Tag: vegan

eugene

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so much has happened. eugene, surprisingly inspiring for me. i spent 3 months here, and once i gave up on the idea that i would or should get a job, i welled up with creative ideas. plus, PLUS, i arrived to adventure buddies, and adventure we did!

first off, i don’t want you think i barged into my friends’ lives for 3 whole months. i have my faults, but that i did not do. i did reach out to the local hostel and did some work-trade for a bunk, so i guess i did sort of get a job, but it was 4 hour shifts 5 days a week, so not so bad. and it was super easy for me to request to work/not work certain times to go adventure. also, i met even more people moving around this world in different ways for so many reasons, reasons i will be exploring in many ways.

as for the creativity that opened up in me once i recovered from logistics hangover, i am still amazed at how much i am giving in to it. it could be the space i am creating and plans i am laying out so that i don’t spend precious mental space worrying and fretting. but i have started having dreams at least once a month about ideas and directions that i want the book/story/potential series i am working on. things i haven’t been able to work out during waking hours.

i have also taken the time to teach myself how to draw, or should i say let youtube videos teach me to open up to the possibilities that i can create with pencils and pens..maybe water colors. i have never let myself do this. art supply stores intimidate me. i have looked at art classes, but was shy and afraid of not being good enough to share, and they always make you share.

so i have taken one of my dry bags and filled it with my journal, sketch pad, and a pen and pencils…my little art bag. it is so fun. sometimes when i am on a hike or some such fun activity, i don’t always want to write, or the words won’t come to describe my thoughts and feelings, so i draw it. i has effected all aspects of my expressive outlets. my photography benefits as i adjust for lighting or looking for the small details. same for my writing. if i am imagining a scene to write about, i can sketch out not just what i see, but people, lighting, feeling tones for the place come to life sort of speak and fill in what i’ve been missing. its great! also, it is yet one more thing that i can use to procrastinate what i am “suppose” to be doing now. so win win!

adventures! so many!

first, i got there and eugene was having a late summer pride event! it reminded those of us who came out in the 80s and 90s of those smaller community prides we use to have. ones that were free instead of 20 bucks or more and use local area entertainers instead of big names that blow the community’s budget for other things. i do appreciate both for different reason, but definitely love the smaller community feel.

my fellow bike adventure friend took me on a bike path tour one day. showing me how to get to the river trails, what streets are good for getting to favorite breweries and bike spaces. then he left to visit family and left the two of us alone to mischief. the other pal in this crew is more of a walker, so we walked all over the town. he showed me how to get around to the parks and buttes to walk and wonder. we went to the museum, heard some music, and he introduced me to some of the friends the two of them had made since being in eugene. this was the first time the 2 of us had so much time with just the 2 of us, that we really got to know one another even deeper. such a special time i can’t even express.

the adventures i had in eugene were mixed with solo and buddies. it has been so long since i had an adventure buddy, i forgot how much fun it could be. the adventures i had with my friend in kansas city was remarkable, but it was piece of my longer plans. also, with all the flooding, the planing was different. so planning micro-adventures with someone was just so fun.

eugene does have a wonderful public transit system that reaches out to nearby communities, including the mckenzie river ranger district, so i took a couple trips out there to wonder the river woods and hot springs. we took the bus down to cottage grove to bike the covered bridge route and play around those little towns. all for the cost of a regular bus ride of $1.75 or $3.50 for a day. i also rode my bike out to springfield fairly often for the fun of riding the river trail out to have a beer or for big queer yoga on friday nights.

i can’t say enough just how beautiful this valley is. how easy it is to so any different unique nature places from ancient forest to high deserts and mountains. hot springs and ice cold rivers.

i do have to say getting back to the trails up and around the sisters wilderness was pretty great. my buddies had decided to get in a backpacking trip before school kicked back into gear for the year. so we decided to rent a car and i would drop them off and we’d camp out together for a night. then i would get another car and pick them up and we’d have a little hike and adventure on the way back. there had been a fire recently where i walked them into the start of the loop they were doing. it was eery for sure, but still so beautiful. i feel fortunate to have experienced this forest in both situations, and to see the freshness of the fire mixed with the growth already returning. it was so soothing to be back up there smelling those piney forests and absorbing high altitude sunshine. catching the views of the first snow setteling on the peaks of the sisters’ peaks.

sitting by those high altitude lakes i was able to do more internal exploration of what is my responsibility to these areas that i both recreate in, and have reverence for. it is where i am refreshed, renewed, and fills me spiritually. it is a deep relationship that i feel whatever “wilderness” i am in, and it should be, needs to be a reciprocal relationship. so what is my responsibility? what do i have to give back to these forms of kin?

settleing in eugene for the winter is certainly a tempting thought, but there are many dark sides to this little city, besides nike. certainly here was the first time on this trip i truly felt unsafe. it was the topic of many conversations i had here. it was a tough topic to talk about because it could go in many ways and we wanted to make sure that people knew that we weren’t talking about the fear of the high rates of houseless folks living on the streets and in tents by the river. it is mostly in white men and not just the drunken frat boys. there is a high rate of people on meth and other drugs that are unpredictable who will do about anything for their next fix. it is a complicated topic that goes deeper into a myriad thread of our social ills in this country.

on the flip side, i think that being in eugene was more of a coming home than being in portland for a few weeks, but we’ll talk about that when i do a portland adventure wrap up. but that will be after our overnight to the coast #optoutside!

philly

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where to start.

i could go the linear way…today and the next…i could group it into activities…my thoughts i had there…humm

well let’s start with getting oriented and see what happens.

i left off with the arrival to philly, getting the basic rulelessness of philly and eating dive take-out chinese food that really hit the spot. i met the roommate and the house doggo. we caught up a bit before it was passed time to get some sleep.

i woke and listened to the city around me, then i got a text from with-in the house. it surprised me at first, but eventually i came to enjoy the quiet interactions from the comfort of soft clothes. usually it was an update on work schedules, ideas for the daily activities…

everyone went to work and it was just me and mr. dog. to get my bearings i went for a walk around the neighborhood. i found the local punk coffeeshop/cafe with lots o’vegan options (p.s. i really enjoyed this place and it was below a super cool bike shop that mostly i watched people of color go up and down the stairs with every day bikes and wearing regular clothes). i also found the all vegan donut shop, (yum), and the local co-op that i had heard a great deal about (not all good not all bad).

at some point i texted another friend of mine that i lived with for a minute back in the portland years who had moved to philly. we made plans to get together while i was in town. we had a good catch-up and they let me know about a couple of actions happening around the city that i would end up going to.

this first day (and most days i was there) the sun was shining. it was hot, but not humid and super hot. this part of west philly reminded me of portland 10 to 15 years ago. especially north portland. perhaps it is because of the cusp of rapidly encroaching gentrification of a historically black neighborhood. i could see myself trying to find a way to spend the summer here. these first few days it was super tempting to look at job and housing options for the season.

that night we met some of my friends’ friends for happy hour at the taco place and chowed on vegan nachos and margaritas…yum. the conversations were fun and lively with lots of laughter and smiles. it is always nice to get to know my friends other friends, especially friends who don’t live in the same place i do…to know friends are well cared for and loved is a wonderful feeling to me. also, one of the women hails from russia. while in n.c. i read part of a book on the oral history of punk music in russia that my friend did the cover art for. she actually knew some of the bars and places in the book. it was a super cool connection.

our days together were spent in lovely relaxed (to me anyway) ways. we went to the museum. saw a wonderfully disturbing exhibit as well as the rocky statue and footprints. it was remarkable to me how many people come to the museum just to see the rocky statue, so much so they moved the statue from the top of the stairs (you know where he ran up in the first rocky) to down and off to the side of the stairs. we walked the historic streets of philly (once crashing the filming of some t.v. show we had never heard of). we talked and caught up on what’s been happening in our lives, our minds, our hearts. we ate good food, consumed good beverages, and had lots of fun.

the moments we were off doing our own things, i walked the streets of philly, explored so many varied parts of histories that philly holds from pre-revolution to social justice actions, including an action against ICE that i went to with the other friend i have here. all the walking and wondering, the pouring over maps that listed important names as the names of parks or centers: malcolm x, paul robeson, du bois, MOVE, and mumia just to name a few. i tried to get to the edgar allen poe house, but just couldn’t get make the time for all the things.

one day i was walking around the historic area where independence hall is and the liberty bell, historic homes that had “servants quarters” i.e. slaves. i rounded a corner and spotted the “first bank” of the u.s. it stopped me in my tracks and i read the plaque. it talked about how it was proposed as a way to pay of the huge debt that this new founded country now had due to the war for “independence.” within just a few blocks i would run into at least the first 5 banks in the country. the last couple i ran into trying to escape the area. i was overwhelmed by the obviousness of the connection between war and banks and the merchant class and just how much we have not changed at all, the cycle this country spins to keep the capitalists of capitalism in control of the labor class. i needed to get away and clear my head.

there is a park by the house of the statue of liberty so i found a shady place and sat and calmed my thoughts and did a favorite activity of mine, people watch. there were people of all backgrounds speaking many languages, and i could not calm down. it was much more like a punch. normally this is a scene that warms me from the inside, but with the fascist want-to-be dictator that the u.s. has as a president right now, i was embarrassed (?), saddened (?), pissed for sure. that we as a country of immigrants (unless you are native american), that we would do any less than welcome those seeking refuge with open arms, is outrageous to me. granted these were tourists with some level of privilege ($$ everything in independence area cost money to enter except the liberty bell), and most likely would not have border issues when trying to return “home”, but i held some doubts for sure.

it was decided that we would take a day to go to the roommate’s parents house in jersey to swim, and break the city’s heat, so refreshing. what a great idea, go play and splash in a pool during the heatwave. it was a super fun day. we swam. we drank. we ate. we played games. we watched a couple thunderstorms roll by. we drove back to philly during another storm, tuckered out. i fell into a deep sleep.

i woke with the urgency of needing to make plans to get moving again. i couldn’t stay in philly. maybe i will return one day. there was a deep part of me that wanted to stay and see what i could get involved in, but i had a deeper need to get back west of the rockies. no matter how hard i try, i am not an east side of the country kind of kid. also, i could tell by the conversation i had with many people that i would most likely fall in to the cycle of working too much to make ends meet and consume things i don’t want to in the long run, and not make the time and space for the creative ventures i am trying to get started and move ever more forward.

eventually i found the route that would take me west. i chatted with my pals in oregon to make plans for my landing. and then i relaxed into my final few days in philly, and this led me to some great conversations that helped me work out some of my thoughts i’d been having while there.

my friend and i had a conversation one night about whether living so close to the deep history of the neighborhood, and racist history of philly, lent to having a sense of responsibility to that history? it is related, i think, to how i feel about living so close to nature and feeling a responsibility to protecting and making responsible choices in how i move around in my life. i mean, i can’t imagine white people calling the cops on black folks while having a picnic in malcom x park…just sayin’ but if gentrification keeps happening…

another night, at the first micro-brewery in philly that is right next to the punk cafe, i chatted with the bartender. he had recently returned to philly after going to school on the west coast. he was able to give himself the time and space to return and and come out to his family and the challenges of being a young gay black man in west philly (and the world). we talked about many things, including the similarities he is witnessing from his time in oakland and being back in philly around gentrification, housing, and wages.

but make no mistake, my last days weren’t all politics and heavy conversations. i ate a lot of vegan foods…went to the straight edge pizza place for amazing vegan “wings”. i had all the vegan treats i could get in my mouth. we went to an irish punk bar for some tasty vegan snacks and good beers. p.s. i do love me a good irish punk bar.

the morning of my departure was to be early, so we said our so longs the night before. i had decided to bike to amtrak instead of waking my friend and loading up the car for a ride to the station. this would be the only time i would bike in philly, and i am glad i did. i had been wanting to ride, but touring bikes are not really city prepared as everything is quick-release aka easy to steal. i rode away in the early morning during rush-hour traffic in busy bike lanes. it was a beautiful morning and a nice ride.

while waiting at the red cap post to be directed to where to load my bike i met a nun from a west philly church who encouraged me to get confirmed or something like that, just to be safe, like an insurance policy for my soul i guess. she was very nice about it. i told her i’m more along the lines of buddhist. she assured me that was ok, but i should still get to a catholic church. she reminded me of what dorothy day of the catholic worker movement might have been a little like. i also met a couple that would be on the train with me all the way to sacramento. little did we know what was in store for us in the coming days.

a couple of side notes. after getting into eugene, i read that the chinese restaurant we went to closed it’s doors the end of that month. rent was getting too high. the owner told the story of his family coming to the united states, and the support he has had since arriving in philly.

i also learned why a pizza shop i had tried to go to a couple times, but had a paper note that they were closed. seems that the staff believed the owners had fired a black employee for racially motivated reasons, so the staff locked up shop. the sister bar/restaurant did the same a couple days later in support. well that explained my confusion, and also reinforced my feelings that people were taking actions and not just sitting in meetings talking about the theory of racist management practices.

i can’t express just how much i am grateful for this friend, and this visit. we’ve known each other for over 20 years now i guess. we met when i lived in syracuse, and this is the second time we visited in person since i left ny. there are for sure gaps in our knowledge of the others’ experiences in those years, yet our friendship has stayed important and strong to us both. who knows where we will meet next.

i can’t wait to tell you about the adventures i’ve been having in oregon!

kansas city ii

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”the soul has greater need of the ideal than the real. it is by the real that we exist. it is by the idea that we live”

this qoute of victor hugo’s is on the outside of the the nelson atkins art museum. it has stuck with me all these years. as a kid i would walk around this museum and try to piece together what it is suppose to mean? is it in relation to the art collected, stolen, and displayed in it’s walls? is it reflecting the creative process? how we are to be effected or interact with art? why does it have to be seperated?

i’ve spent the last week wondering around the streets of this city that does have a hold on me, maybe the only city i would live in again if an option arose. the mid-town area that is.

it is this museum holds a special place deep inside of me. there is something sacred about walking these halls and grounds. i can remember coming here with my cousin, an amazing and talented creative human. when we were little his mom, my aunt, would take us here and let us roam. when we grew older, and i would roll into town for a visit, he and i would find a reason to ditch the fam and spend the day here. walk around with our own thoughts then meet down at the courtyard for some wine and catch-up. repeat until we felt ready to join the family again. usually winter, summer would be out on the grounds with a frisbee and byob.

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it took me awhile to realize the special space museums hold for me…and libraries too. the places where people are suppose to be quiet and not interrupt other people deep in thought…even white guys seem to understand this. wherever i am, i usually find the library and the museum and i walk. maybe sit for a bit. some have places one can even read or write. for me, it is like the solace of nature in the city. more than parks or city forests. there is no multi-tasking of jogging with your dog, or taking on the phone while getting in your daily step count. here, the multi-tasking is internal.

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the halls of this museum introduced me to cultures that stick with me to this day, like   story telling of asian art. i remember the first time i came up a staircase and ran into the huge golden buddha, and he wasn’t fat like the ones i grew up seeing at my grandparents’ house.

but it is the lawn here that hold most of my memories. though i adopted a vegan lifestyle in syracuse before moving back to the k.c. area, the lawn at this museum is where i went to my first community vegan potluck picnic thing. then later, across the street is a park where i went to my first rally against vivisection. there is a lab just right there that has been testing on animals for sooo long.

these led me to the peace/anti-war gatherings at the fountain at the plaza. these were organized by the people i had a more spiritual connection with…mostly buddhists and maybe some universalists, quakers even possibly? all kinds of people.

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i spent an extra week in kansas city, trying to figure out how i was going to get around the floods. i did take a few momments to explore and catch up with a couple friends. much has changed and stayed the same. k.c is a beautiful city with a mix of the old and new buildings with rich and complicated histories, much like myself. and i’m not sure how to say this piece that i enjoy about kansas city. but when i look around, i don’t just see white people, and that gives me great comfort (? not sure if that is the right word, but too many of us white folks makes me twitchy).

i got to drink some good beers at new brewries, some whiskey at new distilleries, coffee on rooftops with good views, a vegan donut at a vegan coffee shop, and i walked. with the exception of the bike infrastructure needing serious help, this city may fit me even more these days…maybe.

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First week

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”you wanna join our revolution?”

no hesitation

no moment of waiting for some kind reason or expaination

i already had them in my mind as queer women of some kind

so fist in the air with a “hell yeah”

its been a horrific week, month, years for people who have the physical ability to give birth in this country and many of us are ready for a revolution. Many of us have been ready for years…for most of our lives.

As we talked, I realized my current life is a kind of revolution already.

In this first week I have already met so many people who are excited by what I am attempting to do. Sometimes they do not understand until I say, “life is too short to make someone else wealthy.” I get many a different form of affirmation. From fuck yeah, to a nod in agreement as if they had never thought of that.

so how has my first week gone? In 5 days I did a little over 190 miles, cussed Kansas over and over again. And fell in love with the flint hills over again. The first day of was just 27 miles and I landed in a campsite by a tiny lake (aka a reservoir) that is absolutely magical. I could see that the flood waters had come way up to where I was camping and had just recently receded. There were so many birds and turtles and fish jumping. Then with the moon overhead and the sunsetting…I just didn’t know where to look.

when I got back to my campsite to write and make a meal, this little girl came over to figure out what I am all about. She was so open and so confused: where was my camper? Am I a girl? Am I traveling alone? Why? What are you doing with that bike? I had met her great grandfather earlier who is actually tyring to help the mom raise 3 or 4 kids?! They were so kind and so open. Eventually she went back to get her dolls so that we could play with them.

at one point I got kind of nervous that some of the family dynamics where going to come out…they did, but not in the way I thought they would….thankfully! Mom is tired from working so much and doesn’t get to see the kids much. The great grandfather came over to make sure she wasn’t “bothering” me. When I pulled out my camera and said it was time for me to go for a walk and take some pics everyone left and there was an agreement to say goodbye in the morning.

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Why, why does it surprise me every time I am out that I meet more and more people, individuals and families, living in campsites? Everyday life is getting more challenging for folks. And I am not talking about keeping up with the jones or the jetsons. I’m talking about the basics of food and shelter. I don’t know what to do about this. Acknowledging is the step I can start with. And gosh…this 1st grader woke up next to a wonderful lake with a family member looking out for her, and is that so bad? I know kids with so very much more material positions, and not even close to this gift. Yet, I have been having flashbacks to the grapes of wrath.

as far as the flint hills trail, I want to rank it super low, except for the section between council groove and admire. That takes the traveler through an area that gives one a sample of the majesty of the flint hills, and the challenges that Europeans faced as they fled whatever travesties they were tyring to find solence in this land, while being part of the conquest. These are harsh conditions. Did they feel it was worth leaving “home” for? Was it a better life? Were they forced into it from punishment or persecution? How do people who are doing the same thing today, from other lands, and similar, feel about it? Is it worth it to them? Is it what they imagined? Are they finding security? A better life? A happy time? Is it worth leaving every fucking thing they know to come here? Don’t get me wrong, i’m not letting the conquest of the peoples of this land off the hook…just curious.

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these are the things I think of as I peddle into the wind, up hill, with a loaded bike. Free as I know to be. Am I giving up the fight, or am I digging in deeper? The more I refuse to give in to to capitlaistic nature, I do truly believe that the more I live out my life true to my believes the more benefit I have been to people trying to “come out” in any way shape or form.

so yes, revolution please!

Si se Puede!

 

and i am off

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so long steamboat hello…adventure

so much has happened since i last wrote. i had good intentions of writing and updating, but i’d get home from work with just enough time to make some dinner, do a few exercises/stretch, do a little research, read, go to bed, repeat.

my days off i spent staring at the mountain, watching the snow melt and fall and melt and fall. it was a long grey winter in steamboat. my mood shifted a great deal to similar to how i felt living in the pnw. it took me a minute to figure out what was happening. once i did, i relaxed into self-care vs. self-doubt and loathing. aka took more vit-d!

anyway, let’s start with an update and laying the foundation of the adventure! yahooo! adventure times!

so i left the boat in great disarray that will continue for a little while. thank goodness for friends.

why i start these things in a season not compatible with adventures where i am currently living i just don’t know. so i rented a car and drove down to gunnison for a sneaky little journey to some of my favorite parts of colorado. my thought was to get down to lower elevation and higher temps. from here i could bike over to salida. meet some pals who will take me to wichita for fam time.

driving over monarch pass i began searching for other plans. of course the pass is long and steep, that i expected. but the hairiest part has no shoulder, still has snow, and where i would ride is full of the rocky traction crap they put down…no fun to breathe.

i rolled into my hostel, the wanderlust, and weighed my options. i found a bus that goes from gunnison to denver, rolling through salida. yes, please. i’ll take that option. the downside being it leaves at 6am, arriving in salida around 7:45 and i can’t check into my next hostel until 4. deal with that later.

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so i stay another day in sunny gunny! i ran up to crested butte and rode around one of my favorite towns, taking note of all the changes. and i had my very first impossible burger! i can’t believe this was my first. it was good, not great, but good. i drank good beer, i rode to bike shops that are coffee shops and beer stops. i blew off white dudes who wanted to talk over the women who were sharing their bike adventure stories. i actually watched this guy get all cry baby because a woman would not give him her car keys to drive to the grocery store. 

i love this area of colorado. its sunny. its dry with rivers. views of the big peaks…so many 14ers. it’s relaxed, not polished, working class, and people are active year round. plus, so much of my adventure history is here. my love fore solo camping, hiking, hiking with friends, climbing my first 14er, sharing these passions, heartbreak, grieving/processing deaths of loved ones, finding myself, losing myself, finding solace in the outdoors, learning how much i have to learn, finding out how strong i am and am not….

salida is where i feel like my adventure really started. i had just sat down at the closest coffee shop i could find to get my bearings and do some writing when an older couple (not much older than me actually) joined me and started chatting me up. they are from nebraska, the middle of where so much of the recent flooding happened. they talked about the actions their town took that limited the damages they experienced. but their friends were not so lucky. they said one of their friend’s ranches likely will not recover in his lifetime.

this couple and i could not be more opposite. but we had a very lovely conversation. we knew many of the same places in colorado. me from hiking/biking/wondering. them from hunting. they rarely get to leave their home because they take care of “people with disabilities”. i go and do what i want when i want (have enough money and/or pto). this trip they were on is a once in a decade get away. we had a lovely conversation, and they offered to cook me a steak and give me a place to stay if i ever pass through their town. i smiled and thanked them. i most likely will not cross nebraska and if i do it will be via the cowboy rail trail. 

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it was still early, so i rode down to the river park. salida is part of the arkansas river headwater area. going from one end to the other end of town in the early morning was lovely. i saw people driving by stopping when they saw a neighbor. i ran into deer grazing in people’s yards.  i was a dirtbag at ease. eventually, i leaned my bike against a tree and sat along the river to read a book…mostly i stared at the blue sky and green leaves budding out on the trees. damn, it felt good! it finally felt like spring!

i couldn’t get much cell phone reception, so i went to up the block to this cute little coffee shop. the person behind the counter asked about my rig and what i was up to. i explained friends by bike tour. they seemed happy about it. i made some phone calls and logistics related contacts then found a place to eat. after i finished eating, a woman who works there came up and asked me a few questions about my pack and what i was up to. more cool conversations and inquiry about the book i’m reading, and stuff. now, i finally feel like i am embarking on this adventure again. conversations about doing something out of the ordinary for many people. an opening for others’ to talk about what they have done or want to do or have planned to do.

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later that night i met another woman who recognized the book i’m reading, or at least the author and that led to a great conversation about climate chaos and well a very pleasant chat before the band started. after the show, my pals who are taking me to kansas, met up with me and our adventure started. it was great catching up and walking around. the next morning we met up early for hiking and outdoor fun. then we loaded up my stuff and headed to kansas.

and here i am for a couple weeks. as it happens, i arrived in time for my newphew’s graduation, another nephew is playing tennis, it is a buddy’s birthday, mother’s day, and much family will be gathering during this time. what a great way to kick of this leg of this adventure.

so what is my plan for this leg?

good question.

if you haven’t already figured it out, it is friends by bike tour. i was calling it friends by bike 2019, but really who knows when it will end, so friends by bike it is.

the starts off with, well new friends sent me off from steamboat. long time friends met me in salida, by a river (the arkansas) that flows into where we first met, wichita. here i will enjoy some time with friends and family and friends who are family. then i will head up to kansas city and pick up a pal who will ride the katy trail with me along the missouri river into st. louis. from there i will pick my way along to n.c. where i will catch up with some amazing people who i get to call friends. then up to philly where there are more people who i am fortunate enough to know after so so many years and we have remained close friends.

from there i have no idea what or where i will go. there are some things i want to do, some trails i want to ride and hopefully, people will join me along the way. my goal is to get to the west coast by mid to late august for an event and play with buddies. then maybe finally get to ride the sierra cascade route down and be in the desert by winter for adventures with even more friends and family. we’ll see what happens.

i’ve acquired some new cameras and other gear that i will share soon. i’m excited to find new ways to share what i’m up to with everyone. and at some point, i will share some of the amazing adventures i stole some time away to experience. probably as some kind of photo montage.

i hope to meet up with as many people as possible along the way, so if you want to join in, join along, go for a ride, or just say hi, let me know and we will find a way to put it on the “map”.

 

 

tgifebuary

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yesturday i woke to the smell of spring in the air. it was a perfect balm to a winter-weary soul. it seemed like january was it’s own year. i don’t really know why. sure it was cold. reallll cold. and lots of snow. all good for the ski industry, but it wore on me. the sky has been so grey that it feels like being back in the pacific northwest…grey and cloudy for days…weeks. and with all the snow, it feels like life is a black and white film. in fact, some of my pics i can’t tell if i shot them in b&w mode, or color.

oh well.

as of today, i have 70 days left at work, not work days, but time with a job. and that notion is also a balm in its own right. and it is a bit of “oh shit”. that is 70 days to get everything dialed in a little more, get rid of the things i’ve collected in the past 13 months, get back into bike/walk travel shape, and gather maps and outline a plan. it is all coming together pretty nicely to be honest.

i’m keeping the plan open to possibilities of festivities and spontaneous encounters with new and old friends. so. if you would like to. get (or keep) in touch and let’s do some riding and playing together. join me for any part or give me a reason to come to your parts of the world.

in the coming weeks, i will start posting my basic outline of adventure. until then here is a sample of me playing with the new adventure buddy: fuji film xt20 camera. this pic range from around new years on the mt to birthday weekend and don’t forget the eclipse. it’s a fun camera to play with for sure. and yes, there is that double exposure setting that i am super stoked about!

winter moons

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as i have written before, living a life on the move and mostly outdoors, has put me much more in tune with the rhythms, the ebbs the waxing the waning the rising and falling of tides moon and sun. i feel so much more connected and grounded in ways i never thought possible before. and perhaps, just as i begin to take it for granted, it catches me off guard. december’s full moon was no exception.

one night, walking to dinner a with a friend, the moon lit up the mountain with such awe, no picture i took could do it justice. the next morning, walking to work there was the moon still up, preparing to set on the other side of the valley, with the sun rising from the opposite ridgeline. i was enamored, completely at a loss for words.

around this time i was reading an article by craig childs (one of the few cis-male writers of nature and the wild that i can still appreciate and enjoy without wanting to crumple their papers and burn them in my mind). it was on traveling alone/solo. why he does it, very similar to why i do it. how watching the moon and sun rotate around us rotating around. and for some reason, i wrote this thing…i don’t know what it is. i don’t do poetry much. so i guess its just my outpouring of recent lunar experience.


i’ve learned to start my day by looking up. 
i leave my house at some point and i look to the sky
as kind of a reference point.
where is the sun
the moon
what are the colors
is there fog in the valley?
how deep is the blue?
the depth of the snow clouds
can i see across the valley
can i even see the valley?


i started looking up more 
or at least recognizing that i am
because i would see the moon in the early evening
and again in the morning
summer of the moon


this would happen to me in the pnw


in the summer


it seemed it never got dark
the sun up so early, before the roosters even
and wouldn’t set until…so late
the days so long
and now, here in the mountain town


of winter


the nights are the same and the moon the sun


i find that it gives me some kind of direction
i don’t understand it really, but i find a comfort in it


seeing the moon it all its stages tugs something deep inside me


maybe it is a kind of internal tide that is drawing something


something deep inside me out…i can feel it trying to leep


i wonder if the nocturnals of our world feel this as well


my guess


most likely


they feel it 
know it
deeper
than i ever will.


the vindication of gravity

i’m just going to leave this here like this.

i just invested in a new camera, look forward to new pics as i play with how i want to share my photo side more. i am excited to return to my photographic roots with something more than my phone. i’ve missed the way i have used a camera in the past to document and share all kinds of experiences. the next full moon, i hope to go on a snowshoe hike…its a supermoon (still don’t really know what that is supposed to mean. aren’t they all?) and a lunar eclipse.

here’s to a new year and new projects and new plans based on past lessons and challenges.

the apocalypse gives me hope

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welp, this is my third, and final, attempt at this post. i started it in the spring as the snow was melting and revealing what people left behind to be covered up by the snow. mostly beer cans, bags of dog poo, lost socks, underwear (?!). it was also when i heard a new, to me, definition of apocalypse.

i listen to a great many podcasts at work…so many. one of my favorites is how to survive the end of the world. i wait with great anticipation for new episodes. being in this small mountain town with few people that i feel want to delve into these deeper conversations that i am hunger and thirsty for…that i crave…so i get that with these podcasts. they are all created by people of color; black folks to be specific, mostly all women, some identify as queer. this one, in particular, is by a couple of sisters, adrienne marree brown and autumn brown. the episodes are based around octavia butler’s writings and philosophies. not surprisingly, one of the sisters coedited the book octavia’s brood. if you haven’t held this gem of a book in your hands, i highly recommend it. it can be somewhat embarrassing to listen to this as i walk around town or at work as i’ve laughed out loud, cried, and scratched my head with each one. many i think of daily until the next episode pushes my thoughts deeper than the previous.

so apocalypse…the common understanding of an apocalypse refers to the end of the world, probably involving zombies. however, the origin goes back to latin, greek, old english, and old french. but the new to me meaning is what i want to dive deeper into. and that meaning is about the uncovering, to reveal. i, and many others that i have been reading and listening to, might translate these two meanings to say that maybe if we dare to try and give voice to the uncovering of history and stories to reveal what has been left out, we might finally be able to end this chaos of a mess. the result of imperialism, capitalism, too many power hungry that have drowned out the voices that we need to hear. the voices that perhaps, if we listened could cause such cognitive dissonance that we would have to stop this insane greed that gives way to the endless destruction of the planet….the climate apocalypse if you will.

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it is also what is happening with the #metoo movement and much of our society in general. perhaps things are not getting worse, as mainstream media/social media would like us to think and fear, but the atrocities are getting uncovered, revealed. the truth of just how widespread the injustices of our society is. this unraveling of the patriarch and capitalism, of the pains caused by the few to the many, well it gives me hope.

some are afraid of just what will be unleashed. i’m curious about what we will learn about the ancestors, our neighbors, and ourselves. maybe we will learn that all our social and economic theories are wrong….once again showing us that science is ever-changing as we learn new things that prove the old knowledge is wrong…more storytelling and more myth-making…true joy.

the part of this unveiling of another meaning to the apocalypse that truly excites me, however, is the uncovering of the voices that have been vailed, covered, drowned out. something that has bothered me since i started the dive into animal liberation and social justice is this ego-centered idea that “we” are the voice for the voiceless…buuuuuull-shit. i deeply believe that everything that is of this world has a voice and uses it. but the more narrowly we define what is voice, what is alive, what has value to whom, the less we are able to listen to anything not human…english only speaking humans are probably the worse. believing that if one is not speaking english they can not communicate. i have watched how my co-workers who speak spanish and very little english are treated by english only speaking”bosses”. to be clear, i speak very little spanish, however, i am learning how to listen to them to figure out what they need me to know.

i think, and the more that i think the more i believe it to be true, that we have forgotten how to listen to anyone but ourselves. we are so ego driven in the western world that we are incapable to hear anything else. animals and trees and rivers and plants and fish and birds and….all have a voice. if we didn’t believe this to be true, disney would be fucked. and we wouldn’t try so hard to learn to understand when our companion animals are requesting something from us and us from them.

the earth is constantly trying to communicate with us. it is currently fall, almost winter here, and i see the trees getting my attention with the daily shifts in color. the flowers with their scents, berries with their sweetness.

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but this voice for the voiceless myth has so greatly affected the voices of people. we’ve started to acknowledge this in our history books, creating special courses for women, people of color, black folks, queer folks. we are starting to realize that those who won the power dynamics tell the stories of even those they have been conquered. maybe people are starting to see this in other realms as well, like in movies and music. but white cis-male voices still dominate over all the other voices out there.

there are genres of writings out there that i didn’t think i liked until i read books written by women, black folks and people of color. i hated, and i mean hated, science fiction until i read octavia butler. she led me to le quin and then neil gaiman. but speculative fiction changed everything for me involving storytelling. then octavia’s brood came out and my mind/heart exploded with possibility.

so when i was at the whitefish bike retreat for the wtf bikexplorers and there was a bipoc panel FOR bipoc people not OF. this little shift in language is so key. i’ve organized and been a part of many organization’s panels of qpoc people but, let’s be real, they were for white folks, queer or not. this panel was moderated by a person who identified in the panel’s identity, and the q&a was FOR bipoc folks. of course, as soon as the q&a opened up, a white person tried to ask a question (the question usually heard at these events asked by good white folks “what can we do for you?”). the moderator was wonderful. she said you can shut up this is not FOR you…or something very similar. my heart burst open because so often i’ve seen such panels continue to serve white folks by answering their questions.

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there was only time for 2 questions, both were great and led to wonderful conversations, but the people who organized the questions and discussions with this group was amazing. the conversations went deep. there were tears and much laughter. then a much needed and requested dance party!

for me, this panel of amazing people was the exclamation point to a heart blowing weekend. i didn’t realize how hungry i had been, and am, for these conversations and work. i listen to podcasts and read books and articles, i listen to music, and take in as much visual art on these topics as i can, but without people to share and learn with, well maybe this is the source of isolation i feel at times. these voices, these forces of life is what i am wanting to experience over the noise of pop-culture.

so for me, the zombie apocalypse is already on. it is all the people wondering around addicted to their phones, scrolling through social media looking for connection and validation that they are doing the sheep thing. but the other apocalypse is also happening, maybe on the same devices. we can start amplifying the voices that are pushed to the edges; raise their cultural dB sort of speak. put down the phone and listen to the water and trees. have a solid conversation with your cat…maybe she’ll stop pissing on your shoes.

my advice to those who ask, “what can we do to support you” google the shit out of those same people. read them, listen to the music, invest in their commerce, be a patron. because the answers are out there, we just have to be silent enough to listen. i, unfortunately, talked way too much at this event. i was so hungry for real talk that in my excitement, i forgot to shut the fuck up. i am searching for ways to apologize for that, maybe this post is a way to start until next time when i can practice active listening.

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so my personal action for increasing the momentum of the apocalypse is to amplify as many voices as i can. to share the amazing wonderfully inspiring work of people i am learning from. to stand BEHIND them as they lead the way and step in front when it is time to deflect the hatred and violence away from them…to use my whiteness as a kind of shield when wanted.

there is so much i’ve cut out of this post. so many ways that i believe that the apocalypse can help us find our way. i believe that we can all start by asking who is missing from our communities, conversations, view…how can we (re)build relationships. how many different ways are there to listen, speak, give voice to…what happens when we embrace the apocalypse to facilitate understanding, empathy, curiosity, and understanding.

so i will do my best to listen more and to sharing the voices that are being silenced, covered up and overpowered. to start here is a small list of podcasts i listen to on the regular…that are not white, cishet males. it’s a start.

2 dope queens

sooo many white guys

snap judgment

nancy

we live here

 

apocalypse

vaca bound after a little rally for the public lands.

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today starts my summer vacation and i am so flipped-out excited i can hardly stand it, but also trying to stay deep in the moment because, well, i live in a vacation destination town so it is kind of like i am always on vacation except for those pesky 40 hours each week i work.

the other thing that helps me stay in the moment is my sister and her family just came for a visit! it was so nice to host them for a few days and get time with the kids who are not kids anymore but growing into wonderful humans. to say i live a little different from them is an understatement so to share my life and ideas is fantastic, mostly because they listen and ask questions. it has been a summer of visitors. a benifit to living more to the middle of the country.

this is why is was a difficult decision for me to steal myself away for an hour while they were here. that asswhip of an excuse of a secretary of the interior, ryan zinke was in town so there was a little rally to show support for public lands, or more fitting, against his and trump’s policies to desecrate what is left of these sacred places. i gave up going to rallies and protests and such a few years ago out of frustration and just disgusted by the digression of solid ethics. it reminded me of going to church when i was a kid. living in a small town, i would listen to what people took in on sundays, and then witnessed their behavior the rest of the week. really? so listening to people talk about the actions needed to “save” this planet, the trees, the water, the air, etc. then i see them using single-use everything or continuing the participation in the mayhem. so to save my nerves i stopped going. you may be asking why not get involved in the organizing….see above.

so i decided to go to this one. there aren’t as many chances in this little town to make some noise while a major political (i.e. corporate) figure is in town. so what the hell, i show up for this one. about 1/2 of the county here is public lands. the whole state of kansas has less than 1% of public land. the entire ski industry is built on the back of public land, as is most of the off-road cycling (motor or burrito powered).

wondering around the people tabling at the rally was interesting. i ran into people i have seen at other events in town, mostly at the library. i found out there is a wild horse sanctuary about 100 miles from here and learned about the renewed attack on wild horses. i learned more and more people want renewable energy sources, but they don’t want to cut back on energy usage. i met the woman running for sheriff and her platform to bring empathy training and diversity training to the police force and county officers. she was a whistleblower on sexual assault in the department. then i got to have a chat with a journalist from the high country news. then eventually the rally started.

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it opened with a poet from the dinè tribe, layla june. she gave an amazing talk and opening prayer, reminding us who’s land we were actually on, ute, known as parianuche or nuche people as they refer to themselves. i was moved to tears from her words and her passions.

then the person leading the rally got the crowd to start chanting “our land” and my heart sank. here was a large crowd, estimated at 1400 people, in a town with a population of 12,000. the vast majority of the crowd was white shouting “our land” and i couldn’t believe it. sure it is an easy chant it gets people riled up…don’t take our land say the colonizers and settlers. but it isn’t our land. sure it is public land, supposed to be protected from corporate pillaging, but it is not our land. it has never been our land, just as a stolen object never belongs to the thief. and here my internal dialogue fuse was lite.

the next speaker was a county commissioner, an older white guy. a pretty good talk based around the love of growing up backpacking and being outside,  i only cringed a few times. another white guy talked about being an entrepreneur that depends on public lands for people to buy/rent/use his gear to go on public lands to recreate. more money talk. then a rancher talked about land usage and care (the fuse burned a little faster and brighter). but i have to say i resonated with his world more than the other white men or women who spoke.

he started with a story about coming into town with his younger son who asked what he was doing this afternoon. when he responded with giving a talk about the land, the kid asked that if he gave a bad talk would they take their land away?  well, son, its not really our land anyway. it is mother earth’s. then he went on about how deeply the family knows the land. how he repairs daily the fences broken due to cattle and moose interactions that he also gets to witness. i’ve heard and seen him talk before about water and land usage. i like this guy, this reluctant public speaker.

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that was followed by a female olympian who gave a great talk about the need for public lands for people to ski, hike, backpack, walk…for mental and physical health. then came the speaker that sent me home, a ceo for an outdoor industry. she brought all the numbers. sure it is important for people to know that the outdoor industry creates more jobs and revenue than does oil/gas/coal/timber industries combined. these jobs have more benefits, better pay, typically safer than the other industries. but there are people behind those numbers. there is so much more to these issues than numbers. i just started feeling sick over all this so i left before the fuse came to the end and i exploded in public.

the next speaker was a state rep who i have seen speak before at a pow (protect our winters) gathering. then lyla june was to come back up to talk about indigenous rights. i really wanted to hear what she had to say, but i just couldn’t. all those white people had gone way over their time and my emotional time limit that i allowed myself was expiring. however, as i was leaving i ran into lyla june and got to talk with her for a minute and thank her for making the journey up here.

so why am i even mentioning or writing about this?

i would like us to be more intentional with our words and what we are doing when we stand up for anything besides ourselves. this land is not “our” land. this land has never belonged to “us”. if we truly want to protect this sacred land (as was used often) we should return it to the people of this land, the indigenous people of this continent. this could be the start of actual reparations for the theft of place, culture, people… i would gladly pay the fees to recreate on the land of the people who truly know how to live collectively with the land.

but also, picking certain places for protection from capitalistic extraction or abuse…like saying its ok to pollute and pillage from here, but not here. it is this valuing of one over another that also bothers me. people don’t think kansas, or much of the midwest is beautiful because they have never gotten to experience the majesty of tall-grass prairie in bloom at sunrise. pretty much all of it has been tilled under to grow food, mostly food for livestock…or fuel. why? because the way the prairies created such rich and fertile soil that is now depleted due to overuse.

i just finished reading this book called overstory by richard powers. it is a story where the main characters are just regular people who had extraordinary situations bring out the activists in them in one way or another. and by deeply interacting with the natural world, they begin to hear the trees who never stopped speaking, we just stopped listening to them. he writes of scientific books that i wish were written, and people i feel i know.

he shares a glimpse of the greek story by ovid based on the word xenia or guest-friendship, to take care of traveling strangers. it is the story a couple with limited resource, baucis and philemon, who took in 2 strangers who turned out to be gods. baucis and philemon were turned into an oak and a linden upon their joined deaths as a reward from the gods.

“huge and gracious and intertwined. what we care for, we will grow to resemble. and what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer….”

I finished this book just before i started this post. the end brought me to tears. tears of recognition for people who want to do what is right by the non-human life on this planet. but i believe that the deeper wisdom here in the story, as well as from the rally, is that we can fight all we want to save the trees, the rivers, all water, for clean air and food. to save wild horses and dolphins and whales and sea turtles….we can try to fight for laws to protect all that. we can fight corporations to stop polluting and contributing to climate change and feeding the disasters that are killing everything they touch.

or

we can take deeper looks into ourselves

we take the time to get still and quiet and listen

i think we need to take those frightening deep meditative looks inward. to make those changes within ourselves to point inward instead of outward. and perhaps, when we see the work we need to do with ourselves, we can collectively find more common ground.

but fighting? fighting leads to more fighting. listening leads to more understanding. some say we don’t have the time to listen. i don’t know. fighting doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.

don’t get me wrong, there are times and moments to stand up and fight in our protections, but not over possession and ownership.

i was once, many years ago, sitting and meditating in an amazing sacred area in arizona. an outcropping along a somewhat popular trail. there is a definitive feminine and masculine side to this section. i had touched the masculine side first. it was full of grief and sorrow and pain. a belief that they had failed to protect the women and children/land and water.

when i got to the feminine side, the place that the women gathered, i was in tears and full of pain and sorrow myself. as i meditated i asked what i could do to save them to protect…blah blah blah i was still full of white savior ego. they laughed at me and then gave me a long lecture that boiled down to: the earth will survive, you will not, humans will not. unless there is a massive shift and change among the whole population. as soon as humans are gone the planet will begin to regenerate once again, as it has over the ages. humans may or may not be part of that regeneration. it is up to us.

i know i have a great many changes to make in me. i don’t know where to start, to be honest. i often feel out of balance and off-kilter. but i do know that the more i sit quietly in nature, the more i am playful with nature, the more i regain my equilibrium. the more clear my answers become.

i don’t think i can fight the opposition with outrage, or statistics, or prodding confrontation. but maybe with understanding. with conversations. with deepening my empathy for those who i do not understand. listening and sharing stories…

ahhh i don’t know. but i do believe that the more those who are trying to profit off of our rage, pitting one another against the other, the more they keep us occupied with the distractions that they create, the more lost we all become. the further we move from our objectives.

so how do we take to the streets to show our opposition without turning upon one another?

how do we stay focused and on point when they throw flash bombs and pepper bombs at us.

when corporations are feeding the police state so that the disparaged turn against their neighbors?

how do we step outside all this for just a moment to see a different path

how do we stop and hear the pain under all the rage? for in the precepts we learn that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

so i am off to go get lost in the woods for a little while. i am very excited about this particular trip for many reasons that should unfold as i explore places, land, water i have never ventured before and research for my next leg of this journey.

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borders and boundries

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i have been so super grumpy these past couple weeks. grumpy like answering questions with grunts and silent head shakes. i’d like to say i don’t know why. maybe it is the moon, eclipse. but the world is on fire, again, or maybe still. each time there is another fire or shooting or idiotic political ruler says/does something stupid and people continue to act surprised. then a 3d printer gun….naw i have no idea why i’ve been grumpy.

then i started reading the book overstory by richard powers and the connections started gathering forces inside me.

i’ve been thinking a great deal lately about borders and boundaries, i kind of always have. as a kid, i use to wonder how water, rain, streams, ocean, birds, fish, bears, dear…knew when they crossed over to another state, country. but then i read about the bison massacres when they roam outside the national parks looking for food…migration doesn’t give a flip about borders or boundaries, but meat farmers don’t like competition for grazing on blm land….

then one day i saw a map of the united states without any state lines or national borders drawn on it or even time zone changes for that matter. that map looked so free to me, so wide open. it looked like such a wonderful place to explore and move about. but to be honest, it is not the imaginary lines that bother me, it is the internal struggles that crossing over into another state can have on my psyche. and this is what leads me to think that all these imaginary lines and borders and boundaries are not meant to provide a safe area for people, but to create a state of fear and thereby control people on one side and a false sense of security on the other.

as a queer woman, i use to get really nervous and anxious if i needed to drive through mississippi, lousianna, alabama on my way to florida to see my grandma. i would get in and out of the gas stations as fast as possible with as limited interaction with other humans…especially white men. later i reflected that at least in the “south” i knew how people felt about me. in the liberal “north” of pc country, it was said behind my back and supported by legislature and propaganda…aka a false sense of security.

but last week i went through the rocky mountain national park and my thoughts bubbled up again, mostly because of what people in the united(?) states are doing to people, refugees, from the global south. i see and hear the fear in the voices of my co-workers who have their “papers” but are afraid to visit family for fear of well so much fear. and i actually hear the arguments of people born and raised here that their family came over legally. really? reeeally? who stamped their papers? crazy horse? geronimo? chief joseph?

this resurrection of this particular fear is happening at a time when farm workers and domestic servants (damn what a horrible word) have been organizing and gaining momentum in their demands for fair wages and treatment for themselves and their children, especially farm workers. if you do not think these issues are connected, you are forgetting history: ceasar chavez, the bracaro project, the Immokalee workers

anyway, approaching the boundaries and entry gate to the rmnp stirred up these old feelings, but really what i want to know is why. why all these boundaries and borders? i believe deeply, that it is to keep people in and not talk to others. to keep the manipulation alive and well. to keep people in fear and control.

what i have noticed is that every time the global north enforces their boundaries, it intensifies the need for people to assert their individual bounderies and identities, which then reinforces the us/them fear and defensiveness.

margaret thatcher is known for saying “there is no society, there are only individuals”. this individualism fuels some of what is keeping us from making the changes we most need to make in this world, from climate change to foreign policy. it has fueled the fire of identity politics in an unhealthy way and i have been trying to figure out how we have gotten in our own ways soooofuckingmuch. so here is my theory.

identity politics is important. as gloria anzandula taught so many years ago at an international queer studies conference in iowa, to imagine one’s self as a tree and all our identities, all the parts of us that make us unique are our roots. if we don’t know all the different roots, and accept them and integrate them into ourselves as a whole, when the cultural winds come by, we will be knocked over. i’m not sure that anzandula knew about the intricate network of communication that the root systems of trees in a healthy forest provide all beings in a forest. the network of communication, of shared resources, of protection, for all, and that is all before they become nurse logs.  if she had, well this analogy gets even stronger. a whole intact forest stands together in all its colors and shapes from the microscopic to the giant trees. yet, as lone individual trees, without interconnected root systems, we topple in one fell swoop, taking out our neighbors.

so what troubles me is that the more we identify with OUR individual identities, the more we isolate ourselves and others. the more we get offended when someone steps on our individual toes. and then more fear is fueled and the more isolated we all become. on top of it, we kind of refuse to be uncomfortable. we are told that these boundaries and identities will keep us safe. but i believe we need discomfort on some levels to push our limits, to go past these boundaries and commune with others not like us, to learn what the other side of the line needs so that we can all do this together. and perhaps grow over the lines and past the barriers. but western capitalism is what fuels the walls. it tells us that we can relieve any discomfort with a pill or a game or a new device. it keeps us in the cycle that makes reading howard zinne so frustrating, and important…and we are at it again. and we are more alienated and isolated no matter our number of social media friends we have.

capitalism”s magic bullet, if you will: naming. we love to name things. if we have named it, we know how we are supposed to feel about something or act towards it, and this includes gender pronouns. (doubt this? talk to someone who has been both he and she at some point in their lives, or someone who is intersex, someone who is willing to talk about the differences in their treatment based on perceived gender and self-identification…this is a life/death situation often). but if we “named” based on relationship instead of ownership, well that is different. a mountain “named” based on a cosmology of a creation myth will be treated differently than one named by conquest and ownership. the responsibility we feel for a place or person changes if we see it as sacred and part of all of who we are.

and that is the crux, right? maybe? that by creating these name/labeled boundaries and borders, we mark off ownership of areas and control of those areas and all that happens to be there: animals, water, minerals…people. but if things are “named” based on relationship, that is a whole new level of freedom and movement….and responsibility.  you can’t control, manipulate, mine, and harvest what you do not own in one way or another. however, you are responsible for all that you hold some relationship to, and that is everything in this word: food, water, air, what you use for shelter, clothing, one another.

what if we were able to drop just a little of this border-mindset? what if we saw the people that were coming across the border for what they are: people. people who are in danger due to the violations and unequal trade/economic situations that “we” created. that turned these families into refugees, not immigrants. no one really and truly wants to leave their “home” for the unknown…to a country that is openly hostile and violent to one’s culture and people. no one wants to do this. and we as mobile amaricans don’t understand this. i’ve actually had arguments with (former) friends of mine on this issue. when your family has lived in a certain place for so so many generations leaving is not going to be your first choice. people and places we have denied our relationship to are in danger, and this is how we treat them? back to the tree/forest analogy, our survivals are interdependent.

so i ask, “what is more important? what someone’s label is or how they participate in community.”

i know my stance. and i believe that the only way we will survive as a species is if we return to relationship-based communities instead of isolationalist/nationalist idealism.

we need to make a choice, as a species. i have no doubt this world will continue, but most likely, without humans. unless we can make some changes really fast. and these will have to be internal, non-governmental. we can’t wait for the “leaders” to make the changes. we will be uncomfortable for a little while, but eventually, more quickly than we might think, we will find actual joy and happiness at leaving so much misery for so many behind us.

i know that this sounds a lot like preaching and pointing fingers, and it is. mostly at myself for sure. we all have a great deal to unlearn and re-educate ourselves. before we end up like this:

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this week, 2 years ago, i would have probably given up hope for the humans, but talking to strangers…making connections with people i have no reason to except that we are sitting next to one another on the bus, bar stool, bike ride, campsite, sandy beach, at the wall, in line at the border…we all have stories to share if we are willing to listen…but like i said, its just a little theory i’m working on.