Peru

Ok! It's good to be back. I have a voice. I was beginning to feel as if I may be a mute.

It's Sunday morning, sunny in San Francisco.
I leave for Lima, Peru in 9 days.

That's about all I know these days. Not sure how we got from point A to point B -- I think I was thrown clear -- but we gotta start with the facts.

My last day of work is this Friday. I leave for Peru on May 6th, coming back June 5th. I'll then spend a week or two back home in New York catching up with my family, and after that will move to Ashland, Oregon - to work in a yoga studio.

The plan is to work at the yoga studio in the afternoons, and practice golf in the mornings. When working at a corporate job, it is so hard to clear space for yourself - free time. By the time you get home, the energy is gone. Mornings are filled with alarm clocks and showers, evenings with wondering what's for dinner. Time is not on your side.

What I want to do, is give golf a shot. I never have given it a shot, it's been more of a passing hobby and a good excuse to spend time in nature.
But I don't want to be 84 years old in my rocking chair, wondering what-if.
Everyone has always said I have a talent with golf - and isn't that what you're supposed to do? Utilize your talents? Follow your dreams? What color is your parachute?

I also want to learn to play the guitar, or a musical instrument. I dream of a sunny room filled with a guitar, a microphone, a keyboard, a computer for recording and mixing music, and an African conga drum.
I saw a movie called the Visitors recently, and I'd like to get a Conga drum and learn to play it. Or maybe not even learn, just play it.
I..... don't wanna work.... I just want to bang on the drum all day.

And yoga... it's 11:11 right now. Pixies. Yoga for me is an amazing outlet, something that grounds me, makes me feel whole and void of want.
We always want the next thing, the next meal, the next job, the next snazzy outfit or pair of shoes, the next song, the next thing that makes us laugh, the next movie, the next show, the next drink, the next cup of coffee -- but... in being so forward looking I think we often miss the present moment. And the future is really just an interconnected string of Nows.
I highly recommend a book called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
Yoga keeps you in the now. And grateful. Gratitude is an underrated tool in life.

So I will work at a yoga studio and try to become the next Tiger Woods. It's improbable, but all you need is a dollar and a dream, right? Without dreams and goals then life is just what happens to you.

Thoughts become things. The power of intention.

And as if my flux capacitor wasn't teetering on the brink as it is with all of this change -- my heart is freshly broken. A million little pieces.
What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?
And how can a man like me remain in the light...
And if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long.
These are questions that M. Ward has, as do I.

What do you do, when your stomach is in your throat, when your heart physically aches, when you feel like you may throw up -- and not because you have the flu.

I was in REI yesterday, wondering what I need for this Peru trip while trying not to cry. A few times I actually felt a gagging reflex. As if I may throw up.

Love exposes you, leaving you wholly vulnerable. They say that it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved before -- but I'll have to think about that one.

Does the beauty of love outweigh the pain of loss?

It feels so right, as if the universe has conspired to bring us together and have us be one.
It seems so obvious. And yet here I am. Trying not to cry in REI. The pain is impossible.

But I will forever believe in the pixies.

And with that -- I head to Peru. The funny thing is that I barely know where Peru is. I have no plan, no itinerary, I know nothing about the country, I don't speak the language, I hold no currency. I am a foreign man, surrounded by sound. Sound. Cattle in the marketplace. Scatterlings and orphanages. I look around and around. I see angels in the architecture. Spinning in infinity I say Amen! Hallelujah!

Paul pretty much sums it up. I will look for angels in the architecture spinning in infinity and say amen - Hallelujah!