I woke up this morning and could watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean from my bed. I sit now, with an after breakfast cup of chai, at a table maybe twenty yards away from gently cresting waves in the center of a small coral-laden cove in Pongwe, Zanzibar. The only sounds are the peaceful lapping of the ocean and the lazy sway of windblown palm fronds. Occasionally, a gull chirps. I watch a distant storm meander northward. I am doing exactly what I had hoped to do, which is absolutely nothing. The sores and blisters on my feet remain from Kili, but are healing. I had my first truly restful night of sleep since I've been in Tanzania...
That thing you have in the back of your mind. That one idea that occasionally pops into your head when you're driving or showering or when you're laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Maybe there are several of those ideas, but you know what I'm talking about. And when an idea gets stuck, it can become torturous. It prickles and itches more and more until the yearning is relieved by actually solving the riddle or undertaking the escapade or confronting the challenge. And once you actually do achieve the end goal, wow is that freeing. It truly is one of the more jubilant and enraptured sensations of the human experience. Especially so when the particular bug has caused a persistent...
Everything I had hoped Cuba to be, it was, and so much more. Unique in so many ways; exciting and challenging in so many ways. Much like the water bottles and the cigars and the cane sugar rum, I very much appreciate that my thirtieth cumpleano fue hecho en Cuba.
“I’m gunna free fall, out into nothing. I’m gunna leave this world for a while. Now I’m free...” - Tom Petty, "Free Fallin'" Life has its ups and its downs. Occasionally we lose track of that when we are feeling particularly beat up or particularly golden, but with as much certainty as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, we may also be certain that fortunes will swing to and fro in due time. This ideology does presuppose the thought that outcomes are not always a summation of their cognizant inputs. There is, after all, a factor known as Fate, which is decidedly independent from us and our plans or desires. From about age 18 to...
"And our minds were meant to sail Take a rest from our thoughts Take a break from this world And we'll feel miles away From the places that we used to be" - Years Around The Sun, "Miles Away" You know those days when you wish you were somewhere else? You can't stop glancing out the window. Your mind keeps meandering through fantastical ideas and far flung memories of a better time. It's natural. Some days and some places are simply more exciting than others. I am home now. Back in the States - the good ole US of A, and I've been struggling with this truth. I'm sitting in the living room of my parents house typing this...
