Sleepless nights
It's 3am Monday morning. The past couple nights I've been working late at Boston Pizza. The restaurant is open until 3am, and so by the time I get home and actually get to bed its like 5 in the morning. It's a difficult switch to go from Friday and Saturday's 3am close to Sundays 12am close. I get home and even though I'm so tired my body just doesn't feel like sleeping.
I try to meditate while I'm laying in bed. I try to block out all extraneous thought and just focus on my breathing. It always starts out so well and thoughts slip slowly away but I always end up getting stuck on one thing. It will just keeping on going through my mind as though giving attention to such a thought while your supposed to be sleeping will somehow be useful. And I end up having to get up and tire myself out a bit because this thought has got me so rowled up. Tonight's thought is this travel photography company.
I think that anything is possiblebut also that it's so easy to doubt yourself. Just today I read an article about a Canadian company that makes "chopstick trainers". They're little eraser sized objects that you place on the end of your chopsticks and they help you to develop the proper motion. Reading about a company like that makes me thinking two things. My first thought is one of doubt. How did they ever manage to succeed? My second thought is one of optimism; it's a company that shows that you can put together anything with determination. And I am so determined.
I'm still feeling a little restless but I think I'm going to get a glass of water, maybe a snack, curl up next to Lauren and go back to meditating, or at least trying. I think time is on my side with my determination to fall asleep.
Reason to leave #1
I figure if this website is going to be featuring escape plans it should also be including reasons for escaping. There are so many it almost deserves a seperate blog, but we'll limit the cynicism (this is a hopeful blog) and try to keep the reasons to about one per week (estimated time until escape is about two years, so thats about 100 reasons until we leave).
The first reason to leave is because we are born into a culture, we do not choose it. This first reason to leave (here after refered to as RTL) seems like the most substantial of all RTLs on my mind. For most people being part of a culture doesn't seem like anything. The majority of people don't wake up in the morning and feel the strain of conformity pushing down on them-- in has become an unconscious thing. They turn on the television and accept the subtle and not so subtle suggestions that are presented to them, they desire expensive cars and feel attracted to obviously surgically altered men and women. But this RTL isn't to complain about the culture that surrounds me right now (I get carried away with that all the time), this RTL is to point out that there are so many more cultures out there than they one that surrounds us. Yes North America (western civilization) may be a large culture and one that seems to cover the world like a plague, but when you travel over seas you really do see that people subscribe to substantially different lifestyles than our own. You see smarter, healthier, and more earth conscious cultures that are not without their own faults but are fundamentally different. Swaying the otherway now I'm neither here to comment on how much better I think other places are, I'm just trying to point out that people do things differently in other places and just because we started out in one place doesn't mean we can't simply get up and move to a place that suits us better.
I think this is a concept that few people think about, just truly and simply escaping. It doesn't cross most people's minds because most people think they would be leaving too much behind if they picked up a left. But the way I see it it's ridiculous to stay in a place that you don't feel you belong to..
I don't think that I have found a place that feels like "Home". I think instead I found a person who feels like "home". It's definately a hopeful start. And even though I don't feel like anyof the places I've travelled to would be a perfect place to settle down, I feel like it's a big world and there are plenty of places to explore yet. And even if nothing comes up, it's more than pleasant to know that we can always start our own culture.
I think I'm going to need another list; "Components of our Culture". I'll start filling it with ideas I think would work better than the way I see them now.
It feels like I'm starting in the middle here, but more explanations to come.
Planning our escape
I browse through the pictures that Lauren and I took while travelling and always end up finding one that makes me feel a little weak and curse myself for coming back home. Obviously endlessly travelling is a bit of a flighty notion. But in my memory, in the memory of this picture, the things that rested on my mind were nothing like the bothers of everyday existence here. It just doesn't feel like living here, it feels like getting by. Having had a small taste of an alternative lifestyle (one not found in university calendars, or told to you hopefully by persausive parents) I can't see myself designing my life in any other way than the pursuit of the such freedoms that travelling offers.
I understand that I'm back home and relatively broke and about to enter school. But it really feels only like a pit stop. Finishing an education, collecting enough money, and planning an escape. I think that this blog will slowly begin shifting it's theme from whatever it was, to one more of the future, our future, and what we're doing to make it happen. This past year has been the best of my life, and I am certain now that nothing is impossible.
Antinous was the "favorite" of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Yes "favorite" in that way. The sexual way. In our adventures from museum to museum statues of Antinous were a common site. This bust sits in the poorly organized collection of the Vatican museum. It's a pretty cool statue to see and it's redundancy was a pleasure. Antinous died (drowned in the nile, could have been suicide or an accident, though fowl play hasn't been ruled out yet). The Emporer was pretty upset and pretty much turned the boy into a god having endless statues built of him and even buliding a city (Antinoopolis) upon the site where he drowned. Not actually in the water, but probably on a bank or shore.
This is another piece from the Vatican collection. It's a statue depicting the chief priest of Troy (Laocoon) and his two sons being attacked by two serpents. Word on the street is that Laocoon had the inside scoop on the that shifty horse the Greeks gave Troy. Yeah the one the Greeks secretly hid in so that they could sneak inside Troy. Well in a tale of scandals all around, the gods, in a clear handicap move to the Greeks, sent these two serpents to shut Laocoon up. Though I don't know this story well seeing an amazing statue like this definately makes me want to brush up on my Greek History. It was my favorite statue of the trip.
Summer '05
After an amazing thirty-five days in Europe I arrived back home about a week ago. I'm not going to lie to you; it feels horrible to be back. I don't wake up everyday with the excitement of knowing I'll go cliff jumping, or be zipping around an island on a scooter. The local cuisine is, needless to say, much more tame. And the history in this city or even this country is about as old as a comic book. I think I could go on like this for sometime, complaining about this cities relative inadequacies, but I brought one thing back with me that makes everything a lot easier to deal with---actually she was here before I left. Traveling Europe with Lauren was a blast, and I enjoyed all of the amazing sites so much more being able to share them with her. And though being back home sucks its easy to reminisce with her about the places we've been.
More than reminiscing about the places we've been, we dream about the places we will go. This trip has strengthened an already strong relationship, and I've never felt so close to anyone in my life. The possibilities seem endless. And even though I'm looking at another couple years of school, while working to save up some money, it won't be long before we're back on the road/in a plane. We're actually looking to start up a travel photography company. Lauren has a keen eye for great photographs, and I don't mind setting up the tripod and checking the settings for exposure.
There should definitely be more pictures to come. We need to edit a lot of them yet, which is difficult to do on iBooks, but Lauren's looking at getting a 20' iMac and then we should be in good shape to get out some great looking photos. Besides photos, hopfully I'll be posting on here a lot more. I know I keep saying that, and that this blogs glory days were definitely in the beginning (a year ago already!!!) but I love writing and just need to work on getting the garbage out there. I let myself get frustrated so easily and it seems like my thoughts simply refuse to be written out. But I'll keep trying. Stay tuned.
