All Things in Moderation

Alligator and shrimp cheesecake. Fried alligator gumbo. French fries fried in duck fat. Jambalaya. Crabs and lots of 'em. Bacon and eggs with biscuits-- two biscuits. Not just one. Cheesy mashed potatoes. Chicken and pasta. Bread pudding. Cream cheese sopapillas. Fried plantains and baked beans. Much wine and beer. No, this is not the diet of a 200-lb. stoner, it's actually mine of late. An ever-growing graduate student whose first forays into the eating culture of New Orleans has sucked her down a dark and windy path to obesity. I have gained almost five pounds since I got here, which was less than two months ago. With my newfound love of eating delicious things (and not even in small quantities, mind you-- I actually went to a party called THE MEAT PARTY-- it had five different meats to partake in), I have forgotten I actually like vegetables and salads and yogurt and fruit! I used to eat those things! Those were the days...

All things in moderation? Absolutely. I believe in this idea completely. Therefore, in order to shrink my stomach and remember to actually care about the things I am putting into my body, I will have to, as my sister and I said earlier this summer when this same problem hit me after our visit to Ohio, slightly starve myself.  Listen, it's for the sake of not buying new pants. Gaining weight is expensive!  I am also going to rededicate myself to yoga and my goal is to go 3x/week. There's some great little studios around here and yogalates at the school gym that I've already paid dues for. I will not let you turn my hour-glass figure into a blob, you delightful New Orleans cuisine! When Conan O'Brien did a spoof on the state mottos, the one for Louisiana was, "You're not fat here, friend!" ...It's been my theme ever since. So if the natives are going to pray for me since I'm a Democrat, I also want them to pray for my will power. I can help too-- it'd be something like, "God, please do not let the cornbread be shoved into my mouth by mine own hands. Amen." This weekend is the barbeque festival. I'll never survive. *sigh*

P.S. Sorry if this post just made you very hungry.

"If you need anything, let me know." My experience with Hurricane Isaac

I wrote this during the storm, on Wednesday, August 22, as I needed a way to wrap my mind around being in the midst of a natural disaster. I come from Phoenix. Arizona has fires and flash floods, but I've never encountered them personally. Now, as I have just moved to a new city in order to pursue my Master of Science in Disaster Resilience Leadership Studies, I've already experienced the overwhelming bond of community within and after a disaster, which fully assured me of my dedication to the field I'm going into. Please bear with me as my outpour of thoughts are not entirely organized or interesting, but I had to write it down. New Orleans is my new home, and I broke it in accordingly. 

If you need anything, let me know. 

This statement is powerful. It happens in response to distressing matters that may require an extra hand to help process emotionally, physically, or for simple matters-- because sometimes, two heads are better than one. Either way, in the wake of Isaac, who seems to be making his little home in the backyard of the Roy home in Jesuit Bend, Louisiana, I sit here thinking of how often I have heard those words in the past 48 hours: “If you need anything...” It’s come from the family who I just met last week, and have now taken up residence with, to their friends who may experience more dire circumstances. I've heard it from their family members to them in response to their decision to stay through it. Within community where disaster strikes, this rolls off the tongues of those affected with the utmost sincerity. No one comes out unscathed. It’s Wednesday morning during Hurricane Isaac. The fences here are piecemeal now, the water so high on the levee, you could jump in, and many homes will be inches or feet deep in water nearby. The Roy house stands on ten-foot stilts only yards from the Mississippi river, and their backyard is quite literally a levee. 

My roommate Michael gave me the option to come here or go to Texas with him while he worked on some business. Staying in New Orleans was not an option to my new best friend/veteran of Katrina: “I’ll have a hotel room, Alice can come. You can wander around town while I’m at work and there’s no hurricane.” My cat had been a source of concern. Like many of the residents who stayed in New Orleans because they worried about their pets not being able to evacuate with them, I suddenly felt a pang of upset at the question of whether I could take her with me if I had no other place to go… Thank goodness I had options. I asked what the pros of Belle Chasse were, “Resources. My family has been through Katrina, Gustav—they know who to contact and what to do if anything happens. It’s a Category 1, so they aren’t evacuating. My mom sticks to the idea that if it’s under 100 mph winds, they stay.” I nodded, “The sick fact is—I want to see it. I want to experience what it means to be in a hurricane if not only for curiosity but also to pay attention to what happens as a participator for my studies. So,” I decidedly shrugged, “Belle Chasse!” That was Monday. Sunday I had spent the day reading for class, thinking that a tropical storm was headed nearby, but not straight to us, and I had over sixty pages of readings to get through. Michael and I were dropping off his brother’s truck at the house that would soon be my temporary home, and decided to stay for pot roast dinner, courtesy of his mother, Miss Jane. She said it then, “Well, we’re staying. If anything happens or you just want to stay here, you bring the animals and come here.” We both nodded and I didn’t know what to think. Michael figured there was no way he’d have to go to Texas for business if his hometown was under hurricane threat. I figured if we did have to evacuate, it wouldn’t be until Monday night because the storm wasn’t coming until Wednesday morning—according to the Weather Channel. 

The Roy family backyard,
Sunday night before the storm

 Monday, 8:30 a.m. I walk downstairs. Michael looks at me in the kitchen, “It’s not looking good.” “What does that mean?” “It’s headed here.” “Ok…” “I have to go to Texas.” “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That’s completely unreasonable. You have a duty to your home and they can’t understand that?” He shrugs, “I can find someone else if you are scared.” I sense the uncertainty in his voice. “No, no… go. That’s very nice, but I’ll be fine.” Our conversation then proceeds as to what I “want” to do. Before I weigh my options, I tell him I need a few minutes to process. Having just moved here, absolutely green on what it means to live life in this city, yet feeling welcome all the same—I do not want to leave or stay. I don’t yearn to be home in Phoenix. I just felt completely out of my element. “Shit,” it hits me, “This is what I’m in for…”—indicating not only the current hurricane situation, but also my intended profession. Master of Science in Disaster Resilience Leadership Studies. For those who ask, “Why do you want to go into that?” “Job security,” I love to half-jokingly reply. 

“When would we leave?” I ask Michael. “By about 3 p.m. I’m going to lunch with my uncle. Wanna go?” I laugh at how cavalier this all is to him. “Sure,” I respond. We had an absolutely delicious and normal lunch, free from panic and worry in a city that has every reason to feel that way. I pretended my worst problems at the moment were choosing which hot sauce to dip my delightfully fresh Cajun chicken fingers in. We sit, eating and chatting about their family affairs when Michael asks his Uncle Mickey, “You staying?” indicating whether he would stay through the hurricane at his house in Belle Chasse, south of New Orleans. “Yeah. I’ll never leave again.” I ask, “After Katrina?” He nods, serious, “After Katrina.” 

Monday afternoon, 4 p.m. “Winds are coming in at 70 miles-per-hour and the eye looks like it will come straight over New Orleans!” The Weather Channel is on non-stop from the moment I arrived. I set up Alice in a bedroom upstairs and came down to watch with Adam, Mr. Mike and Miss Jane. Michael left for Texas already, “Call if you need anything,” of course. The speculation is constant and overwhelming. Reports asking questions about the size and shape of the tropical storm—it can’t seem to get its shit together. When will it reach landfall? How fast is it moving? The answers change on a regular basis, which frustrates me, yet we stayed glued in. There is no scientific formula to these storms. There is, of course—a very dedicated study to it, but like everything else, there is no absolution. Adam shows me pictures of damage from Katrina after they have mentioned it on television and in the news, repeatedly. I remembered seeing some of them, yet that was seven years ago, from a distance, when my only connection to New Orleans or Tulane was meeting the occasional student or professor “refugee” that took residence at ASU during the months following the horrific storm and its aftermath. I shook my head, completely unable to respond. It is a sunny day, barely a cloud in the sky and yet the texts from friends and family began to roll in, “Are you ok?” “Where are you staying?” “Keep us updated!” I vowed to do just that. I cannot process what may come or how to prepare. I keep asking questions here and there, “Is there enough water?” “Are they getting the generator?” I got up from the chair and came to the back window and stare at their beautiful yard where we had just had a crab boil last Sunday. My first weekend here seems like months ago as I realize the landscape will be forced to change in the coming hours. I know I have a look of frightened uncertainty on my face, but that comes with facing the unknown. I’d probably had this look on my face for months, really. A big move to a new city for graduate school and evacuating from my new home due to a pending disaster, all in a two-week time frame. I am on autopilot. Don’t process, just do. 

Tuesday, 5 p.m. “Do you wanna go for a ride?” says Miss Janie, just as the wind and rain are really starting to pick up. Power has been out for two hours at this point. We watched as a tree branch, swinging to-and-fro, finally came in contact with the power line and started to smoke before a loud “POP!” shook the air more than the storm, and took the power with it. The surrealism is overwhelming. I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of extreme weather and I am embarrassed at the fact that I decided to forgo staying in New Orleans, where I’d come to study disaster resilience, after all, but instead came down to my roommate’s family home in a parish that ended up being hit hard all-the-same. I stare at Jane and her son Adam with big eyes, “Wait, what? Are you serious? Is that something people do?” They laugh a bit and I suddenly wished I hadn’t said it, for fear of offending my sweet new friends. Miss Jane just nods, “Yeah, we are.” I nervously say, “Oh ok, then yeah, I’ll go,” and almost immediately mistrust my decision. We hop in Adam’s company truck and plod along slowly down the wet road. Earlier, Adam took me to see the levee and the marina so we could look at the water levels. They were rather low this season, so we figured it had a bit of room to come up and that made me feel better. Now, as the wind threatens to knock us over (or so my dramatic mind thinks), we come to the same spot not two hours ago hadn’t seemed so threatening. It seems threatening now. The water is inches from coming over the mouth, and the levee suddenly doesn’t seem high enough. “That’s enough to get my heart racing,” says Jane. I just stare and buckle my seat buckle as Adam gets back in the truck from taking some photos. We get back to the house and winds pick up, pressing trees down as if they were sprigs of grass under a shoe. 

Scenes from our drive

Wednesday, 11 a.m.: The third floor of this home is drenched due to the AC turbine flying off at 11 p.m. last night—allowing the water to start collecting inside and come through the vent system. The two youngest sons aren’t here though. It is expected they are helping someone nearby as they have been gone almost two hours. 56 parishes have declared a state of emergency. We may have to evacuate because it will be Friday before “we’re out of all this,” according to Gov. Jindal. Miss Jane says, “We’ll see if anyone comes knocking on our door. It’s affected different areas of the parish pretty harshly.” I just nod. Ok. Nothing left to say to that. If you have to move, you have to move. She keeps doing the dishes as we do what we’re forced to do since the power went out, listen to the rain and the wind. We’re still out of power due to the fact that the generator is missing a couple of pieces. Jane reassured me then, “We have food. We’ve never had power in any of the hurricanes. Not Betsy, not Gustav—we were out of power for 10 days for Gustav. We went to my sister’s house. Generators can be risky anyway, because of the fuel.” I was up late last night drinking wine and beer with the family, talking about non-hurricane-related things. We drank because the heaviest part of the hurricane was projected to come between 2-6 a.m. Thus, I wanted to sleep through it the best I could. I successfully drink three glasses of wine before I figure I’m going to pass out soon enough. I think of whether it’s better to sleep downstairs or upstairs, and decide finally that upstairs provides the most secure feeling for me and Alice. The rest of the family is downstairs on couches or in the bedroom. The rain and wind wake me up again around 2. I have turned off my phone to conserve battery since the power went out around 3 p.m. yesterday. I get up to switch out some of the towels that are picking up water leaking from the third floor. Adam’s room, where I’m sleeping, is free from leaks. I stay up for a while, listening to the sounds, as the wine, still in my system, lures me back to sleep. 

 Wednesday, 2 p.m. Brittany, Adam’s fiancé, Adam and I were sitting at the table when we heard a knock at the door. Jane opened the door to a National Guardsman politely notifying us that the levees “down the road” in the citrus fields, the roads are flooding and we need to get out or risk being stuck for days. I stand, mouth agape, “Is that really the National Guard?” Brittany laughs at me, five years my junior and an old pro at hurricane aftermath. “Yep. You ok?” I say all too quickly, “YEAH!” However, I have no panic, no worry—this is a totally different feeling. The feeling is a mix of uncertainty and frustration towards the situation, complete with a side of absolute lack of control. Jane starts talking to her sons, Taylor, Adam, and Gabe, asking what they would like to do. I even get asked my input. I say I don’t know what’s available to us, and everyone deliberates for a few minutes about where to go next, who to go to in Jane’s family. Mickey’s house is the most obvious choice, since he is further up the road and thus out of the danger. I feel less uncertain now since I did have the pleasure of doing lunch with him before all of this mess really got started, so I pack everything up, Alice included, and get in Gabe’s truck. We do a few errands, running the truck through two-feet of water to the yard to get ice, and to the canals to pick a friend up and drop him off. We get there to an uncertain Paula, Mickey’s wife, who already has a full house, including their son, two of his Tulane friends and Jane’s sister, Maggie. Under normal circumstances, I would stop to talk about school or make friends—“I go there too!” but I’m not interested in small talk or bullshitting right now. It is decided we are to go to Maggie’s house to sleep, it is empty, however, powerless, but that solves that issue. Before we leave, I chop up some avocadoes for a salad and chat with Paula and Maggie about my experience so far. They’re all such lovely and funny ladies. However, there’s a curfew tonight—7 p.m. We’re reminded when we start to get ready to eat and realize it is already that time. I didn’t know a curfew was in effect, and feel silly but realize how necessary it is. Gabe and I grab our food and leave as it’s already dark, “What happens if you’re driving home after curfew?” “They threaten to arrest you.” I laugh, but there’s no joke. The array of ambulances, police cars and Army utility vehicles in the streets are absolutely mesmerizing—as I feel I’ve been transported to a war zone or a strange dystopian society. It is a war zone. The blasts and rubble not from bombs, but from the whimsy of forces of nature that have the ability to organize and shift with frightening strength thus causing incalculable devastation.

I stopped writing about the hurricane then because there was clean-up to do and less time to think. It's a month later now and I am just taking the time to return to this to post because it's been a whirlwind of catching up, both in school and discussing the aftermath. The estimated damages are $1.5 billion. Michael returned that Friday and we came back home to power in New Orleans, yet there were many that never lost theirs-- and many others who were out for many days longer. The angry cries for power were tuned out when Michael and I went to Braithwaite-- a town absolutely devastated when the levees there breached, and some areas flooded up to 14 feet of water. We saw entire homes picked up and dropped onto the streets, dozens of yards from where they'd sat, housing families for decades. The areas devastated, the people tired, yet together they are working hard to pull through.

Braithwaite damage on the levee

                                 

Huge strides have been made since Katrina here, so fresh in the minds of those who lived through it, and yet there is no end to disasters here-- and people stay. Mother nature has no agenda nor bias. Thus, communities will still, as they always have, rely on the bonds with family, friends and neighbors for a helping hand and receive them. It's the beauty amid the broken. I was so grateful to have these people, and I will never forget the generosity shown to me and can only hope to pay it forward. Now, more than ever I know I will always say: "If you need anything, let me know."

Who's Flying This Plane? The Power of Letting Go.

I think about the control issues I've had throughout life, and how as I've matured, I let go more and more. I just went through a couple of weeks of resorting back to some bad worrying habits, and then realized it was making me absolutely miserable. I had to do some evaluating of the situation and my issues due to some confusion at work, at home, etc. Dad loved the book, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The agreements are ingenious and simple. It teaches as follows:

(1) Be Impeccable With Your Word. The broad scope of this concept is to avoid "sin" against yourself by what you think. Sinning against the self takes many forms: such as, putting yourself down, gossiping, or putting anybody else down because you don't agree with what they think. Actions and words need to be consistent as part of being impeccable with yourself. The other side of the coin is the smoky mirror concept. Ruiz makes the point that our perceptions of others are merely reflections of ourselves. Therefore, to put another down or project negative words or energy towards another person, is to lash out at the other person because of our own insecurities.

(2) Don't Take Anything Personally. There is an awful lot of negative energy out there and some of it is directed at us by other people. If you take it personally and take on the poison of another's words, it becomes a very negative agreement you have with yourself. What anybody thinks about you, or says about you, is really about them. Not taking it personally allows you to be in relationship with anyone and not get trapped in their stuff. This agreement can also pertain to things that we take personally that cause us to go into upset.

(3) Don't Make Assumptions. What we think we understand about what someone says, how someone looks at us, what someone means by what they do, etc, may often not reflect reality at all, and more often than not lead us to think badly of ourselves or of others, and reinforce not being impeccable with our word.

(4) Always Do Your Best. Your "best" is a variable thing from moment to moment. "When you do your best, you don't give the Judge the opportunity to find you guilty or to blame you.” You can always say, “I did my best." There are no regrets. (p.80) The other key to doing your best revolves about being in action. "Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action. You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward."

These agreements are freeing. Surrender! What a concept. This is "Ancient Toltec Wisdom," but also just plain relevant. You don't have to live life as a victim to what others think of you. Now, I used to identify with being a neurotic (I know, some of you just said: "Used to?" Ha. Ha.) and by following these principles, that means that I unfortunately had to let go of part of my identity. Previously, if I wasn't worrying-- I wasn't existing. Therefore, I found myself rather miserable, worrying about family and friends and coworkers and all of their actions. The key part: They weren't affecting me! Where was I in this equation? Nowhere. Why did I feel the need to be there? Ego. To make myself feel more important and needed. Surrender. You will wake up and realize you exist, that you haven't lost your job or your friends and family, and that it doesn't mean you don't care. Breathe. Let it go.

You're Hot Then You're Cold

Having lived in Arizona my entire life, minus that six-month stint in the UK, when someone asks me: "Do you hate the cold or the heat more?" I've always said the heat. It's blistery and sweaty, and everyone wants to talk about how what they grew up in was the most miserable of weather. I felt I added credit to my answer based on those few months I spent in one of the UK's warmest winters, the cold is also something you can bundle up in. In the heat, no matter how many clothes you take off without breaking laws, you can't really fool your body temperature. Every summer I tell myself I will somehow not hate summer as much as I did the year before. Honestly, because we cruise from our air conditioned vehicles to our air conditioned jobs or errands, we don't get to really experience it. Many are affected by Arizona's brand of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I am pretty sure that my lightly-sunburned chest that is present throughout the summer months still doesn't make up for the lack of sunshine I allow myself because of fear of scorching. Many citizens are only happy when there is "cool" nearby, usually in the form of a pool. In fact, there are friends that I keep around purely because they own a pool. Despite all of this, I think I will stop arguing with those from the midwest and northeast and admit that cold really sucks. I am currently peeling from a sunburn that I managed to get while laying on the beach in California in 70-degree weather.so I can't blame the heat for sunburns either. When I think to when I've actually been MISERABLE because of weather, it's always associated with things like rain, wind and not feeling parts of my appendages or face. You win, northerners. You win. So, for no reason at all, if you ask me in the future, you will know my answer.

This leads to the fact that I change my mind a lot. You know how your mother always thinks that you like the same foods you liked when you were ten? "When did you start eating mushrooms?" she bellows at you fifteen years later... Well, it's funny how, as a culture, we are not receptive to people around us just changing their minds. Our decisions are our reference points to how we view others/are viewed by others in our social circle. That's Jill-- she's a hippie liberal arts activist. Ok, I just described myself, but the point is, we love to throw titles around. At the same time, reinvention is what keeps us alive. I mentioned this in my first post-- that we have to tear parts down in order to build new ones. I started caring for plants recently, and I have been pruning leaves, so I am starting to get this nature metaphor. We have to continue to grow. Yet it's still a shock when someone that we define as X, Y and Z, decides to try something new or even more shocking when they completely reinvent themselves. We're almost resentful of that couch potato who joins yoga and becomes a vegetarian... WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE CHANGING THEIR LIFESTYLE? She's getting all this attention for making decisions she should have years ago and I've done yoga for seven years! Unfortunately, if you're consistently mediocre or just pretty good at something, you don't really get massive popularity one day. This does not mean that you aren't fantastic and doing your best! Don't lose heart just because your story isn't being highlighted by the news. Notice that the best stories are always from one extreme to another: Rags to Riches, Obese to Thin, Cancer Survivor Wins the Tour de France Six Times! ...That's enough, Lance Armstrong...

Yet 99.9% of us work on a smaller scale. So for those non-life-changing, but perhaps slightly view-shifting ideas that just aren't working for us anymore, let's just accept them in ourselves and those surrounding us. "You don't hate Mad Men anymore?" "You hike now?" "You started eating red meat?" "You dyed your hair?" "You're a hipster?" All of these may be followed by an "...well then I don't even know you." The fact is that many of us may be afraid to change these small things that helped define us because we're scared of being judged or for others to see our convictions weakened. Changing is my favorite part of being human. I love to find something that tests my previous notions, even though I might be stubborn or judgmental at first. For example, if someone asked me to go to a Nascar race. Actually, I just laughed to myself out loud. I don't know if I can get over my preconceived notions of being engulfed by a sea of mullets... I didn't think I liked Parks and Rec because I watched two episodes. I then decided to give it a real shot when I was bored last weekend and watched all three seasons. We can now not only call me a fan, but also an expert on Ron Swanson. I also love to surprise myself. For example, I am currently taking piano lessons and I got way too excited when I played Mary Had a Little Lamb with two hands. I start improv lessons in two weeks... Let's see if I'm funny unscripted. Why not? Get out, make some change and try something new. It's scary to prove yourself and those around you that you're capable of expanding and changing, but it's also an amazing quality that I never want to lose. So yeah, I hate the freezing cold.

Where's the Grief?

If you can't tell by the title, this is going to be a rant purely about grief. Dad passed away two months ago on April 9th. Heart attack. I woke up that Saturday morning he died to a car alarm going off. Later on, my coworker Kathleen asked me if the banshee had come to tell me, and I remembered the alarm and realized it had... He's gone. I can't really wrap my head around it. The moment I start to, I just feel angry and cheated and sad, frustrated, and terrified and drained, which comes before or/and after I'm numb and tired and happy and energetic and ambitious and ...it's like I'm experiencing a wealth of these extreme, down-to-my-bones emotions that I've never experienced before. I can only compare it to having those hormones I had when I was in high school, except I handle things completely differently now and my maturity helps. Yet occasionally I find myself having emotional moments in an inappropriate setting (i.e. work, or at a happy event), and I just try not to let it get too out-of-hand (Sidenote: When I am in that moment, typically started by nothing but my own mind, I really really want to punch someone in the face a la M'Lynn in Steel Magnolias). So, it becomes obvious that I don't have the tools to cope. Yet...I don't know anyone who does. I think that must be where the extreme frustration comes in. Grasping non-stop without actually taking hold of anything. What's appropriate in this situation? I want the answer to be "everything." I want to be able to act out and have someone explain that it's OK, my dad died. But that's not going to happen. I think many people see me as someone who makes jokes through everything, and as a person with lots of gusto, so I must be handling things okay. And no, I don't want to be treated with white gloves all the time, but yeah, sometimes I do. Sometimes I need some extra love and don't know how to ask. If I see you, I might give you ten hugs for no fucking reason. Hugs are better than slugs to the face, so I hope you appreciate them for at least that much. The process of grief is not only difficult for me, but also for those friends around me who don't know what to say. Some don't say much at all, others ask all the time. There might be a happy medium, but I'm not holding it against those who don't know what that means. I don't think I knew what it meant before this either... So to those friends who have sent or will send me "I'm sorry I haven't been there" messages-- The world can't stop because one big shiny light went out, even though I wanted it to, because no matter how much I dig in my heels, it just keeps on spinning...

There's a poem in a book of 100 Great American Poets that my Granny gave my dad one year for Christmas. It's the Ella Wheeler Wilcox poem, Solitude. I used to think, "Wow, this is beautiful, and horrifyingly cynical," and now I read it and see it in a new light. You cannot take anyone with you in grief. It is something you must go through by yourself, and not because there aren't empathetic or sympathetic friends there who want to help, but because it is so personal. That's the fact of the matter. This is also a comment on an overall human reaction to devastation. Apparently she wrote it after meeting a grieving widow, and she was devastated for her, and angry that she was so HELPLESS to take away that pain.

SOLITUDE by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Fortunately, sadness doesn't have to be despair. And some people still help and brighten my day just by saying hello and being genuine. When my dad died, it created a hole in me that the wind will always blow through. It will never really close. But I am still here. I can talk about non-death-related things, and I can joke and be a shell of who you're used to me being, but also know that my mind is muggy and exhausted because that's what grief does. So, that's where I am and I am where my grief is. It's currently a large part of me and I'm embracing it. So, embrace me! Thank you all.

Finding the Day-to-Day

I write this after a long year and a half since my last post. I stopped blogging because I allowed that horrible seed of doubt called insecurity to grow inside of me and poison my blogging well with thoughts on how my day-to-day ramblings aren't as interesting as my ramblings about foreign lands. Yet I find that even that daily grind brings up these moments of irony and hilarity that allow me to remember that I don't need a foreign country to find a difference in culture and outlook. Those foreign lands also cost money--the kind that I am trying to get more of, but I missed writing, so here we are.

Since I returned, I realize that South America has become my life's biggest milestone. I feel I grew some new legs in that time that nourished my ability to continue to grow in the coming months after my return. It offered me the greatest gift of courage to seek out opportunities for things that were not easy or on a strict career path, but it's exactly what I was looking for. A fire under my ass. I was looking for a good burn to remind of me what it's like to voraciously leap out of a $1,000 ergonomically-correct-yet-ineffective office chair that otherwise sits beneath me... I'm currently collecting tinder perfect for fueling the next one.

As life would have it, I've experienced a lot of change since that milestone. Both fortunate and unfortunate, but let's start with the fortunate. I began volunteering with Free Arts of Arizona as the Volunteer and Outreach Intern for last spring semester, and now serve as an advocate and mentor. We provide therapeutic arts programs to disadvantaged youth in shelters, residential treatment centers and group home situations. In my experiences, I feel almost as if I am revisiting many of the children I grew up with, many who were never removed from their unfortunate home situations. I wish that child protective services could ensure these children that things will be better... Unfortunately, "better" does not come until it is reaction to the situation, instead of prevention. In this experience, I am taught courage through children who have faced abhorrent situations that no human should ever experience. This small action of providing an art project or positive distraction here and there is one that I believe in. In those moments, there's focus and there's creativity and thought. So, what is "better"? I don't know. I just hope we give these kids a taste of how it feels.

While rehabilitating my back after an injury, I decided I wanted to do physical labor for a conservation corps. I sought out some opportunities and applied. Why? Because I'm crazy. No back injury can phase me, SO SUCK IT! (damn foreshadowing)... I started work with the Coconino County Rural Environment Corps back in May and was chosen as a crewmember of a 10-person team in the Grand Canyon rebuilding part of the Kaibab Trail with the National Park Service. My first day of training in Flagstaff, I showed up with some light make-up on (so as to look my best on a first day, as I have done my entire life) and was immediately called out:

Instructor: "Is that...Is that glitter?"
Me: "Oh, uh, I think it's in my blush?"
Instructor: "Well...I think that's a first. Wow....*ahem* Well everyone, now I'm going to show you how to poop in a hole."

I threw them for a loop. What was I doing there? Well, I think that being able to see the fruits of your labor is important. One of the number one complaints from those in office positions is that there is no tangible evidence of all of those logged hours. The ability to work with your hands allows you such a luxury, and I was to work in the grandest canyon in the world as a job. Yes, it was for pittance, but it was an opportunity that I would have regretted seizing.
-I hiked down to the Colorado River.
-I watched the sun set and rise over cliffs and monuments.
-I woke up at 4:45 in the morning and in the largest composting toilet that you have ever seen. We nicknamed it the poopzilla. After using that, no one can ever say I'm not green.

In addition, I cried, took muscle relaxers every night, and did not take a proper shower for 8 days of the sweatiest work I have ever done, but never thought I could do. I surprised myself and realized how rewarding that feeling can be. Next week, I re-injured myself by simply picking up my niece and then laid in bed on and off for three weeks. I was heartbroken to not be able to finish my service. My disappointment was an amplified response to the one I had to the game of "Sorry" that I played as a child. I have a flare for self-pity that really is quite impressive when I turn it on...

Pity doesn't pay the bills. I sucked it up. I applied for jobs left and right and asked people to ask their friends and eventually received a call that the Tempe Center for the Arts needed a part-time office assistant to come in. I took it immediately. I started working 40 hours a week before long and helping out with events more directly, so I got some of my groove back in the work force. It felt like I had one of those career thingamabobs. Still, I had no medical insurance and had acquired a knee that clicked and stuck funny like a rusty door hinge and a back that threatened to go out on occasion. So, I needed it and the the poor little TCA just couldn't afford to offer it to me. I decided to take a chance once again, and I applied for a job with ASU. I WON the grand prize of the position of Receptionist, Sr/Office Asst.

Yes. That long dual-title just to say that I work at a front desk. Apparently someone was offended that both duties of assisting in the office AND receiving people were not identified in their title. I find that neither of those titles sounds any more interesting than the other, so it's like doubly-boring BUT I GET BENEFITS...at the cost of a pay cut :P I will say one thing, I have SIX student workers to help me answer those phones. YEP, I am a big deal here. Now my daily routine takes place here at the old ASS-U. I will have to post some of the fantastical stories from the calls and visits that take place. Some stories make me both happy and positively terrified for the future of the world...

I will also write about Dad. He passed away over two weeks ago and things feel so strangely still and yet in total upheaval. One of his favorite quotes was: "Oh how daily life is..." Indeed. Till then.


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Cusco, land of the Incans and "Massage?"

Positively every traveler who had already been had raved to us about how fantastic Cusco would be. After three weeks of traveling throughout the other hubs of Peru, Katrina and I had found some places of interest, mostly historic or geographical; a place just here or there, but not an entire city. So, I was excited to come across this place that was supposed to be amazing. I had this fantastic blue paper map that my dear friend Melodee from the farm, who had lived there previously, had written all over. She told me exactly where all of the best bars would be, the best vegetarian restaurants, clothing shops, hostels, you name it. We were set to go.

When we arrived, it was rather dark, and we’d pulled into a part of town that was less than lovely, so immediately we started to worry that our expectations had been set too high. Yet after settling into our hostel and starting to make it down to dinner, we started to see the character. There were cobblestone streets, which are quite common in different cities in Peru, and bits of architecture popped out to us. I have to say, nothing screams character like a one-way road with less than two feet of sidewalk that you HAVE to walk down to get to where you’re going. Now, this particular night, I wasn’t sure how close the cars could get, until a van’s collapsible mirror—thank God, smacked right into my right breast. It was as if life had shouted, “Welcome to Cusco! Look alive!”

Yet as we settled into dinner and I had the first fantastic burrito in weeks at a very chic tourist restaurant off of the main plaza, I was relieved to nearly be over my illness in a city that has fantastic cuisine. Now, because I am still vegetarian at this point, I couldn’t have any of the Peruvian “tipical food” that they have because this includes lomo saltado, a beef and rice dish, or the peppers that are stuffed with beef and potatoes. Now, in addition to this, they also have the fun dishes for tourists to try: alpaca, which they cook up like a steak, and guinea pig, or cuy, as they call it, which they grill up whole. You can still see this thing’s teeth apparently. I didn’t order it. It did not receive rave enough reviews from people for me to break the vegetarianism at this point. I was also still trying to get over my last bits of food poisoning. After the antibiotics had screwed my digestion up but killed the bacteria, I bought these yogurt probiotic drinks that truly seemed to help my stomach. And finally after a few days of this and two days before I had to start the Inca Trail, all had returned to normal.

Now as we made our way through the city, we would follow the magical map that led us to new exciting locations. In Cusco, the restaurants were positively posh at times, there were vegetarian options, and the people were friendly. Granted, this place is crawling with tourists. I’m talking Disneyland for Peruvian tourism. The natives literally pounce on the tourists here and will ask you at least five to ten times a day, if not more, if you would like to buy a water color postcard or painting, photos with a llama, or need a pedicure or massage. Not to mention the abundance of tours they offer there. There are about a dozen different archaeological sites to see around the area, not to mention water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, paragliding, blah blah blah. Apparently people who go to visit South America are considered the adventurous type. The point is that even though it’s the most annoying place in Peru for tourist bombardment, it still has really good vibes—also like Disneyland.

So finally, after our first couple of days exploring, we observed the following: Cusco was founded over and around Incan sites, which include all that incredibly close-cut stonework you’ve seen on the History channel that boggles the mind. Next, they have their own flag—it’s a rainbow, and when Katrina and I first walked into the main plaza, there was a parade going on and a rainbow flag waving in the air. I’m not going to lie, of course we got very excited and started looking for our gays and friendly neighborhood transvestites because in America—this means it’s Gay Pride! Alas, we realized that it was not gay pride when people were parading around for business or something terrible to parade around about… we never completely understood some of the parades.

Cusco really has a fantastic location that, although is cold quite often, is so beautiful and close to the clouds and you can see why the whole area was and is so sacred to the people. There’s a deep-seated culture and history in the mountains and many of the people’s ancestry comes from the indigenous peoples and the Incans, so the culture is still personal and very obvious and preserved. While in Cusco, we went exploring to the nearby ruins called Sacsayhuaman and went horseback riding in the hills and we went white water rafting in the Urubamba River which leads into the Amazon. Also, we went to a fantastic folk show called Kusikay after meeting the drunk/juggler in a vegetarian restaurant the day before. Now this show included dance and acrobatics and interaction with the audience and highlighted how Cusco and Peru had evolved over the past several hundred years with the Incans, and then the coming of the Spanish, and how this changed politics and trade and all of these topics, but all while making you laugh. I got to go on stage and be a bull that has a very sexy moo and kills the matador while he’s thinking he’s won. I was quite good.

Next, I will delve into the Inca Trail, which allowed me to connect to nature and my mind, “Why am I doing this?” body, “Ow…keep breathing, ow…” and spirit, “God help me.”

Special for you! Tourism in Peru at its best...

Ciao mi amigos! It is a beautiful morning here in Puno, overlooking Lake Titicaca. It´s been a while since I last wrote, so I must fill you in on the dazzling details. First off, the day before we left Ica, the dazzling oasis where we went sandboarding on spectacular hundreds of feet high dunes, I decided I wanted ceviche again. Now, we were still close enough to the ocean where ceviche was offered at every single tourist eatery in the area. Thus, I did no rationalizing, I just wanted my nearly raw delicious fish I had so enjoyed in Lima only days before! So I order some at a restaurant right on the water that, as Katie and I realized as we began eating our food, meant you pay for the scenery more than a delicious dish. The ceviche was a little more rubbery, but still good enough and these people don´t do the whole returning dishes for something else, and hey, I paid for it, so I ate it like a good little tourist. Now, perhaps we shouldn´t cut to me 24 hours later, keeled over in the bathroom for the entire night before a 9-hour bus ride to Arequipa. I could not keep a single thing down. This is the second time I´ve had major food poisoning in the past three months, the first time was a bit after we returned from Costa Rica, so I´m officially at the point where not only karma, but all of Latin America, is out to get me.

Now, although I am weak, I do not want to miss a single beat, because I am here to do my touristy duties! So I decide that because I am able to leave the bathroom for more than an hour at a time, this makes me fit for good tourism. We go to see Juanita the morning after we arrive in Arequipa. What a wonder she is! 500 years old and she does not look a day over twelve, that little Incan sacrifice. She is still swaddled in the same clothes they buried her on the mountain in, and she´s tucked into a fetal position in her refrigerated home. Her skin, especially her hands, are amazing to look at because they aren´t aged much at all and still bear her skin color and wrinkles. Then, I decided to go see this convent that housed a bunch of rich nuns back in the 17th century, aaaaand, it was boring. There are still current nuns there, which, although I know it´s strange, I always sort of get excited when I see a nun. It´s not an everyday occurrence in Arizona, so they´re fun to stare at. So I thought yay! I get to see where they live! We get it, you have the same sort of living quarters with a very basic bed, a chamber pot, and a little kitchen with a kettle and a hearth. More than I had at the farm, eh nuns? Just kidding, but in all seriousness, I guess as much as I like to pretend I am mature enough to see things like old convents and appreciate them, I´m not. The architecture wasn´t exciting enough to make up for it. I also didn´t see any current nuns. Disappointing. But good on them for doing the whole bit!

So, then I realized I had done far too much walking and was still quite sick, so I took the next day off while Katrina went water rafting. Well isn´t it my lucky darn day that when she returns, she tells me that she just happened to be put in a boat with an entire fleet of Spanish firemen on vacation. Wasn´t that just an extra punch in the gut? No offense to the Peruvian men, but the looks of the locals are none too plentiful. The next day, afraid to miss another tour but still having minor issues, I decide to go to Colca Canyon. This was spectacular, long bus ride, you´ll see pictures. It´s not the Grand Canyon--we went up really high, like, 13,000 feet, saw some condors, alpacas and llamas.

Now, I had inquired earlier about a hospital in Arequipa just in case, but because I thought I was able to complete all of these touristy things, I was certainly getting better right? Off to Puno we go.

First night in Puno? The food poisoning came back full force. The amazingly kind man who manages the hostel I´m staying at made me tea and called hospitals in the middle of the night for me. The doctor came and took me to get an IV for fluids and antibiotics because the food poisoning was throughout my entire intestines, and I could feel those bacteria like a little sea monster in there, stirring up trouble in the bowels of my ship... Sorry, I went there. So I was forced to not go sight seeing that day and given warnings of certain parts of excursions on the islands in Lake Titicaca because of my weakness and the altitude, along with about 7 different types of medicine. Now, a note about clinicas in smaller cities--this one was more like a home. It had two beds in a carpeted room, with a TV with cable. If there had been no TV with cable, I may have not been distracted enough to notice the lake of scrubs or sterile anything. I just said a little prayer about not getting a staph infection, and didn´t even freak out when the nurse, Nelly, missed my vein the first time and just needed one more do-over. When I told them I was hungry, a good sign, they handed me a food menu from the restaurant next door that they also must own. I explained I wasn´t quite ready for the typical Peruvian dish, thank you, do you have some toast?

The next day, I keep on trucking as usual. The antibiotics are working slowly, but food is started to hurt my system less and less. We head to the islands. First, there´s the floating islands of Uros, where there´s 60 of different names, where they live on islands made of reeds as their people have for hundreds of years. Yes, incest was a problem, yes they are taking care of that-- they are only about 5 feet tall on average for the women, and men aren´t much taller than they are. Yes, they have an island for peeing, and an island for pooping. Do they always make it to those islands? No. I saw a little girl hike up her skirt, go number one where she was playing with others, then pretty much sit back down in the same spot. Reeds are very absorbant, I hope. All Western judgment aside, it was still neat to see that such indigenous culture is still carrying on. On our way to the island of Amantani, where we would meet the host family that we stay overnight with, the view is spectacular. Because we are so high, 12,500 feet, the clouds are low and especially puffy and reflect on the water. It´s such an amazing view that I can imagine a spot in heaven looking the exact same way. Now, we get to the island and meet Nicolas, our host dad. He takes us up the 300 meters (you know, the ones my doctor told me NOT to climb) to his home with no electricity, running water, and four adorable little girls and a killer cook of a wife. These people need the extra money, so they give up the little extra room they have, sleep altogether in one room once a week, so that they can house a funny tourist or two and hope that we give an extra gift or tip at the end. Now, I explain that he has four little girls. Aaaand we all know I am a sucker. I end up showing them every video I´ve taken on my Flip, giving two of them bracelets from my arm, and then going and buying them crackers and cookies in the evening. Not to mention that I was their personal donkey for a good deal of time as well. Toys aren´t very common there, but tourists are. After dinner, the mom, Viviana, dresses Katrina and I up in the traditional garb. Again, I will post pictures. You know, they´re just not so becoming on a 5`6" lady like myself. We go to a traditional dance where I last about 20 minutes, and request to go home to bed. Nicolas didn´t seem to mind. Although the tourists more than twice my age jabbed me about it the next morning. That night though, you could see every star in the southern hemisphere because of the lack of electricity on this island in the middle of the lake. There were shooting stars, and off in the distance, there were great lightning storms that we just stood and watched for a while. You couldn´t ask for more beauty.

The next day we went to another island, ate lunch, and headed back off to Puno. The boat broke down two times on our way back. Black smoke, rocking boat, water level hitting the railing next to the window-- you know, call me high maintenance, but I was not on board for this. I asked the tour guide what the problem was and voiced my being a bit scared, where his response was, "Why? The worst that can happen is you die. We all have to die sometime," with a little smile on his face. Hmm, I´m learning that the tourist industry here is not too sensitive and seemingly out to exploit you as much as you are out to exploit the cheap exchange rate. "Special for you," means, "More expensive because you´re a tourist," and if you´re given a deal, don´t worry, you will be charged for it later on in some way. There is a 50% poverty rate, and there are children in the streets begging or doing circus acts at the street lights, and it´s tough to balance out the point between having compassion or being taken advantage of.

So, on a final note, we are off to Cusco today. The antibiotics are continuing to work, and I am better and stronger every day. Inca trail is only a week away, folks! Wish me luck.

Kali

Away from Greener Pastures and onto Pisco Sours...

Ohhhhhh how I miss the simple life already. I spent two weeks on the farm. I had incredible conversations about religion and spirituality with different Hare Krishnas and got to truly sit and eplore myself in a new light. The idea that the body and the mind and soul are all holy and we need to take care of ourselves is a concept that, although is well received, is often ignored. I didn´t drink caffeine or any alcoholic beverages, I did yoga everyday. I woke up at 7 a.m., did yoga, ate breakfast, helped in teh kitchen typically after breakfast, had lunch, then was free to read my books and have a run. I could really get to know the people I was around and everyone was walking around high on life! Ahhh yes, I can remember it so well those five days ago! Leaving was difficult because I knew that my stress was only bound to return with traveling. Immediately as we got into Lima we met new people though. We met one man who we will call Gary. Gary has leeched himself onto us. He´s a lonely Canadian traveler who has followed us from Lima where we still thought he was OK, to Ica., where he has steadily digressed into very annoying and hard to shake off. Ica is a beautiful Oasis in the middle of the desert (Huacachina) and we are staying right on the little lagoon surrounded by sand dunes and blue skies. It is a dream image. Then Gary usually comes in, says something about how me and Katrina should put our bikinis on, adds some odd Star Wars reference, has an opinion and thinks he´s right about everything, dontcha know, eh? Well he sealed the deal last night by thinking a ten year old boy was a sixteen year old girl and still almost hit on him/her. What a guy.
Well, I suppose this is Krishna testing me. See, before I left there were three days of holiday where we made wishes to Krishna by lighting candles made of ghee butter and cotton and waved it around a picture of him and then bowed to the ground before his feet in hopes that they would come true. I don´t think this is the same as a birthday wish, so I will tell you what I wished for: patience, tolerance, and focus, one on each night. So, I think my tolerance level is already disintegrating dramatically. My focus on being zen is going along with it, and my patience is dithering. I have to build myself back up! I think it was all the wine from the wine tasting yesterday that´s put me on edge. After not having a drink for over a month and a half, I sure did overdo it yesterday. Ica is wine region and also Pisco region. Pisco is the local liquor. First off, I don´t often drink liquor. I´m a beer and wine girl if I have a drink and I usually stop myself at 2 or 3. But let me tell you, when you put wine and pisco in tiny little vasitos (little cups) at only an ounce at a time and you drink over 20 of those, you still get drunk! Tiny cups are very misleading. We started off at a beautiful winery called Tacana. This was your typical nice winery with the grape leaves and the tour of the facility and then a sit at a counter where you went through the different types. How nice. Next tour was at a rather less nice facility, same sort of deal though, a bit rough around the edges, but good stuff. Next place was a shit hole, but at this point we´re a bit gone so we are more interested in the look of the taxidermied animals hanging about than questioning why they are there and we drink the wine straight out of the barrel served to us by our crazy taxi driver, William, himself. We finish off the tour by singing, very loudly, Eye of the Tiger, where William pulls a fake microphone out from under his seat and hands it to each of us. Something tells me this scene happens often.
Today when we had to visit some rare bird island, I was a bit Weekend at Bernie´s about the whole debacle. Put my sunglasses on and spin me about with a camera in my hands. There were sealions. Those were nice.
I think I will go meditate now and try to regain that balance that I had just days ago with people that smiled and focused on my soul. I highly recommend an ashram to anyone. Go. I made great friends there and had a little cry when I left because that´s how much I realized I love peace. We made tons of pastries the last day as well. I miss those too.
I am now going off to Arequipa tomorrow where we are going to see the most well preserved mummy, Juanita. In Lima, we also saw the catacombs, and there were bones on the beach by the farm. Along with the taxidermied animals in the winery, I am set on bodies. I will continue to fill you in! Miss you much. Ciao!

Karma Doesn´t Want Me in the Kitchen

The title of this post goes along with a story, of course. So to start off, I am right-handed. Last Friday, after spending the previous day cutting down a lot of dead overgrowth from a rotunda with a pair of pruning shears, I felt very strong. I was told the next day to go ahead and just have the job of helping out in the kitchen. I had been bothering Sidantha, the volunteer coordinator, for days about working in the kitchen because I LOVE to cook. I excitedly go in and start washing some dishes and there´s a cast iron pot--a witch´s cauldron if you will--sitting there that needs washed and I stare at it and go, oh...I don´t know if I can lift that on my own. Then, my tiny little voice in my head says, OF COURSE YOU CAN, KALI! I decided to listen, and lo and behold, I lift the pot up and my left hand slips, my right hand thinks it can still hold it up instead of letting it go and my thumb pops out of place. HOW UNNATURAL FEELING IT IS for a thumb to pop out of place. Immediately, pain shoots up my arm and I start crying in front of my buddy Ramanuya, a funny Hare Krishna whose response after getting me something hot and cold to alternate it with, says to me, ¨Karma didn´t want you in the kitchen.¨ This, which normally I would take very lightly, made me cry even harder. Ah well, today my thumb is already much better and I got to work in the kitchen. Ramanuya pointed out that I have two other scars on my right hand, and I explained that I´ve gotten those from washing dishes also, so he said that in my past life I must have done something mischevious in the kitchen that I´m paying for in this life. I said, ¨This is like a game of Clue! Kali, in the kitchen, with the wash cloth...¨ Karma, take it easy, I´m trying.

Now, today was our first day of clear skies and pure sunshine! We´ve seen the sun here and there, but not for an entire day. Katrina ended up leaving because she needed to go up north for a little more sunshine. I decided to stay just to enjoy the peace. We´ll meet up in Lima by the weekend and then we´re off to do a bit of sight seeing towards the south. I´d like to stop and see the Nazca lines, Arequipa, and we are going to Lake Titicaca before Cusco for the Inca Trail. Until then, I am still a humble servant of the Eco Truly Village. Last night they had a Bhagavad Gita lesson in English for us about sacrifice. I thought to myself, I didn´t go up to the beach and get some hot showers so I could sit here with you fine people...That´s sacrifice, right? Just kidding. No, the showers I´m getting more used to and the food is fantastic. I´m happy just to be in a peaceful place. I am happy that I came here and am learning more Spanish and more about myself every day. Even when I am awoken by peacocks in the morning and I find a piece of mulch from the compost in my pantalones... I feel good inside.
More from the fields later, my friends.

Love,
Kali

Beaches, Bones and Hare Hare

All right, here I am in the glorious country of Peru. There is culture here! There are little tiny women wearing alpaca and socks with sandals and top hats. I love it. It is also a third world country, and the thing is that this is one of the fancier ones, you know? Lots of huts made out of reeds and no foundation, so they´re falling over and grocery stores are like the Quik-E Mart because you buy all of your meat and vegetables from the farmers´markets on the streets. I´ve tried bananas and oranges so far. Katie bought a large avocado today, I´ll let you know how it goes. It´s also a bit colder than we expected here and it´s moist all the time so I immediately got a sinus infection. I had to go to the botica where another American volunteer talked to the ¨pharmacist¨about what antibiotic I should take. She prescribed something and was talking to me about how to take it...she pointed at her mouth, shook her head no, and then pointed at her butt. I looked at her and said, ¿QUE?¨ And she did it again. Luckily, they understood by the look on my face that I thought it meant not in the mouth, in the butt, and corrected the gestures. I really need to learn Spanish. REALLY good thing I cleared that up before we left.



Now about the Farm!: So, you know when you have this fantastic concept about going and working on a yoga farm? Sure you do. Well, sometimes things come up as surprises that you were not quite expecting along the way. Of course this isn´t shocking, I did read that the farm was a Hare Krishna mission of sorts, but I did not quite know all that this entailed and it seemed a minor detail at the time. Well, just our luck, in case we had no idea what Hare Krishna was before, we were to be educated fast because we arrived to the Eco Truly Village in the middle of their 25th anniversary festival. Let me explain what this entailed: 500 people from all over South America that came to the Eco Village for 5 days of singing very loudly, playing drums at any given moment and oh they just LOVED to go on until 1 a.m. and start up again at 4 a.m. Oh, did I mention we slept in a tent so we could hear all the joyful singing and drumming at any time? Ah, well you know, we could just feel the love more that way. I already know several chants. I´m pretty good at them. Oh, and there are cold showers and the sun doesn´t shine here much. Now, sarcasm aside, there is an ashram here which is neat and peaceful. We danced in it the first night we were here and got a feel for the excitement and energy and we got to see the ceremonies right away. There was a wedding and induction ceremony for someone (like a Hare Krishna baptism) on another day where they decorated the courtyard with a giant mud-flower yantra that they burned fruit on in the middle of. There were Hare Krishna bands that played every night. Like Christian rock, but Hare Krishna instead. The gurus who founded the place were here, one is German and he loved my name; basically asked why my parents would name me after such a crazy goddess. I told him it fit. He has intense eyes and stares into your soul a lot. This can be disconcerting, but I think I stared back fairly well.



Yesterday was the first day without the festival, so we got to watch everyone pack up and ship out. Druva, the coordinator, led us on a bonafide tour of the place which turned into a large explanation of all of the iconography featured throughout. The trulys are these cone shaped buildings that are earthquake resistent and feature lots of Krishna and avatar images along with scenes from the Bhagavad Gita and he led us through what they were. Yet each time he introduced a new scene or icon, we turned it into a philosophical conversation about the religion and the practices. After three hours of this, I realized my head was about to explode. I will say that I understand most of the principles of the foundation of their religion and it really matches those of Christianity and Buddhism. I love to learn. We participated in their meditation session last night where they chant (I played tambourine during this) and read a passage from the Bhagavad Gita. They did one in English yesterday about serving others as the road to being happy and ridding yourself of material possessions, much like Zen.

Alas, we may not stay the month we expected because the urgency for volunteers is not there as much as I think they appreciate the devotional side, which we just cannot offer them. I do enjoy the beach, but it is very dirty. It also happens to have burial mounds on it FILLED with protruding human bones. I have seen a human skull, femurs, humeruses, tailbones, ribs...Yep. JUUUUST great. They explained that they had to dig up a nearby cemetary because they wanted to build something else there, so they just plopped the bodies there on the beach and that some are 400 years old or so... We saw some kids poking the skull with a stick. Katie said that´s bad joojoo. I agree.

All right, well I will let you all know how this continues to go. We will stay for the rest of the week and find out more about the volunteering as we get further into it. I miss you all, and I hope you are doing well. The nearest town is 20 minutes away and the computers are a bit old, so I will post pictures and video as soon as possible.

From the Ashes of Phoenix, I Introduce to You: The Beaten Path

Just so you all know, especially for my mother's sake, I won't promise to go anywhere that no one has ever gone before. This isn't Star Trek. Really, I am just running away from the "simple kind of life" ideals that American society loves and I'm young so SCREW THIS! The idea behind my blog is that the need to find a path to happiness is inherent in all of us. That "self discovery" mumbo jumbo. For me, I am someone who loves to start from scratch. I like to take the little comfy life that I have set up for myself, disassemble it (much like having to take apart your tinker toy and Lincoln Log concoctions as a child, difficult, but in order to build a new cabin or airplane, I need the parts from the other one) and use the parts of my physical, mental and emotional states for one specific purpose instead of several. Sounds selfish? Well, it is. For those who wish to grow, we must change constantly. To create new facets of ourselves, we must alter another one to make room, like cutting down the crops before the new season's harvest can grow. This meaning is the origin of my name, Kali, the dark goddess of Hinduism, and a philosophy I am only beginning to understand through myself, family and friends, philosophy, the current news and history itself. I realize that I, along with the world, have a pattern of behavior where if something seemed too perfect, too normal, too steady, I had this antsy need to muck it all up--even in the slightest way--in order to get things moving around again. This proverbial machete I hold makes sure that life keeps on escalating to a new degree and allows me to learn, albeit usually the hard way. By trespassing into unknown territory, by molding and remolding my hopes and plans for the future, I will become, eventually, someone with a solid and steady foundation... *cough* Right? Someone who just sheds my skin and grows a new one from time to time. Hmm, sounds messy.

Society views "finding yourself" as an event that occurs in the teens and/or early twenties and perhaps again during a mid-life crisis. Although I disagree, and believe that most people who wish to become better versions of their current selves are constantly looking for reinvention and new territory, I am in my early twenties, and thus currently fit into this category for self-discovery. Recently out of college with an undergraduate art degree under my belt, no husband or children to look after, I have options: Start grad school, get a full-time job, and find the aforementioned husband and children, a house in the suburbs, a few noodles to toss in our swimming pool, typical American dream, blah blah. This is great. Part of me wants JUST THIS! I am a smart, domestic woman who has maternal instinct. I LIKE TO COOK! Yet...there's that antsy factor, and until that hushes itself down, I know that the destructive pattern can pipe right back up and remind me that I am not yet ready for this adventure. No, instead, I'll need to do a bit of spirit searching through a plan to uproot myself in every way possible. My plan will be completed through traveling into the depths of the unknown (to me, anyway), out of my comfort zone, and apparently into lands where I don't know the language, cultures or traditions, and opening myself up to learning and adapting to a new lifestyle. Jane Goodall studied gorillas and could behave like one in order to speak to them. I want to transform in a similar way with fellow humans. I am going to study myself in other cultures. This ability to see how others live their live is purely reflecting back onto how I behave once I am there as well. I will let you look in too! I will take video and blog as often as I can about what I am learning along the way.

In case you don't know, I am from Arizona. I have traveled by myself since I was 18. I took myself to New York and I was immediately hungry for more cityscapes, more art and melting pots of culture. Then, when I was 20, I left to study abroad and live in England for five months, where I studied very little and instead when traveling, I found myself wining and dining my way through cities, visiting landmarks and seeing more through a lens than I was really able to soak up through my own eyes. Unless you are able to spend real time somewhere, you become disassociated and glazed over by travel. I was stretched for time and cash and spoke to natives only in order to ask where the next tourist stop was. Yet In Tuscany, my last stop, this changed. I opened my eyes and asked myself what I was doing here. Who would I speak to? What would I learn? The medieval towns pulled me in and I took deep breaths in. This place didn't feel touristy even though there were others. There were no long lines for landmarks here really, each place had centuries' old history, was important to someone, and wildly interesting. It was a place I could be tired. Traveling for nearly three months can do that, and I started to feel I had done the rest of my trip all wrong because this was a place of peace, a place of natives, a culture that thrived on being hospitable and telling their stories of the land. Now I realize I'll have to go back and do it all over again later in life to make up for losing the whole point of travel-- to embrace a culture, to feed and love and ask questions about what you are seeing with your eyes. So where will I go? When I got home nearly two years ago, I decided I would stumble around my home country, America, get in some good cities and feel what it is like exploring the birds of my own backyard. There are places I said I never cared to go that I am dying to visit now, places like South America, Asia and Africa, that call to me. Learn a language and work with all ages, all races, and different interests. I start in Peru in two weeks from today. I will be there working on a sustainable farm on the beach in Chacra y Mar, in the Huaral province an hour or so north of Lima. Many of you may wonder why I chose this. Well, as a city child, I actually do feel a yearning to learn about land and how food grows and long to see the stars and live on the ocean. I hope to bring back many interesting new skills like gardening and vegetarian cooking and of course, the ever popular goat milking. I will stay there for a month and then Katrina, my dear travel buddy and I are off to see the sites of the rest of Peru, hike the Inca trail, and go to Chile or Argentina or both. Yes, money is an issue--as always with any art degree, but I think I can figure something out.

In my blog, I want to shine light on differences that aren't so different. I want to see great landscapes and meet fantastic people. I want to aid in the coming generations' ability to destroy the walls that exist between countries and cultures and hope we will learn from each other as citizens of the Earth, showing just how far humans can grow.

I hope you will all enjoy my little evolving blog.

All my love,
Kali, The Beaten Path blogging lady