travel

“You did not come to this Earth now to just pay bills, follow rules, watch your body age, and live a random life. You came here to fulfill a purpose, to live your life alive, to view all your changes as sacred meaningful soul passages.”
~Leo at “Perspectives From the Sky”

Walking semi-concious through those same glass double doors every morning, I would say “hey” to the guard, glance at the fading green paint and take in the general shabby condition of the place. “Long in the tooth” is how my husband describes buildings that are past their prime.
Except for the small missing pieces of the parquet wood floor and the dilapidated condition of the grey, two stall bathroom; if you entered from the front – you could be dazzled.

There were more millions of dollars of jewelry in that one thousand square foot foyer, than any showroom on Rodeo Drive.
Maybe all of them combined.
While those shops are sparsely merchandised, a large diamond ring with a spotlight on it for instance, the showcases in the foyer of Antiquarius, were literally crammed with goods.
New people often asked if the jewelry was costume. They couldn’t comprehend that all the emeralds, sapphires, rubies and diamonds were real.

Rooms filled with antiques have a very distinctive smell. A dash of Aunt Barbara’s sickening sweet perfume, mixed with Pledge and silver polish. Add the smell of coffee from the restaurant upstairs and some random cinnamon potpourri and you get the picture. When I walk into an antique mall…it takes me right back.

I loved working there. 
I worked inside the Antiquarius building almost every day without fail, except when we were out of town at jewelry shows; for eighteen years. 1988-2006.
About five years in, the diamond dust had cleared from my eyes and I started to ask myself,
‘Is this all there is?‘ Even the “glamour” of the travel had worn thin.

I would feel it the most profoundly walking in those back doors from the parking lot every morning.
‘There’s the guard, say “hi”, don’t get your high heel stuck in the missing pieces of the wood floor, smell the coffee – there MUST be more.’

Even diamonds and being surrounded by beauty can become mundane and mediocre, if there’s no Zah,Zah,Zoo.

As I’ve stated before in this blog: I despise mediocrity, I think I’m allergic to it; and I’m a firm believer that life is too short and we must live with a sense of urgency.
For me that means adventure, life with a bit of an edge.
I tried all those exercises where you drive a different way to work, or order something new for lunch, in order to break out of the rut – that’s all bullshit.

I’m one of those people that needs a quest. What’s a quest you ask?
To me, it’s a challenge or long term pursuit to which you are devoted, and it changes you along the way. I adore travel, so I knew that would play a part in my quest.

I just watched an interview with Chris Guillebeau about his new book “The Happiness of Pursuit” and it very much reminded me of the dissatisfaction I felt all those years ago. The book is a collection of stories about people that are wired like me. People that are compelled to pursue a quest.

A quest can be anything from wanting to complete a triathlon, to, like his story and another in the book, travel to every country in the world or to knit ten thousand hats.

Mine is seeing as many places around the world as I can, on the back of a motorcycle.

“It is more about the emotional awareness of mortality, rather than the intellectual understanding. Life is short.”
~Chris Guillebeau

In his book Chris talks about the characteristics of a quest: a clear goal, a real challenge and a series of milestones along the way. It should be something you’re REALLY excited about. Check, check, check and big fat check.

Your quest will have stops and starts, born out of practicality; like running out of money, time or steam, and I think the most important component is to chronicle the journey. To me, this is non-negotiable.
It keeps the momentum going when you can’t see the end. You’re able to see how far you’ve come, AND, you can keep track, in writing, of all the changes you’ve gone through along the way.

That was what happened on our Continental Divide Quest last summer. 5000 miles in seventeen days.
I took you with me. I wrote about how I wanted to stop about half way through, how much I cried and how certain circumstances scared me shitless.

“We’re not in the Antiquarius anymore, Toto” 
~J Bertolus

I can’t tell you how many times I have looked up at the sky on the back of that bike and thought to myself ‘I am NOT at a desk, I am NOT sitting in traffic on the 101, I am NOT bored, and I am certainly NOT asking ‘is that all here is?‘
I Am living Life.

Find your quest. It will be the best obsession you’ve ever had.

With lots of love,
Xox

Marie Forleo interview with Chris Guillebeau
http://www.marieforleo.com/2014/09/happiness-of-pursuit/

Fear had its grubby mitts on me and was dragging me systematically, with every anxious, shallow breath, deeper down the rabbit hole.

It replaced my relatively rational mind with that of a caveman being chased by a T-Rex.

I was in constant fight or flight mode, assessing every threat on a scale of one to ten. One being completely benign, a kitten sleeping on a chair, ten being a lumber truck filled with deer barreling toward us. Every moment on the motorcycle felt like a ten.

What the hell had happened to me?

If I had to name the soundtrack playing in my head all day long, it would have been the theme from Jaws and The Shining on an endless loop, ramping up my adrenalin, and whipping my nerves into a frenzy.

Studies have shown the detrimental effects of fear on the human psyche.
I was a textbook case.

Fear affects our thinking and actions.
It made me into a dumbass. My thinking was completely skewed which caused me to act like a huge fraidy cat.
I wanted to turn right, if you can imagine that, on our Left Turn Trip which prompted a stern admonition from my husband. “You’re acting like an idiot. Stop it.”

Fear hinders us from becoming the people we are meant to be.
Where was that carefree, fearless woman who was game for anything and loved seeing the world on the back of a bike? She had ceased to exist, replaced instead by a woman afraid of wildlife. Not lions and tigers and bears (oh my) but freakin’ Bambi.

Fear can drive people to destructive habits. To numb the pain of distress and foreboding, some turn to things like drugs and alcohol for artificial relief.
Yep, I was main lining the wine and chocolate. All concern for healthy living left me. Why bother. I could be killed at any moment so a big, fat, chocolate croissant or a sticky bun for breakfast were just the gateway drugs for a day of self-destructive culinary debauchery.

Fear steals peace and contentment. When we’re always afraid, our life becomes centered on pessimism and gloom.
Peace and contentment were distant memories for me now. I was a frazzled wreak. Being hyper vigilant is exhausting. I couldn’t even take in the beauty of the scenery, it was no longer about the journey, I just wanted to get to the next destination and get the hell off this God forsaken death march…I mean road trip.

Fear creates doubt.
Yes – yes it does, and I think my husband started to doubt my sanity right about then.

This next story is kind of my perfect storm of fear’s behavioral anarchy.

One afternoon around three, we found ourselves entering back into a forested area after being along the coast most of that morning. It was extremely overcast, dark and gloomy, so much so that all vehicles had to use their headlights in the middle of the day.
In other words: summer along the Northwest coast.
Well, that sent me into a terrified tailspin. I could feel every muscle in my body tense up. I tugged at my husband’s arm frantically, which is the Universal sign for “I’ve lost my mind, pull over immediately.”

Now stopped on the side of the highway, I screamed over the traffic whizzing by into his helmet this question, which I’m SURE is on the MENSA qualification exam.

“Its gotten so dark out, do you think the deer think that its dusk? They can’t tell time, maybe they operate from the changes in light? Are they getting ready to start leaping out? Because if they are, I think we should stop riding RIGHT NOW!”

That was it. He’d had enough.

Forcefully grabbing both my shoulders, he looked me square in the eyes and yelled over traffic. “This has GOT TO STOP. I don’t care if you want to drive yourself nuts, but now you’re driving me INSANE.”

“I can’t believe I’m even going to say this: DUSK is DUSK. Get a grip woman.
We’re riding all the way to Cannon Beach today and we may not get there until after dark. DEAL WITH IT. I’m finished indulging your fears.
Yes, it’s true, you may die on the bike. It may be a buck, it may be a lumber truck, it may be because I had a brain aneurism caused by all this nonsense!”

“Nevertheless, I want my old wife back!”

“I want to hear you humming songs and talking sweetly to yourself behind me. I want to feel your light touch on my back, not this horrible death grip you’ve acquired. I want to see joy instead of fear in your eyes.
Most importantly, I want your IQ to return to it’s former level…NOW!”

He chucked my shoulders to punctuate the end of his lecture and to make sure I was still paying attention.

Without another word, we got back on the bike and rode away.

And THAT ladies and gentlemen is how I overcame my fear of bambi, and death.

Do you have that someone that will give it to you straight? Not let you be led by fear? Call them right now and thank them and then tell me about it!

Brave, brave, love ,
Xox

• People always ask me if I’m afraid I’m going to die on the motorcycle, which leads me to ask them: Are you afraid to live?

  About ten years ago, we, my hubby and I, decided to take our “Left Turn Ride.”
  Our plan, (which was hatched over too much wine on a Friday night, but brilliant just the same) was to ride up the west coast of the US, from LA to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, staying as far left as the roads would allow without having to wear a wetsuit.

  Our trip motto: When in doubt – turn left.

  Those were in the days before I met Ginger who turned me onto custom earphones and the concept of riding with music playing at all times. I now go to great lengths to assemble the perfect soundtrack for each day of our rides.
  Big, sweeping instrumentals for curves and great scenery, Sting for the moors of Scotland and Ireland, Billy Joel, Annie Lennox or Gaga for city riding and even a best-selling book for the long stretches of flat, straight, highway in Wyoming.

  On this “Left Turn Ride” I had only my own thoughts to keep me company, which could put me into a kind of zoned out state of bliss, or wreak havoc, depending on what I was seeing, how much sleep and coffee I’d had, and my general state of being that day.

  I know.

  Crap shoot, in head to toe Kevlar, on two wheels going 80 m.p.h.
  
  I’m a pretty even-tempered person, relatively low maintainance (if you just heard a thud, that’s my husband falling out of his chair) I’ve even been known to fall asleep on the back of the bike.
  No, you don’t fall off.
  No, I don’t admit any of this to my mother.

  Up the coast of Oregon and Washington we rode through mile after mile of gorgeous redwood forests.
  The scent of pine is one of my all time favorite things in the world next to the sound of babies laughing and bacon.
  Redwoods and Pine trees are at the top of my list of the reasons Why I Ride.
  They feed my soul.

  Sometimes the forest gets so dense and dark and the smell gets so strong, like a Christmas tree farm, you become completely transported to another time and place; of fairies, devas and magic. The trees truly are not just living, but ALIVE, and so is the forest……and therein lies the rub.

  One day in central Oregon, if I remember correctly, we saw remnants on the road of a deer that had the misfortune of meeting the front bumper of a logging truck at 65 mph.
  Then another.
  The next day, a red pickup truck was at a gas station, totaled on all four sides as a huge buck had gone up and over the front hood and windshield, with its legs making contact with the side panels on its way down the back and straight to heaven.
  That is when my thoughts, left to their own devices without the distraction of music, went to work on me.

  “What happens if we hit a deer?” I asked later at lunch, picking all the good bits out of my salad.

  My husband looked at me as if I just slapped him and slowly put down his fork.
  Shaking his head and fiddling with his paper napkin (he HATES paper napkins, it’s the French in him) he let out a long sigh.

  “Well, I will try to slow down if I have the chance, I won’t jam on the brakes and I won’t swerve to get out of the way because THAT will kill us for sure.”

  I stopped chewing.

  “When we hit it, the guts will splatter all over us, the deer will die, it’ll total the front of the bike, but hopefully we’ll be okay.”

  Shit. I dropped my fork.

  “If it’s an Elk or a Moose, you can kiss your ass goodbye.”
  I’ll do all the same things, I’ll slow down, go straight ahead…..but we’ll all die. That’s a huge animal.”

  He nonchalantly picked up his fork and started to eat again, like he just given me the weather report.
  Cloudy with a chance of reindeer.
  I’m crying now, and in my best freaked out seven-year old voice I wailed:
  “What!!!!!!!??????? You mean…we could DIE! Holy shit!”

  He was laughing now, big giant guffaws of laughter.
  “You’re kidding, right? It never occurred to you that you could die on a motorcycle?”

  Because my fate suddenly seemed uncertain and life too short; I stopped a passing waitress and ordered a hot fudge sundae.

  “Well, no. Certainly not at the hands of a Bambi.”

  He went on to explain that the greatest threat was when the wildlife was most active – dusk and dawn. That is apparently when the most vehicle versus fauna accidents occur.

  My husband has this theory about accidents. They are a series of random events that converge at the same time and place. If you remove ONE component, the accident cannot occur. For instance, if you forget something and run back into the house delaying your departure by five minutes, that will either place you on or remove you from the accident timeline.

  I wanted to remove us from that timeline.

  My new rule: No riding before nine in the morning and kickstands down by five.
  
  Suddenly my beautiful pine forests were filled with terrifying, furry, four-legged terrorists ready to leap out at any moment and render us dead.

  Why I Ride is all about the experiences. It’s about Living life.

  Hadn’t I just said that to the person that asked me if I was afraid of dying?

  Now I found myself afraid for tens of hours a day, my eyes searching for animals lurking in the landscape, ready to leap.
  Cute became creepy.

  Fuck I hate fear, it changes you…..it was changing me.
  It was making me afraid of some implied danger, trading beautiful experiences for the illusion of safety.

  I was willing to forgo some of my all time favorite things –– the sunrise and sunset rides, the mystical, foggy, early morning departures right after coffee with the promise of a big breakfast after a couple of hours of sleepy coastal roads.

• No way Jose, I’m sleeping in. Those brazen killers will be stirring at that hour.

  Wait…why do I ride?
  (To be continued)

  Xox

  

Dear America,

Home of these United States.

Happy Birthday, Girl.

I am eternally grateful, even after traveling the world, make that especially after traveling the world, to have won the cosmic lottery, by having had the good fortune to be born in your golden state.

I have traveled this country, sea to shining sea, mostly on the back of a motorcycle, and I’m here to testify that it really does have purple mountain’s majesty and amber waves of grain.

It is gorgeous.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the trash, graffiti and poverty through these rose-colored glasses, but by and large, this country is a heart swelling great source of pride for me.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That last pursuit, the pursuit of happiness?
We are blessed that Thomas Jefferson had the wisdom and foresight to write that into The Declaration of Independence.
No other country in the world gives its citizens the RIGHT to happiness.
Who knows what that means, what happiness looks like?
To them it meant emancipation from British Rule.
Happiness means something different to everyone, but we are entitled to it thanks to that sacred declaration, and by God, we go for it.

The American people I’ve met all want the same things from life: Love and a good cup of coffee.

Americans are hard workers. Some of the hardest in the world – check the stats.

We love our pets
Damn, we love our kids.
We are an irrepressible bunch. We are gregarious, out going and LOUD.

We are innovative, curious, quick minded and clever.
We willingly give directions to people who look lost.
We don’t take NO for an answer.

We are MacGyvers, most of us are industrious enough to fix pretty much anything with gum, a paper clip and dental floss. It’s in the water.

The Americans I’ve met, will help a stranger in a heartbeat. They are generous and kind.

The United States is only as great as the sum of its parts; in reality it is only a landmass with man-made borders.

It is the people who make it great and make me grateful to have been born here. 

(Italy was my first choice, I’m sure, but you can’t get an apartment or pay a bill without greasing someone’s palm AND it has no infrastructure.)

Travel outside the states and you’ll share my appreciation for :

Clean water
Indoor plumbing
Hot running water,
A toilet with Real toilet paper
Things that work as expected
Ice cubes
Cold anything really
Decent French fries
King size beds (not two beds pushed together)
Street signs that actually give you correct information.

7 eleven (the ability to buy tampons or Motrin or band aids at 2AM)

Personal space (other countries don’t have the same personal boundaries we do.)
We were standing in some line in Europe, (where they are big on lining up for things to which Americans would say “No fucking way”) when my husband looked over at me with the saddest mix of incredulity and humiliation. The old man behind him was standing so close that if he even so much as puckered his lips, he would have kissed the back of my husband’s neck.
It freaked him out and he’s French…. So, personal boundaries.

A relatively dependable police force and fire department.
A somewhat workable bureaucracy. (Just try to get your VAT tax back)
Real cabs that don’t have hoodlums for drivers
Soap
Pillows that are thicker than 1 inch.
CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I’m serious, these are things we take for granted that some other countries just haven’t figured out yet.

Happy Birthday America. I do love you. You don’t look a day over two hundred.

My birthday wish for you this day is a big fat cake with tons of candles, heaps of vanilla ice cream, and the most badass fireworks display ever, complete with marching bands and a fly over by the Blue Angels.

Too much? Nah, we’re Americans.

*Addendum: there are some things that other countries do that kick our ass.
My husband was riding in the middle of the Namibian desert last year and he had cell phone service – like four bars – four bars is unheard of in LA.
The electricity was dicey, but he was able to FaceTime me every night.
So, yeah, they’re killing it with cell phone service.

Want to wish her a Happy Birthday? Put it in comments below and I’ll forward them to her.

Much love,
Xox

Dear Airplane,

I love this arraignment that we’ve all agreed upon.

YOU somehow achieve significant aerodynamic lift; enough to propel us through the sky, from point A to point B, and I sit in my chair in the sky, eating the peanuts, holding the belief that all of that scientific shit is true.

Come on.
Can we cut the crap?

Clearly, air travel is some crazy magic or a freaking miracle.

The sheer accumulated weight of all the passengers and our consistently overweight luggage (I can only speak for myself)
render all that science shit impossible.
Really.

Airplanes work because we all believe they do.

Amen.

*This is for all my friends that are on planes this weekend 😉
Happy Saturday.

Sending miracle Inducing Love,
Xox

Realization number three in my ongoing unraveling brought on by this 5000 miles in 17 days motorcycle trip!

Really!? MORE?

Yep, it has become the gift that keeps on giving.

It feels like shit at times, but it really is a gift.

Some of you have heard the story of our close call on the plains of Montana and some of you have not.
For those that have…go make yourself a sandwich while I re-tell it.

So…plains of Montana, trying to out run a giant storm that is quickly bearing down on us.
Two squalls of rain ahead, with a space in-between.
My husband yells back at me over the rumbling thunder, “We’re gonna thread the needle”, meaning, try to make it between the squalls.
We are traveling on a two lane highway at 85 mph.

Now I digress, for those of you from the mid west, you are familiar with these storms.
They are an anomaly to me.

I’m from SoCal, when it drizzles there, we go on “Storm Watch”.

There’s immediate and unbelievably loud thunder that accompanies the lightning – ground lightening (what the hell?)

Then there’s rain. heavy, heavy, rain. Giant wet drops the size of quarters.
One minute it’s dry, the next it’s like someone turned a fire hose on us.

Seriously.

And hail.
Machines that rely on the centrifugal force of two six-inch wide spinning rubber discs, don’t play well with hail. Things get real squirrely. It’s like someone upstairs has thrown slippery, wet, marbles on the road in front of you and is having a laugh while you try to stay upright.

As luck would have it, the eye of the needle closes, and the squall moves over us.
Rain so heavy, I can’t see out my visor…at all…even when my hand becomes a windshield wiper.
All I CAN see are the blurry headlights of the cars in the opposite lane.

I digress once again.
Let me explain something here.
My husband is a giant guy.
6’3″. 230 lbs
My seat is a bit higher than his, so I mostly look over his right shoulder.
He does buffer most of the weather and wind, but he also obscures my view of what is directly ahead of us.

Let me also say he is an AMAZING rider.
Over 40 years of riding, he teaches off-road riding with 600 pounds of bike and gear, rides all over the world with me on the back.
Has followed the DAKAR in So America twice, and rode thru
South Africa and the Namibian desert just this year.
He’s not a poser, that weekend rider on a Harley.
He is a certified bad ass.

It is his passion, he is very skilled, and I trust him. 

Okay, back to Montana.
Rain, wind, and as I am straining to see anything.
What I do notice are headlights…in our lane.
A car is passing in the on coming lane, at over 60 m.p.h in a torrential rainstorm.
I tap hubby’s shoulder and point. Are you seeing that?

He nods slowly, staring straight ahead, no break in concentration.

Thank God!
Because what comes next is where I lose my shit.

After that car completes his pass, right behind him, also passing and in our lane, is a pickup truck with a trailer.
There is not enough time or space now for him to pass safely.
He is in our lane, coming at us at 60 m.p.h. – in the rain!

Total loss of control

I’ve never thought I was about to die before.
This is where the screaming came in.
This is where ten thousand bazillion thoughts go through your mind in one second, and the entire scene goes into slow motion.
And this is where another realization came and tapped me on the shoulder.
“NOT NOW! CAN’T YOU SEE IM BUSY!”

I’m standing straight up on the pegs now, which you don’t do, because it destabilizes the whole arrangement we’ve all made, me, my husband, the weather and the bike, and all bets are off.
I’m screaming hysterically,my slasher movie scream, knowing I’m about to become a splat on the windshield of some jerks truck – in the middle of Montana.

I have NO idea how to get out of this!
But my husband does.
I can’t see an escape route, a way out.
He can.
I can’t contain my hysteria, because I’m totally and completely NOT in control

Of-My-Fate.

I’ m going to jump off on the right into a culvert and barbed wire, to try save myself.

It actually seems at the time like a better bet.

My husband, from years of experience, training, skill and guts,
remains completely calm.
Steady and still.

I can’t see from the rain, the speed, and the incredible turbulence as my husband goes around the truck and trailer on the right, on a sliver of asphalt that remains.

I continue screaming as I position myself to jump.
The right side of my body in motion, the left side decides to stay.
We slip beside him with less than two feet to spare.
The turbulence knocks our left hand mirror down, and buffets us for what seems like forever.

Total loss of control

The realization I’ve had is this:
In life, when we don’t have clarity,
Sometimes we’re barreling towards uncertainty,
When we don’t have the facts,
When we can’t see our way clear,
We panic and make decisions based in fear.

We can swerve or slam on the brakes on a slippery surface.

Most likely, to our detriment.

If we surrender to the part of us that does know,
That does have the wisdom, the skill and the steadiness to bring us thru the storm, we may give up control, which is terrifying, but it enables us to come out unscathed on the other side.

*side note
My body is still jacked up, because in every way except the physical
I DID jump off that bike.
The left side which stayed, is in so much pain,
The right side is fine.

I have yet to integrate the two.

Xox