ad that seemed to be "by owner", but turned out to be the niece of "Uncle Jimmy". They told me they were selling the car because the girl who had it before couldn't afford to take it out of impoundment (foreshadowing!)


The week we had together was awesome! We went all around the island together, and this was taken after a day of surfing at Pinetrees.

So within a week of driving this car, it died with a blown head gasket. I had it towed to a mechanic who estimates $4200 damage. I called Uncle Jimmy, and he offered to tow it back to his side of the island and do it for just the price of the parts. This was on July 1st. Every week he kept saying "oh we're real busy this week" or "everybody's on vacation to Oahu right now". Finally, the week before I left for Thailand I made him a deal that if the car wasn't ready when I got back, he would buy it back from me. So then I get back from Thailand and the car is STILL not fixed. He tells me he was waiting for me to front the money for the parts ($1000). So I offered to my roommate that if she paid for the repairs, she could essentially have the car.

I called Jimmy to tell him I wanted to talk to him about the car, and he told me he had to move locations. So he gave us directions to his "new place", and we rolled up and there's my car with "not for parts" written on the windshield. I walked up to it, and started to open the door when this girl came out of nowhere and told me I didn't have the right to touch the car. Confused as hell, I told her "This is my car. All my things are in it... and wtf are you talking about?" She held her ground, so I went to find Jimmy who sheepishly told me he hadn't heard from me and was moving lots... which apparently meant he had no idea how to make outgoing calls to inform me of what was going on. I went back to the car to show the lady the receipt of purchase, and after some bickering she finally let me in... TO FIND THAT ALL MY STUFF WAS TRASHED! And the day ended when she told me that if I wanted my car back, I'd have to pay almost a thousand in impoundment fees. At which point, I walked away.

Even though I lost a lot of money, I now feel weightless from that situation. I held onto the idea of that car for so long. Possessions, man. That was the Buddha I had to kill. This is my vice: knowing when to let go. Because in the end... whatever decays only opens up room for new growth...

__________________________________________

"Defiled or immaculate. Dirty or pure. These are concepts we form in our mind. A rose we have just cut and placed in our vase is pure. A garbage can is the opposite. But that is only when we look on the surface. If we look more deeply, we will see that in just five or six days, the rose will become part of the garbage. We do not need to wait five days to see it. If we just look at the rose, and we look deeply, we can see it now. And if we look into the garbage can, we see that in a few months its contents can be transformed into lovely vegetables, and even a rose. If you are a good organic gardener, looking at a rose you can see the garbage, and looking at the garbage you can see a rose. Roses and garbage inter-are. They need each other very much [...] The garbage is just as precious as the rose."

-Thich Naht Hanh, Peace is Every Step

Kissing the Earth

“Although we walk all the time, our walking is usually more like running. When we walk like that, we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth […] Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. We have caused a lot of damage to the Earth. Now it is time for us to take good care of her. We bring our peace and calm to the surface of the Earth and share the lesson of love. We walk in that spirit.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

As mentioned in several previous posts, I’m a believer in the therapeutic power of a nice walk. The other night, I was introduced to a “free Thai foot massage”. We arrived at this park, passing a bunch of buff dudes doing their muay Thai training stuff, then came upon this little winding pathway composed of thousands of tiny stones. I removed my shoes and started to walk across. The beginning had smoother stones that began closer to the ground. I worked over those quickly to find that as the path continued, the stones were progressively raised to little rounded points and spread out, thus creating a very uncomfortable experience for my feet. At this point, I noticed a little old man ahead of me. If I were passing by, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that he was moving through the pathway. So after observing the man, I slowed my pace to what might look like a halt, closed my eyes, breathed in, out, and smiled. As I rolled each foot from the heel to the toes, I mentally scanned each pressure point and imagined exactly where every rock was digging in. As soon as one point was identified, I began to lift off the rock and displace with more weight in another area. Before, I was just rushing over the rocks like some obstacle I wanted to get out of the way in order to get to “happy feet” at the end. After changing my approach, I found my “happy feet” with each mindful step. I felt the intensity of each rock, but rather than seeing them as nuisances, the rocks began to awaken not only the nerves in my feet, but throughout my body and how I carry myself. Correcting my posture and aligning my head over my shoulders over my knees and toes, I felt like I was kissing the Earth with my feet.

The next day, I headed west from the city into the jungle. Craving intimacy with nature, I hiked barefooted through the jungle and waterfalls. Kissing the Earth.

This electrifying feeling reminds me that having a harmonious yet mutually vulnerable relationship with the earth is really the only way to have sustainably “happy feet”.

Turn up your speakers, turn off the lights, and dance your way into heaven...

mp3: Jack Penate- Pull My Heart Away

Asadachi!

So a day after my last somewhat unsettling post, I got a job. In the words of my partner's parents, "A good balance between working towards your future and staying in the moment helps you to just be" and how true that is. After having one of the hardest, most emotionally and physically demanding jobs I think anyone could ever have (wilderness therapy with juvies), it's been hard for me to just let go, take some time for myself, and relax without feeling worthless.

Before coming out here, I was proud to tell people that I was looking forward to bagging groceries. I think my job is a step up from that. I've never worked retail before, but I am now the proud employee of Surf N Sea, the oldest surf shop on the North Shore AND the only one right on the beach. I get free rentals for myself and a friend (that goes for surfboards, stand up paddle boards, kayaks, dive equipment, etc). I am also required to take surf lessons some of the best to break some bad habits, as well as being required to swim with sharks (from a cage, of course). After 3 months I'll get PADI certification (which is super expensive otherwise).


Anyway, even though it's retail and I'm quite anti-capitalist, I love my job. At least half of our customers are Japanese, so I've been trying to pick up phrases here and there. I can say things ranging from "yes you are very very skinny, but this will shrink in the wash" to "hello, you have nice morning wood!" thanks to an initiation prank played on me by my co-workers. If I do end up studying Japanese Politics in graduate school, this may or may not be of some use...

Working towards the future but staying in the moment... one embarrassed Japanese customer at a time.