Reflections on a Year

As I prepare to board this plane, my heart is full and emotion surges through my body. I will be processing all that has happened for a time to come. Am I ready to return, to rejoin a path, to feel stability? Yes, I am ready. It is an adventure of a different name. Will I wander in the world again? Oh, I have no doubt.

I have gained and unloaded baggage this year, both literally and figuratively. I have explored the power of personal growth, of the mind's incredible ability to lift up and put down. I remind myself of the path of life: if I am not on a path that brings happiness, and with happiness comes peace, patience and kindness, then I must change my path. 

Reflections on this past year of living. Whew. I think back and my mind skips and leaps among the countless life affirming and life changing experiences. El Camino, Nepal, Antarctica, Israel, meeting friends old and new across the globe. Falling in love, and making the decision to fall out of it. Musing on a future, going back to school and the joy and direction that brings. Encountering loneliness and also the greatest moments of acceptance and exhilaration. I have loved beyond words what this year has meant in the scheme of my life.

I think upon my favorite poem, "Ithaka" by Cavafy, particularly the last lines:

"Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. 

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now. 

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean."

I am finding my voice, my evolution. This is not the end of a series of moments, it's a continuation of saying "I am here, now, and that is blissfully enough." 

Aloha my America.

Last Stop: Ireland

Oh Ireland, you are as I imagined: a misty, green wonderland of pubs flowing Guinness, live music spilling into the streets. Lovely beyond words, it was unexpected Ireland that has become my last stop on almost eleven months of travel. 

Dahlia, my Israeli friend recently moved to Dublin for work, and invited me to stop by before heading home. And here I find myself, in a relatively quick jaunt to Ireland before heading home tomorrow. 

After an adrenaline adventure of driving a manual car on the left side of the road while navigating from an offline google map in the gathering dusk, I made it to my reunion with Dahlia only a half hour late. Catching each other up over fresh herb tea, we enjoyed our friendships that can span borders, time and my lack of Facebook. 

The next day I strolled Dublin as Dahlia worked before heading out to the southwest corner of the island to Kerry County and the famous Ring of Kerry. With the long summer days, we arrived in the kick off town of Killarney at 10 pm with a few minutes of daylight to discover a ridiculously cute B&B within walking distance of the pub lined central streets. Calling it an early night, we geared up for the next days drive around the notoriously narrow and windy Ring of Kerry. 

The 180 km drive around the Kerry peninsula is Ireland in all it's splendid glory. Pastures of roaming sheep and black Kerry cows, dramatic plunging cliff, misty islands and an all together romanticism conjuring images of women turning into seals. We took two days exploring the quintessential Irish towns dotting the ring, crossing by ferry to Valentia Island, and walking along bays of dramatic shades of green landscapes. 

Scene: Tetrapod Trackway on Valentia Island in Ireland. 

Woman in purple coat: "So, like have you seen one of the tetrapods?"

Me: "Um, the actual animal?"

Her: "Yeah."

Me: "No."

Her: "So that long (5 minute walk) walk was for NOTHING!"

As we are looking at 385 million year old tracks of the first known evidence of vertebrates crawling from sea to land. Wow. 

Another momentous occasion was drinking my very first Guinness, and then second, third and so on in the pubs of Kenmare. Dahlia and I had a proper night of long toasts to friendship, love and life as we made friend with locals and travelers alike. 

Carriage ride!

My, I admire this girl. She is just fabulous, intelligent and kind. 

Returning to Dublin yesterday, we headed out for a night of dancing in Dublin with a few of Dahlia's friends until the wee morning hours. 

Trinity College. 

Today was a Dublin tour, park lounging and the World Cup finals. Right now, I am watching Sex and the City with Dahlia and her lovely Irish roommate Elaine, how American and single lady fabulous is that. 

Tomorrow, I will board a plane for the United States. Like the Wallflowers lyrics, "Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same." Reflections are coming in waves, of my time walking with aloha. Wonderfully though, in this moment, I am living in the present and happy. 

well...

Well. Breaking up sucks. There you have it. A tumult of emotion, a mind distanced from reality. The anti-living-in-the-moment. That's breaking up. And that has been my life (if it hasn't been a bit obvious from the previous blog posts) for the past two and half months or so. Breaking up in all sorts of ways. I suppose the reasons for my decision to end my relationship with Michael are mute and don't really need to be discussed here (mostly due to some latent respect for him). But this is my forum to triumph and also to bitch, right? Right.

I am back in Germany now, with Maria and the girls. I feel like I haven't been a very attentive friend while I have been here, as distracted as I am about my emotions surrounding Michael. It is ironic actually, because when I was here before Paris, I felt high as a kite, and unencumbered by break up shittiness. I suppose I was in an extended phase of denial for awhile after breaking it off. It wasn't until the last ten days or so in Paris that I began to enter the "oh shit, have I ruined my life" phase, which is a horrible place to be mentally. I unloaded on my friends, pumped myself up, wrote and reflected and ate an obscene amount of nutella crepes, cheese sandwiches and falafels, but I felt just empty every day. My only moments of solace were drifting off to sunlit naps in the manicured parks of Paris. Other than that, I felt not quite anxiety, but more like confusion and unrest.

Today I felt a different phase. The I am f-ing pissed phase, where I am just angry about all the things that went wrong in our relationship and all the time spent trying to repair damage. It all feels like a giant waste, and it is heightened by the sense that I am alone because I don't know what he is feeling. Another strange thing of breaking up, I shared so much with this one person, the person I would talk to about all my woes, but instead our suffering is separate but together. Well, actually, I think he is feeling okay about the whole thing based off his response to my somewhat desperate e-mail I sent him last week. Breaking up sucks.

I am trying to be positive, to stick to my guns, to remind myself the reasons why I ended things. But right now it just feels like there are so many things left unsaid, so many emotions left unexplored, and instead I need to come to terms on my own for myself. How hard is that? The entire time I have been in a relationship, I have given myself to someone else, and now it is time to remove myself from that feeling and be completely for me, to only see my own opportunity. It's hard. I continually find myself slipping into the what ifs, and those are gut wrenching. Even, "what if he reads this". But I don't think he will.

My relief is coming in external waves: encouragement from friends, reading break up quotes and articles online, trying to regain order by making mundane lists of life's chores. I need to get my head back in my own game, which of course, is easier said than done. I am exalting in the moments of clarity and peace that I have when I think of our relationship, and counting all of those little feelings among the more aggressive negative feelings as progress. Every day is progress.

I'm sending these thoughts out into the void without the expectation of a response, more to relieve my own relentless mind. To remember that this year has been about incredible highs, but life is life and it can be hard sometimes. I wouldn't give up the things I have learned and the romance of this year for anything. We love, we fight, we are happy, and we are sad. Michael loves kaleidoscopes, which is how I am seeing life. Sometimes, we can only see a tiny slice of life and it is a mishmosh of colors and angles. Twist our view a little bit, and it can still be the same colors but ordered entirely differently. Take your focus away from the chaos of the colors, pull your eye away from the narrow view and we can see the grander life all around as the entire world envelops us. Today I am looking into the glass of our relationship.

Paris in Pictures

The emotion of Paris is caught in the romance of pictures, the poetry of the written word. It has been the backdrop muse for countless artists. Each image is an adventure and a story, a few of which I will share.

A typical summer day of shadow and light. Ethan, my brother, and his fiancé came to visit, and after doing headstands under tower, we walked back by way of the Seine.

Vegan fair! On my way home from Canal Saint-Martin, I came across this vegan goodness in Place de la Republique. Waiting in line at Hank's Vegan food truck, a girl in angel wings gave me a coupon for a free burger. Another reminder that this is the lifestyle I want in my future.

In the Grand Palais, a dream made of glass. 

French cuisine is easily one of the finest in the world. At the most basic level, the ingredients taste cleaner, closer to the earth. I had only a handful of mediocre meals in an entire month eating out at Michelin rated restaurants, cafes, street food vendors and bars. One of my favorite meals was this one with my new, incredible friend Jasmine, at La Chambre des Oiseaux.

Shopping! Yes, I indulged in a little retail therapy in this land of boutiques and runway-sidewalks. After looking at the same clothes for the past however many months of traveling, it felt wonderful to wear different colors and textures. Also, I just couldn't wear hole-ridden lululemon stretchy pants around this chic city.

Ethan and Catie in front of Notre Dame. I love how much joy these two get from life and from other. He is a good one, my wise, kind brother. 

Paris has the best Metro. It is amazing and actually gives me a sense of satisfaction to use it. 

What is art? Well if you want to begin to find the answer, Paris would be one of a few places to start. Countless museums, artistic landmarks and galleries dot the map. I particularly loved the Rodin, the Pompidou, and the Quai Branly museums.

Photobombing my own picture. 

Seeing double outside the Quai Branly.

Street art is EVERYWHERE. When searching for tours of the old sewers in Paris, I came across Underground Paris, a small art company that gives tours of some more recognizable Parisian street art. It was on the tour I met Jasmine, and we essentially didn't stop hanging out until a week later when she left to go back to the states. This mural is replaced every two weeks, the wall owned by a street art aficionado.

Paris walking.

Ethan, Catie and I committed one of the biggest faux pas of my entire life at the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery. Running late that morning, we grabbed a picnic of sandwiches on our way to the cemetery, figuring the tombs wouldn't mind if we found a quiet place to sit and eat lunch. Finding a relatively out of the way patch of grass after visiting Oscar Wilde, we sat down to eat. It wasn't three bites into my sandwich when a kindly lady informed us in French that we were sitting in the Garden of Remembrance, and that it wasn't light colored dirt, but ashes we were sitting on. Human ashes. Oh shit. I don't think the three of us will ever forget that crazy experience, and the only response we could muster, embarrassed laughter and out loud apologies to the dead we had been sitting on.

One of my favorite pastimes in Paris was park lounging. I took afternoon sun naps in at least seven parks or gardens, and spent hours reading, writing, people watching and daydreaming. These were the places and times I was most peaceful. 

June 28th was the Gay Pride Parade in Paris. Despite gray skies, it was a banner of rainbow fabulousness love across the city. It is ironic that my time in Paris has been so unabout romantic falling in love. There have been no candlelit dinners, make out sessions at the Eiffel Tower, or handholding down quiet cobblestone streets. Instead, I have tried to hold myself in my own hand, and come closer to that self-love. 

A perfect series of imperfect and real moments, some joyful some sad. Paris, it's been real.

That Way Life Can Be

Paris. What can I say other than it had been an embodiment of how life can be. Lonely, revealing, confusing, crowded, spiritual, joy. It is a little bit of everything, and I have been a careening around a few emotional curves over the past month. Some days I have felt unforgivably tired, weighed down by those multitude of intangibles. Other days, I feel buoyed by a carefree-ness that has characterized much of my traveling. Today, I am happy. I am peaceful and feel a measure of belonging where I am, sitting in a garden in the Rodin museum. The sun is peeking through trees that are raining tiny, yellow flowers; it is beautiful.

My life has taken many turns this year, in ways I could not have possibly foreseen 10 months ago. Love, of course has been a dominating force. Along with family and friendship. I have felt independent (some would say, recklessly so) and then conversely dependent on people to hold me up and bestow upon me love and guidance. I have learned heaps about how I operate and the kind of person I aspire to be, but I have also made mistakes and brought confusion and pain into my life. 

Meditation.

Everyday I receive a daily meditation quote (like this one by White Eagle: "And how, you ask, are we to walk the spiritual path? We answer:  say little and love much; give all; judge no person; aspire to all that is pure and good.") There is so much wisdom in the words of our fellow man. There is also a lot of noise and chaff. Magazine articles and Ted Talk videos that can simplify emotions and relationships. From what I can see we are all so dynamic. We often don't know exactly what we want as we simultaneously seek adventurous change and safe stability. As much as I believed that this year would be my own year of magical realizations, it has been both that and also a letting go of expectations. I understand more than ever that life is unbelievably grand, and heartbreakingly hard. I am questioning "God" or "the Universe," trying to figure out that point of balance restoration that is so essential in an ever changing world. 

Grounded.

I am forever grateful to the people in my life who have listened and still listen to me. I wish I could bundle it all up, and express exactly what I mean, make it simple and pretty, like a famous quote. But, I'm still figuring things out. I have joy, I have experienced true, pure happiness this year, and every year of my life. If life is embracing the unknowns and living in the present, of listening and loving, then good, because that's what I'm trying to do. 

Whew (the sound of sending happy thoughts into the cosmos).