Happy New Year! (almost)

There is for sure gonna be more music
in 2016!!!!!!!

New Years Eve is one of my favorite holidays.  There are three main reasons for this...

1. It is a secular holiday.  There is no religious tradition that lays claim to it.  It is a holiday open to anyone to celebrate in the manner they choose to do so.

2. It's a holiday for adults.  You can be too young for New Year's Eve, I mean you have to have lived long enough to have a few regrets behind you, but you are never, ever too old.

3.  I love that we have a day in which we take the time to assess where we have been and where we hope to go. In our go-go-go lives this is not something we often take the time to do and while it might seem like nothing more than a day to take down the old calendar and put up the new, I believe this sort of intentional reflection is important.  New Year's Eve is the annual reset button and the fact that so many of us do it at the same time feels like a collective deep breath. 

New Year's Eve is a reminder that no matter how much we have struggled, or how much we feel we've failed we recognize that there is always the opportunity to do better. Whether measured in moments, days, months or years all things in this life are temporary.  New Year's Eve is the chance to acknowledge and celebrate that. 

Normally this is the paragraph where I'd summarize my year by listing my successes, failures and struggles, and then ponder my hopes for the next year, but this year instead I'd like to just take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this past year. 

This year I witnessed people and communities stepping up to help friends in need.  I shared creative space with folks I'd only dreamed of ever collaborating with.  I saw so many individuals who stepped up to speak on behalf of those without a voice. I was brought closer to old friends and made several new ones.  This year for sure had its ups and downs but it was the people that made it a good one. 

Post SAS Reflection III: The Processing...

Not the same woman...

In the week that I have been home there are two things nearly everyone has asked, the first, "How does it feel to be home?"

Which I generally answer with, "Oh good, I really missed my cat and good beer."   

And it's mostly true. I'm happy to have my cat sleeping next to me again, to not worry about how long it will be until the next good wi-fi and I am soooooo grateful to be back in the land of good beer and buffalo wings. I'm happy to have regular access to a washing machine.  I was thrilled to spend Christmas with family and that I'll be among old friends for New Year's Eve.  I am indeed glad to be home, but...

(oh you had to know that was coming)

...as grateful as I am for all these things familiar, I've a deep desire to be far away and alone.

Which brings me to the second things people ask, "Wow.  That must have been a transformative experience, I bet you have a whole lot of processing to do, right?"

And I respond with, "Yeah, I'll be mulling this over for some time.  Please pass the cheese..."

Because the truth is I don't know how to answer that question.  Part of me wants to roll my eyes and thank them for stating the obvious.  I mean, I stepped out of my life for 100 days.  A life that was well established, safe and at least somewhat predictable.  I may not have had a long term plan but I was fairly sure where I'd likely be in the next year or so.

And over those 100 days I lived out of two suitcases, on a ship with 500 other people.  Together we visited three different continents, 11 countries and 13 port cities.  We crossed the Atlantic Ocean, journeyed south of the equator and sailed through the Panama Canal.  I met dozens of new people, heard a hundred or more stories, tasted new foods, danced to new music, played drums I'd not known even existed, and reconnected with long abandoned forms of creative expression.  At 43 I found myself feeling deeply homesick.  I battled and (mostly) came to terms with the sense of loneliness that has been my life companion.  I cried, shook my fist at the sky, sent weepy emails to friends at home and yet by the journey's end when it came time to leave, stepping off that deck on to the shore and was one of the last things I wanted to do.  I had come to love living on that ship, as well as the people on it and the experiences we shared...

After three and a half months at sea it took only about 24 hours for me to go from the World Odyssey gangway to the baggage claim at the Portland Jetport. 

Yes, it was transformative.  I know I am not the same person I was when my plane left the ground in September but right now I've only a tiny inkling of who this new person is.

When I'm asked about the trip and how it was I find myself faced with a traffic jam of thoughts; thoughts and feelings I've not even begun to assess and sort out in my own mind let alone summarize in 60 seconds or less.

And so I find myself wishing for a week of retreat from the world.  A time to adjust to not being on board that ship, to convince myself that the past three and a half months really truly happened; to pause and take a deep breath before I jump back into my life and the processing really begins...

I know that in the long run, as with anyone who has had a life transforming experience, whether traumatic or amazing, I will only know for sure how it has changed me once I have started living my life again.  It is only when faced with  how things were that I will know who I am now and who I might become.  There are no, "Tah-dah" moments in these sorts of things. 

Post SAS Reflection II: Just Being

Learning to be...

When the MV World Odyssey is at sea there is no cell phone access, and the internet is limited to the few sites needed for class research and seamail, the somewhat unpredictable email service Semester at Sea provides.  Instead of television there is the six channel streaming service that includes the ship channel with map and current weather; a streaming webcam of the view from the bow; three channels of ever rotating movies and documentaries meant to supplement class material; and one ship sanitation channel that runs a continual loop of what to not flush down the ship toilets.  Students pretty much do not have access to alcohol while on board (there is this thing called 'beverage service' which occurs with some sort of regular frequency that I was certainly never able to figure out and which most folks, myself included, didn't seem particularly interested in it anyway).  In other words, many of our modern day distractions are simply not available on board. 

Not that there isn't plenty to do.  Every student is enrolled in four classes which take up several hours of each day and each class of course has a couple of hours of homework to do.  There are research papers to write, reading to be done and tests to study for.  There are also a lot of community activities such as exercise classes, seminars about upcoming ports, game nights, post port reflections and talent shows type events but there is still a lot of down time, or at least more down time than I was used to.

What there isn't a lot of are those sorts of distractions that allow you to numb out or escape yourself.  If you are having a bad day or are in a funk or facing a bout of loneliness, there is no Facebook to scroll through, no Google rabbit holes to get lost in, no bar to drown your sorrows in.  And while the streaming shows did cause me to develop a situational obsession with the Dalai Lama (another story for another time) a quick peruse of the generally depressing deforestation/child exploitation/women's suffering/etc. would bring the realization that there was no escape to be had there. 

While I definitely went through periods of obsessive email checking or Wikipedia (one of the few sites that we had access to the actually connected with any sort of predictability) meandering, in the end when I was feeling sad, lonely or just out of sorts there really was only one option, to learn to live with whatever frame of mind I was in.  Which is why you see a photo of the 10 of Cups above.  In the Tarot of Transformation this card is titled Joyous Flow and is about "feeling at home in the emotional world."  Despite its title the card is not about being happy all of the time but instead cultivating an acceptance of where ever you are and whatever you are feeling in the moment.  I've been using the card as a focus to remind myself to work on keeping connected to this state. 

Being busy has always been my distraction of choice.  Just keep doing and doing, keep busy, keep moving, keep going...if you are always on the go the bad feelings can't catch up to you, so get a move on!!  I didn't have this option available to me though on the ship.  It was difficult.  I was often annoyed with myself first for feeling whatever I was feeling and then doubly annoyed for not being able to distract myself from it.  In fact there were times I had no option other than to just sit and be still.

And because of this, slowly, as the days passed I learned to live with whatever I was feeling.  I'm not sure I could point to a specific moment but at some point in the journey I found that some of the loneliness I'd been battling was no longer overwhelming.  It wasn't gone, instead it had moved from being something that seemed ready to occupy my entire being, to just being just a piece of who I was at the moment.  I also found myself experiencing moments of joy that existed alongside my homesickness or loneliness.  This often occurred with I'd experienced something beautiful, whether a sunset or music or dance, that I found personally moving but which also made me long to share the experience with certain friends at home. 

By the time we docked in San Diego I was beginning to truly cherish the still moments.  The times when I could just sit and exist in whatever state of emotion I was in.  I have never been one who bought into the idea of finding a state of perpetual happiness and bliss, and I still don't, yet while I did believe in the transience of all things and have often written about how accepting the temporariness of one's current state can make the so-called negative states easier to live with, I don't think I fully grasped the concept of allowing oneself to exist within those states of being. 

I have learned that it is entirely possible to feel shitty and great at the same time.  That I can wake up in the worst mood but I don't need to run from it and in fact, I can actually get up and go on with my day.  And probably the most important lesson, to not judge what I am feeling; that there is nothing wrong with whatever it is I am feeling in the moment. 

Now that I am back in the world of easy distraction I hope I am able to maintain this new ability to be present with what I am feeling, particularly since I'm still only just learning to do so.  Of all the things I learned about myself on the voyage this is the one that I have the greatest desire to hang on to.

Post SAS Reflection I: Home Again

Sunset at Civitavecchia - 2015

On December 22nd I returned home to Maine.  I was met at the airport by my friend Max-Anthony and my mother, whose home I am staying in for at the time being. 

Before I left for Semester at Sea I had decided to give up my apartment.  I sorted my belongings, selling what I could and giving away quite a bit.  The remainder I packed up and put into storage in my father's basement.  Other than a few winter clothes, my drums and my stuffed bunny, most of my stuff remains there and I'm still unsure of what to do with most of it. 

During three months that I was at sea I lived out of two suitcases.  Everything I needed, clothes, shoes, toiletries, snacks, school supplies, two drums, zils, jewelry, textbooks and technology all fit into those two suitcases.  While I did manage to collect a few new items during my travels, they took the place of things I was not returning with, such as used up toiletries and donated text books. I returned with the same two bags with which I departed. 

One morning about a week before we arrived in San Diego, while I was having my coffee on deck nine of the ship, I decided to make a list of what I knew I had in storage.  I was curious to see what I recalled.  I didn't allow myself to add generalities such as "kitchen stuff" or "clothes" to the list.  I wanted to be specific. I had the idea that whatever I could clearly recall must be most important to me.   My list was as follows:

• Black sweater
• Gray sweater
• Riq
• Tambourine
• Dance sword
• Dark Follies costume and top hat
• Cast iron frying pan
• A patched pair of jeans
• Winter coat
• Combat boots
• Vampire folklore books
• My desk and my bed

Considering the amount of floor space that my stuff takes up in the basement, this is not a very long list.  I expect that when I have time to sort through all of it I will have many happy discoveries of things I've forgotten.  I'll ask myself if the fact that I forgot that I owned them means I value them less or have less need of them.  It is unclear how I will answer that question.

While on board the ship I did not feel that I was lacking anything.  Of course some things, such as my kitchen items, I did not have need of at all on the ship but would definitely have a need for should I have  my own kitchen again.  And when it came time for the ship dance show case I did miss my top hat and dance sword, but I never felt that I was missing any immediate necessity.  I was quite comfortable with my small cabin and my limited belongings. 

There are many things I discovered on this journey that I wish to carry forward into my daily life.  This simplicity of living with less is one of them.  Right now, while I am living in my mother's small apartment, that will be fairly easy, but what will happen should I find myself in a larger space?  Will I want to fill it up with objects, gee-gaws and comforts or will I look back and recall the less material life that I led on the MV World Odyssey?

Day 10: A Rant

It may be due to my not feeling well and spending most of my day in bed yesterday but today I am feeling totally uninspired as far as writing a blog post.  The card I drew today did not help matters in that it talked about how the universe has our best interests at heart and well, if you know me at all you know that great eye roll that brought about.

I don't think the universe has our best interests at heart.  Of course I don't think it's out to get us either.  I guess if I had to summarize I'd say that the universe operates in a manner of benign indifference.  It's not out to get us, but it doesn't very much care either.

I don't think this is a cynical belief to have. There is still plenty of joy, love, happiness, and celebration to be had in this world even if the universe isn't in the job of producing it.  We are quite capable of producing out own joy, love, happiness and celebration.  We are quite capable of producing our own misery, pain, suffering, sadness too but hey, there is something to be said for balance right?

Now let me be clear, I am not talking about the 'law of attraction' here.  This will produce and even greater eye roll and a scowl from me.  While I think human beings are responsible for most of the joy and suffering in this world, I think that a lot of the time – in fact probably most of the time – shit just happens.  We genuinely have very little control over what happens in the world outside of our own skin. 

Here is what I do believe.  You have control over one thing in the world and that is you.  You have no control over anything else – the weather, the sunrise, or the guy next to you on the train.  Even your children or your loved ones, who you may have more influence with than the guy on the train, in the end you have zero control over them too. 

This is not all as bleak as it may sound, not having control certainly does seem to relieve one of responsibility, right?  No. I actually think it is just the opposite.  I only have control over what I do.  If I want to make the world a better place then I need to live in a manner that does that in whatever form that means for me.  If I had to make a list it might include…

…taking care of myself.

…being generally kind to my fellow humans.

…living in a manner that impacts the planet as little as possible.

…building community.

…speaking up when I see injustice.

…creating beauty when I can.

I'm not saying I'm perfect at any of these things.  I have good and bad days like most of us (and honestly I probably fail far more than I succeed).  I can hope that in living in this way I might inspire others to do the same.  I could even do my best to spread the word about My Super Special Key to a Happy Life but this does not mean that anyone else who hears my all-knowing words of truth is going to follow them and some might even reject them outright.

Yes.  If I am nice to people they are probably more likely to be nice to me.

Yes. If I use less resources there will hopefully be more for everyone.

Yes. If I'm less judgmental then, oh whatever, the world is full of assholes and I don't have any control over them either.

"Now wait a minute here," you might ask, "If you don't buy into this universe has your best interests at heart thing how come you read tarot cards and sometimes write about having moments of connection and a sense of peace…hmmmmph!"

Well, that is a totally different question for a different blog post; one which is not going to be written today.  But just because I can have moments of feeling at one with the universe doesn't mean I think it loves me. 

In any case, it does seem I at least got a good rant out of today's card. 

Day 9: Ugh

I did not feel well at all today and spent most of my day resting in bed.  I'll be back at the tarot blogging tomorrow!

 

Day 8: 8 of Disks - Skillfull Perseverance

Note:  The photos that I have been sharing have been showing up with odd orientations for some folks.  I have tried a few times to fix this and seem to be unable to do so.  I will be leaving Costa Rica tomorrow days and will not have access to wifi again until I arrive in San Diego on December 21.  I will do my best to fix the problem then.  Thank you!

Today's card is, the eight of disks, is about balanced perseverance over the long haul.  When we are working towards a goal some of us will become 100% focused on the goal at the expense of all other things in our lives while others procrastinate and put off when needs to be done until the last minute.  The key is to find that balance between work, rest, physical and emotional nourishment, etc.  I am not always great at doing this.

My major goal over the past five years has been to finish school and earn my degree.  This is something that will be brought to completion this spring.  I am pretty sure I've never found a complete balance in my pursuit of this goal.  In fact I've spent much of the past five years stressed out, full of worry and feeling overburdened. I have gone from one extreme to the other when it comes to procrastination verses careful planning. 

At times I have put school first in my life and when I do so other parts, such as my more creative life will suffer.  Other periods I have put my creative life first and school has suffered.   It has not been an easy balancing act.  Somehow I'm about to receive a bachelor's degree in sustainable business with a minor in environmental sustainability with a fairly respectable GPA which was achieved while still having a life outside of school.  I'm not quite sure how I've managed to get through it but I have.

The past few months of Semester at Sea have been the first time in my adult life in which I've only had one major focus to my life, just school.  At first this felt rather good.  I felt like I had enough time to get everything done and was feeling minimal stress.  However, it did not take at all long for me to begin to feel antsy and bored.  It was not too long after this that I began to teach belly dance on the ship and help out with other events on board.  I never felt overwhelmed or like I had too much to do.

And I even managed to get a full night of sleep each night…

Of course this was on the limited world of a 500 foot ship.  The real test will be if I can manage to keep this sense of balance once I return to the real world…