Time to start taking it a little seriously

So I've started a list. OK. Who am I trying to impress. I've started several lists -- in several locations and on several media. Part of the charm of me living with me. It may seem like a fun time, but it gets challenging with immutable deadlines.

Still need to call my credit card companies and tell them I am hitting the road so they don't deny a charge while I am out of the country.

US State Department: fill in a voluntary report to the Quito Embassy so if there is a volcanic eruption, they will have the name of this American. 

Bill pay. I have 90% of my budget on auto. Just a few more things and it should coast.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I need to book a return flight. They won't let me enter Ecuador without proof that I am planning to leave at some point.

Holy shit

What once seemed like a distant possibility is now 30 days away. This time next month, I will be doing something I've never done -- and never thought I would do. Get on a plane and fly alone to South America.

I am nervous, scared and excited. It is a little like anticipating a jump in a very cold pool of water -- you know it will be a great experience, but not sure how much it will hurt.

I am feeling more confidence every day as I research where I am going and time I spend practicing Spanish. 

Still, holy shit. 

Something different happened last night.
I was talking about the affection I feel for the teachers I work with.
Every day, 6-8 of us gather at a table in our shared work room.
I was sharing a story about Tom. How much I enjoy his easy going nature.
We sometimes kid that it is even childlike.
He owns a pet turtle. He named her Dusty.
She hybernates in the winter and recently Tom has been excited in our lunch talks  ...Dusty is awake!
The other day, Tom was excited to bring in a video of Dusty walking.
He pulled it up on his phone.
Here was a turtle.  Still. Still.
Then one leg moves.
Tom shouts, See!

Something about his childlike wonder gave me the gigles.
And then it happened.
I opened my mouth and laughed out loud.
And laughed until I cried with tears of laughter.

May 9, 2015  -- my first belly laugh in a year.

Saturday 27 june 2015  09:15 Quito (UIO) 10:10 Cuenca (CUE) XL1541 Economy-V Maximum 2 pieces which weigh 23 kg in total

Here it is. Another step for me. My first booking of an international intra-country flight. Not a big deal I guess. But it is significant to me. First time I've done this. Won't be the last.

I've figured out the broad strokes on the canvas for three weeks. Next, a week in Peru with a trip to Machu Picchu.

So I was trying to figure out how to get back to Portland from Lima. But the flights sucked. First leg left at midnight and final leg included a five hour layover in San Francisco.

I couldn't figure out how to make it work. So instead of getting pissed off, I just walked away from the computer and did something else.

When I worked for Higher Education Chancellor Tom Bartlett, I would often hear Tom say, "If you can't answer the question -- change the question."

So if I can't find the flight home I want, then let's come up with another question.

Or as my coming of age favorite writer, Hunter Thompson used to say, "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

A sense of peace is falling over me. At least for this moment. As I look toward getting on a plane and heading out.

I know where I will land. Where to go to stay the night. It will be in the morning around ten local time, so I will have time to get settled and look around a bit. It will be a Saturday night and maybe I will head across the street to the northwest style brewpub.

The next day I am guessing I will awake to the sounds of a church bell. A good day to  walk around the neighborhood and watch the rhythm of a city as it goes to church.  I will stay in Quito for a week -- flying out to Cuenca at 9 am on Saturday. It is a 55 minute flight down the Andes. Pila -- my landlady -- is arranging for someone to pick me up at the airport.

For at least the next week, I will stay in Pila's home in El Centro, the oldest part of town. I am starting  to know the layout of Cuenca and expect by the time I arrive -- it will seem almost familiar. Hence a sense of peace.

Shit's becoming real

Just two months now until I head off by myself to someplace I've never been before.

It is scary. That's one reason I am doing it.

This past year has seen a lot of change. Things over which I did not have control. And there were times I hated it.

It's a funny thing, human nature. Do we prefer when things stay the same? Or at least stay the same by our choice. And yet, life is not about choice. We choose not to age. For the most part, choose not to die.

And there is pain in that, in life itself. Jung and Buddha intersected on the one point: we need to face pain. Experience it fully and not deny it. For to do so, is to become crazy, they both said.

My daughter reflected on someone's behavior that I didn't understand and she ever so wisely said, "people do what they think will make them happy."

So profound. Invoking the ancient wisdom of Socrates who said, people don't do bad things because they are bad people. They do bad things because they think it will make them happy.

So back to my trip.

I am reminded of an exercise by self-esteem expert Tom Peters.
He brought several people on stage and taught them to say:"no matter what you do or say, I am still a good person."
He asked them to repeat it after each sentence he said.

He began:
"I don't like you"
They repeated the sentence: no matter what you do or say, I am still a good person."
"You are dumb"
The refrain.
"You are fat"
The refrain.
"You are fired"
The refrain.

At the end of the exercise, Peters told the audience that each time he has run this exercise, the same thing happens. As his comments become more critical, without any coaching -- the participants speak louder and more clearly.

Peters' point, I think, is that it's not just our physical skin that can toughen up with regular work or exercise. It is also our metaphorical skin.

I am tired of the universe saying at random times things I didn't expect or didn't want to hear.
In the past year, I've felt alone and lonely.
I don't want to feel that way any more -- even when I am alone.

Travel, in itself, is its own reward. But somewhere in South America I am counting on being more lonely and alone than I've ever felt before. I want to embrace that as an innoculant. When I return to familiar places and sounds and there is a breeze that before would have invoked a sense of dread and loneliness, I will be able to say (like Dustin Hoffman said in Wag the Dog), This? This is nothing. You should have seen.....

why

Someone asked me why I am going to south America.
I wondered why it was hard to give an answer.
After thinking on it, I have the answer to why it's hard to answer, though perhaps not the reason I am going

It may be an act of faith.  
That there is something out there.  Something I don't know. Perhaps about myself.  Waiting to be learned.

I can't be sure. Or can't imagine what it might be. I've often quoted the Zen line
The way in, is the way out.  

Perhaps for me, this time, the way out is the way in.