Dreaming

I am very fortunate. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve made friends in places most people don’t even know exist. I once swam 6hours from one remote island in Fiji to another…. No, this wasn’t an open water swim race… I once trekked a mountain in New Zealand with a local club… with two kegs in tow. We proceeded to have ourselves a jolly party along the way… It definitely made the return trip lighter. I’ve spent a week off the grid at a World Rainbow Festival where I headed the kitchen one night and made a homemade curry for hundreds of people. We gathered old coconuts for days and scrapped fresh coconut meat out until our hands were bloody… We ate in a circle… Hundreds of people from around the world gathered in peace… Though utopia definitely comes with a price (despite Rainbow Gatherings not costing a penny), and I left with skepticism and a new appreciation for a roof over my head (living under a tarp on a beach in monsoon weather isn’t all it’s cracked up to be).

I could go on and on, but at some point along this international journey I said to myself, “I’m ready to settle down.” I know. I shed a tear too, but then I thought about all the opportunity that was right in my back yard. A job where i can start earning money. A husband to share in the adventure. And eventually a family. Ah, I guess you can say I was growing up.

I felt compelled to explore my country and discover the towns that are so remote I felt like I was in a foreign place. Have you ever been to Big Bend National Park? Terrlingua, Texas? Nothing says adventure like locking your keys in the car at midnight, after copious amounts of beer, when digging in your trunk for a tent to pitch outside the bar (free camp site for bar patrons). AAA said they’d be there in 3days. Instead a middle of the night desert adventure began through a ghost town, up a mountain, to a random house, where we given a place to sleep. Americans can be as generous as the strangers I met in say, Thailand. There is hope.

I’ve been traveling a lot for work lately which isn’t quite as adventurous as the travel in my youth, but I go to some pretty cool places none the less. I’m in San Francisco right now (currently experiencing insomnia) at my company’s HQ. One coworker just returned from a month in Asia. Another has been telling me about her 3 year trip around the world…. In a sailboat!

Wow. What an adventure. It is one of my dreams to sail around the world. First, I must learn to sail. Second, convince my husband. Yeah, it’ll be awhile, if ever. I might just settle for a week on a wooden sailboat in a tropical location. That might satisfy my desire.

Totally rambling. It’s 3:30am, and time to go back to dreaming.