A Moveable Feast Indeed

The preparation and excitement for modern day travel drowns out the obvious noise. The  necessities and the fear gets all masked in packing and planning. It's apparent now that I had read and heard many things before going but I wasn't listening or interpreting. I had read "A Moveable Feast" many times. It was a bible of sorts to refer to when the chips were down. I never took it literally. The same goes for the act we all take for granted of charging and filling our devices. We get ready with all these seasons and playlists. We've played those songs over and over again and gotten no references. Maybe theres a time or place we go back to but nothing stands out as relevant now. The same goes for the movies, shows, games and apps that sort of blend into our lives and make days shorter. We set our iPods up for a 45 minutes commute, a road trip down 95 South or a 2 hour flight to NYC. We pack up the paperback books, manage our Amazon wish list and check the Netflix queue but there is no real intent to finish what we start. I guess all of the above are just tools of solitude. Now I wish I had considered it all apart of an unwritten guide.

Everything Ends With Pride

I've been telling myself I cannot wait until this year ends. I like to think of 2013 as bad but necessary. 2014 though was just really uncalled for. This has been a rotten year and I cannot wait for it to end. I am open to a new year, with new beginnings and new faces & places. I've been a nomad for far too long. It will be so amazing to just put my feet on the ground and make a home even if it's temporary. Today I got out of the shower, I managed my ordinary routine, my new normal and I just imagined what could be. I wouldn't have to navigate this life. There will be a place for me and my things and it will all feel right. Seriously, as much as I try to commit to this, my everyday, it just doesn't feel like mine. This is what not having a home feels like. I'm out of suitcase. I am surrounded by boxes. I am collecting a life I yearn to live. I just want some place to put it all. There is no shame in admitting how much I need that.

Everything Starts With Friendship

We all have our hangups. I'll admit that mines is trust. I was raised to believe you can't trust anyone and nothing in this world is free. Funny how I every time I set out to prove this theory wrong it eventually bites me in the ass. I guess mommy was right. So it's faIr to say that her saying of "friends are far and few" is prophecy. I didn't cultivate that many friendships, relationships early in life. So maybe seeing is believing. Enough with the sayings! Did I - have I … made in mistake in trusting, valuing and cultivating a friendship knowing what I already knew?

I did.

"Thumbs Up!" and Other Forms of Winging It

This Summer I immersed myself in the thing that is David Choe. I'm not going to provide any links to this character nor will I encourage you to seek out who he is and what he is about without caution. He is an artist. He's a Korean-American artist who was born in L.A., raised up in the 80s and 90s and made a lot of money doing commissioned graffiti work in the new Millennium. I like to think of him as more a graphic artist who branched out into the art world with graffiti and Korean personality notoriety. Dare I say it but he's a nobody who created a brand with zero creation at all. One of his earliest branding stints was traveling the states with no money or expectations. He documented this in a multiple season low budget Vice show called "Thumbs Up!" In the show, he basically train hopped and hitchhiked across the United States. Of course in-between the kindness of others he was sponsored by many casino wins and various collaborations with fellow affluent Korean-Americans. Since then he's been featured on Anthony Bourdain's show touring the culinary genius of L.A. and created his own dirty Asian ran podcast. At this point, he sort of misnamed as the "Facebook" guy who made a million drawing graffiti in the original HQ in exchange for stock options. The reality is he does a lot in the art world and gambles his fortunes which keeps him on the up and up. The show "Thumbs Up!" well that's an entirely different monster that continues to inspire people to just go.

Travel Re-Designed and Re-Defined

I've been absent from blogging for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, my grandmother took ill and eventually passed. I didn't expect her death to affect me but it has in a "life is too short" kind of way. She was always suffering some problematic, yet preventable disease along with old age. However, she seemed to move upward despite her issues and always outdid the youth of our family and our time. She had planned to travel a lot this year and to my surprise my mother had agreed to accompany her. Let's just say when she took a turn for the worst it was revealed to me that she really hadn't done all she wanted to do in life. The same goes for my mother and now down to me. A few weeks before her death my grandmother was reluctantly transferred to hospice care. She sort of outlived all her ward neighbors and put on a good fight. However, she went into a vegetative state just a few days in - never speaking again. This left a lot of unanswered questions and many a story told through others that claimed to have known what she wanted. I honestly don't believe what anyone has to say about what she may have or may not have done with the remainder of her life. I only know that she left here unfulfilled. And I only know this by the remnants she left behind and her seething jealously of others freedom.