crikey!

Sometimes when I take a step back and think about the current state of my life, this is the first word that pops in my head.

I had to look it up to be certain how this strange word ever entered into my vocabulary. Google confirmed for me that it is my mates from down under who can be blamed for this one:

''An Australian exclamation of surprise or bewilderment.''

The word doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. It's just that when I think about the range of possibilities that lie ahead of me right now, ''crikey'' seems to be an appropriate reaction. I may never be in such a unique position again in my lifetime.

Over a year ago, I tore this quote out of a book I was reading:

''This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run.'' - A.S. Bayatt, Possession

At the time, I really wasn't sure how to feel about said quote. It sort of made me feel ill because I feared that it perfectly described what lied ahead of me: a lot of big changes that scared the hell out of me and I desperately wanted to avoid. It seemed to represent the battle I feared I was losing against the little voice in my head, the voice that I really preferred would just shut the hell up, if I'm perfectly honest.

But I faced it, my ''midpoint,'' and I survived. And I was blessed to have the means to take a difficult situation and turn it into an adventure. I've been just about as free as a bird for many months now.

Freedom. It is a wonderful thing. It can be liberating. Enlightening. Euphoric on some days.

But if taken too far, freedom can also be isolating. And a shield to hide behind to avoid making a decision... to avoid committing to anything.

(Yes, I do actually recognize this.)

I have a job I could go back to in London. A little piece of my heart still lives there. I now have a (very unexpected) job offer in Honduras. A little piece of my heart will always live in the developing world. Then there is America (that country on the front of my passport). A big piece of my heart still lives there. Along with my wonderful family and long-term friends.

So I'm going back there next week to park myself for a while and make a decision. I may be on the brink of getting an actual address as well as a wardrobe too big to fit in a 45 liter backpack.

I will share with you an abbreviated version of an interview between me and myself on the topic. (I interview myself a lot.)

Q [me]: ''Do you think we are ready to make this decision?''

A [myself]: ''....[a lot of internal debate, omitted for your benefit]... Well, I think we have come a long way on this 'journey.' We've healed our wounds from some of the heartbreaking things we've experienced. Sure, some of them are still fragile. We're being very careful with them.

We've spent enough time alone to reevaluate our principles... our 'rule book,' if you will, on everything from our future career path to our relationships - both our relationships with other people as well as ourself - from this point forward. If it had a title, it would be really long. It would be called: 'My Rule Book for My 30s and Beyond, Inspired by Many Interesting and Unexpected Lessons Learned in My 20s.' It would have three really big approval stamps on the cover from 'Me,' 'Myself' and 'No One Else.'

And, if we have accomplished both of these things, then I think our wanderlust has served its purpose. A very powerful one. Job done.''

[whispering]''... Look, let's be honest, you and I both know that our wanderlust will never fully die. But I think I may be ready to dial it back a notch or two.''

Q [me]: ''Are you sure? Sounds scary. We wiped the slate clean and now have virtually no ties. Now is our chance to make sure whatever we write on it next is definitely the right thing.''

A [myself]: ''I know. I do feel overwhelmed on some days knowing that the choices we make now will be the foundation 'from which everything else will run....'''

Q [me]: ''That damn quote again.''

A [myself]: ''I know. But listen, no matter which direction we ultimately decide to point our compass, I am sure we are not done learning. We are human.

But I know that the most important thing is this. And I don't care if it sounds cheesy, I am going to say it anyway: We dusted off the cobwebs and found our true self again on this journey. The uncluttered, untangled, uncompromised version of ourself. And wherever we go we will be taking that self with us.

Oh, and that rule book with the really really long title. We may not be finished making mistakes, but we sure as hell aren't making the same ones twice.

So there is no doubt in my mind that we are going to be just fine!''

i love visitors

I received some great news today... my friend L (right) is coming to visit me for the last 2 weeks I am in Roatan... she is going to stay with me and come volunteer at the same center where I am currently working, and then for the last few days of her visit after I wrap up my commitment here, we are going to hop over to Utila, a neighboring island, to visit our Aussie friend H who now lives there.

This is H:


If someone would have told me when I left Guatemala last summer that I would be back in Central America a year later, not only living on an island but also having a reunion with two of the girls I met while volunteering there... I would have asked them what they were smoking and told them they were crazy. Wow - how life can change in a year.

So excited!

glimpses of roatan

america through different eyes

It's a well known fact that taking a few steps (or a few thousand miles) back certainly changes the view. I'm going on about four years now of living outside of the place I call home, the land of the free and the home of the brave. (And the Danzer Lee light, as I used to think it was called. Come on, admit it, you also got some lyrics wrong at some point in your childhood. Or adulthood. Maybe not of the national anthem, but, it's happened to you too. We can laugh about it.)

Yes, stepping away means that things that were previously an accepted part of the scenery can metamorphasize into glaring, ugly flaws... or strange phenomenons... or quirks. Or sometimes, they cocoon into beauty that would have never been appreciated in quite the same way without that added perspective.

Take for example, the CNN program being aired currently that has spent countless hours dissecting someone else's tragedy and reducing it to a soap opera, fueled further by the 21st century's modern reincarnation of the tabloid (AKA the facebook news stream which hurls opinions left and right). Followed by the latest in the US political drama, featuring a recording from a senator who has publicly called the president a liar. This whole public spectacle over the budget, being witnessed by the rest of the world, has been interesting (scary?) to watch from an outside angle. Yet the grand finale on this program was this: an interview with Hugh Hefner on being jilted at the alter, rounded out with a few questions (of course!?) on his opinion on the trial and the political budget debate.

I'm not commenting on what is right or wrong. And I absolutely value free speech. I'm just trying to draw a contrast here. I'm putting out there the fact that not all countries publicize and dramatize their trials, and I'd fall off my chair if I were to scan facebook over my morning coffee only to find some of their constituents using facebook as an opinion forum at all, much less as an opinion forum to spout views on such a sad situation of which they didn't have the benefit of witnessing first hand or personally hearing a balanced, undramatized recount of the facts. Not all countries' news programs routinely interview random celebrities such as an icon of the sex industry on serious political matters such as the budget crisis.


In summary, while I may not always agree with criticism of America, after now having seen it from the outside in for so many years, I usually don't struggle for long to understand it. And it has been my experience on anything in life that some midpoint between each end of the spectrum is usually the best place to land.

Yet America is America, I love it for exactly what it is, and it will always be where I came from and the place I still think of as home. And I have to admit: some of the many simple things that brought a smile to my face while I was back visiting over the past two weeks.... well, they were almost foreign to me. Actually, it wasn't so much things... as it was the nature of the people. A sample:

The lady in the elevator in downtown Chicago who I hadn't even bothered to make eye contact with: upon departing at her floor, she turned and said to me ''Have a good day."

The attorney in Chicago whom I'd never met before, yet spent a half hour notarizing documents for me on a few hours' notice: he not only refused to accept any compensation but also gave me his card with his cell phone number in case anything needed to be modified over the weekend before I left the country again.

The doctor in Chicago whom I'd also never met before and also agreed to see me on a few hours' notice: he gave me free samples and a massive discount as a self-pay customer, and then took a few minutes out of his day to sit and chat to me about Missouri and my travels.

Old friends in the Midwest I've known for years: they give you the keys to their homes, pick you up from the airport, tell you to make yourself at home, and most importantly, love you unconditionally no matter what you've been through over the past few years. Okay, there are a few more of you... in London, and Australia. But let's be honest: you don't grow friends like that overnight.

Nieces and nephews that make your heart melt: I still would like to know which person in my family bribed my 2.5 year old niece to whisper to me as she was patting my head, ''I love you, you're my best friend.''

That alone might be enough to bring me back to America.

Thanks to everyone who reminded me that home will always be home, no matter how far and how long I roam.

broken pieces make sharp tools

Sometimes things break.

Glasses. Plates. Windows. Skin. Levies. Relationships. Spirits.

Sometimes we can patch them up. With superglue. Duct tape. Band-aids. Apologies. Bending. Molding. Adapting. Changing.

Sometimes not.

Usually that line between when one should keep mending things, or take the broken pieces and start anew, is fuzzy and grey.

A crack in a foundation: is it merely a sign of a little wear and tear? Or a fissure that will widen over time - a signal you should put a halt to all construction?

How do you know the point between the 'before,' when you can still walk away with most of the pieces still intact, as opposed to the ''after'', when you have broken it so many times, tried to bend and mold and patch it over and over because you can't bear to let it go, that the original is in such tiny or altered fragments that it is unrecognizable, its potential for future use diminished?

We never really know where that line is unless we wait to cross it. Unless we wait until the levee breaks. Or until the building crumbles to the ground because it was built upon a shaky foundation.

No one wants to wave the white flag without a good fight. But no one wants to step over that line to the point of total destruction. As with most things in life, finding that line is a balancing act coupled with a little bit of rolling the dice. I try to live by the principle that tenacity is a virtue. Yet mixed with an overabundance of pride and stubbornness, it can quickly turn toxic.

No, we never really know.

I think we all perpetually have things in our life that are cracking, breaking, crumbling. Such is life. Nothing is permanent. And that arbitrary line of ''before'' and ''after,'' that point when we're willing to accept the pieces as broken and make a change... well, that point differs for all of us.

But once we are able to see it clearly and are courageous enough to be honest with ourselves and move forward with the broken pieces, there is an up side.

Broken pieces aren't all bad. They can be sharp and powerful tools if we use them in the right way. Michelangelo didn't carve the David with a dull chisel. They can be tools for positive change, tools for meaningful growth, giving us an edge we don't normally have when we are in a place of comfort and complacency.

I meet a lot of people on ''the road'' (my current address) who are carrying around really big, chunky broken pieces of their lives. Many people would describe them as broken. Directionless.

I shared a 2 hour bus journey with a 35-year old journalist the other day. She was in the 50th week of her year-long trip around the world. She impressed me massively with her stories of the remote and unexpected places she has dared to go and the things she has experienced by getting off the well-beaten tourist trail. I expect to see a book out of this woman in a few years.

She said to me, ''I was in a rut with my job as a reporter and wasn't sure how to get out of it. I knew I could make small changes, but they would be band-aids, not getting to the root of the issue. I took this trip because I knew that the only way I was going to know the right next step for me was to really shake things up until it fell out."

I hear you, reporter woman, I really hear you.

She commented that maybe that qualified her as ''directionless,'' but nonetheless, it was the right thing for her.

I shared with her my theory on the topic.

Directionless is characterised as wandering aimlessly, looking for something outside yourself. I know what it looks like. I have seen that in many people I've met ''on the road.'' I am pretty sure I've also been that at some moments in my life. I reassured her that neither one of us fit in that category.

It's a very different thing to accept and admit that your fire has burned out and something has to change. Instead of just sitting on those sharp broken pieces and complaining about the pain, or trying to convince yourself they don't exist, you've picked them up and used them to help you cut through the weeds and carve out a new path. You've stepped away and started doing all the things that you know will re-ignite your fire and you're willing to be open to the possibilities of where that may take you without closing your mind to a rigid set of expectations for the sake of having the security of a well-defined plan.

You're in the uncomfortable place. That's okay. It's one of only three options: 1) uncomfortable place, 2) waiting place, or 3) acceptance place, and to be honest, the only places I like to hover are number 1 and number 3. Dr. Suess couldn't have put it better when he warned of the perils of the waiting place in one of my all-time favorite books, Oh the Places You'll Go:

''...a most useless place. The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to
come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting
around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just
waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting
around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to
boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with
curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you!''

closing the chapter on cambodia

Back in Bangkok, 64 days later, waiting for a flight again. And saying goodbye to Southeast Asia... for now.

For me, Cambodia will always be the place where I finally turned the corner and started smiling from the inside out, for the first time in a long time. Cambodia, my unconventional sanctuary of dusty roads, rusty bicycles with sticky brakes, bare feet, monks grinning from ear to ear, gecko pets in my room, naked young children running in the streets, ant bites that made my foot swell to twice its size, power outages and an endless supply of genuine smiles.

Cambodia, the place I learned, by way of forcefully self-imposed design, how to be comfortably alone for the first time in my life. And I mean really alone. And I mean really the first time in my life.

Cambodia, the place I learned, through practice, how to let go gracefully. To gently let go of people I love, in a loving way. To gently loosen the reins and relax my incessant desire to control the future and the unknown. To gently tune out the voice in my head echoing the judgment of others, both the real and perceived.

It was the place I learned to start to appreciate myself for precisely who I am. And be reminded of precisely who I am. It was not without some painful and humbling moments. I won't dwell upon those. I will just acknowledge that they were all part of the process.

It will always be the place where I caught a reflection of myself one day walking down the street, pleasantly surprised to realise I was donning a smile as my natural expression. (For the past few years, my boss has continually stopped to hover over me and my computer screen to remind me that burrowing my eyebrows causes wrinkles.) There I was, walking down the street, in the smouldering heat, in my own company... and naturally wearing a smile. That's the day I knew I was definitely going to be okay.

I had help. From some constant sources (who should not be underestimated - you know who you are).

But also from some fleeting yet incredibly powerful bursts of energy. Some that came into my life before I left London... some after.

K&S, warding off the Wilson syndrome

There were K and S, the English and American girls I met during my first week in Cambodia who were at a crossroads in their lives similar to mine. Two girls who had both experienced marathon relationships in their 20s that ended with a brave goodbye, and who were seeking something more meaningful professionally. Two ladies who had stepped away from a life that looked perfect on paper because they knew deep down something wasn't right, and who had both embarked on journeys similar to mine in order to figure it all out.

Everyone needs someone to relate to, especially when they feel like an island. These girls joined me on my island for a while. They, among other similar characters I met on and off for the following 10 weeks, certainly helped me avoid the temptation to draw a face on a soccer ball, name him Wilson and carry on a conversation with him at night, Tom Hanks style.

D, the ''one drink'' cure for bitterness

There was D, the English chap about two heads taller than me, with the deepest voice I've ever heard, and the first non-type A, non-corporate type I think I have ever gone on a legitimate date with as an adult... not to mention the first 'first' date I had been on since circa 2004. Even months later, I am still in awe at how the stars aligned to create this perfect and nothing more than temporary set of interactions which somehow served to dissolve some of my disappointment and cynicism toward relationships, as well as restore my faith in the possibility I would ever someday bother with trying to love again.

I was heading in the exact opposite mental direction before he crossed my path. My emotional reserves were running on empty and I knew I had no business getting into a relationship or probably even dating, one of the many reasons I was sending myself to Cambodia. I agreed to go for one drink with this guy, simply because I thought I needed the practice. Okay, maybe I also had something to prove to myself. 2004? That's a long time.

I fully expected it to end at that. One drink. However, he really intrigued me. And there was safety in the fact that we both knew our interactions had a pre-set expiration date, defined by my ticket out of London in mid-April. So I agreed to go out with him again, and again, until I left the UK. For some reason, I could effortlessly talk with him for hours on end. And the experience reminded me that permanently cutting myself off emotionally from the world, male species included, was not an option. It ended with a very pleasant goodbye. Haven't spoken with him since, and didn't expect to, or even really want to. We both were complete wildcards with at least one foot into new paths we were pursuing. The beauty of it was in its brevity. That little crack he put in my hardening shell changed me for the better.

L, my gift of purpose

God knows I can certainly roam. But aimless roaming... can't do that for long. So thankfully there was L, the 25-year old Cambodian girl who I worked with day in and day out for two months. Who to me, will always be the most wonderful and beautiful and funniest and most charming Cambodian girl I've ever known because she validated my initial purpose for being there and the risk I took by stepping away from the familiar. And because she became a daily source of smiles and laughter.

Every day, she thanked me for coming and leaned on my shoulder and begged me to stay longer. She called me srey shah - Khmer for ''pretty girl.''

I have fond memories of riding on the back of her motorbike around Siem Reap, particularly the day we followed a guy with a pig in a wooden cage on the back of his bike. I asked her if it was still alive. She said, ''yes of course'' and then abruptly pulled to the side of the road to buy us palm sugar juice from the man with the cart on wheels, which she insisted I had to try. Flies and bees were swarming everywhere around that machine that was grinding the sugar cane, and I wasn't sure of the source of the ice, but I drank it anyway, because she so generously insisted on buying it for me. We rode back to the office, sipping pure liquid sugar from a straw in a plastic bag, Asian style.

L was without a doubt the brightest part of my time in Cambodia. She made sweating my ass off and walking around the office with bare dusty feet begging to be preyed on by evil fire ants every day a priviledge and a pleasure.

There were many others. Maybe we'll never know all the small ways we changed someone else's life for the better just by being exactly who we are. May this be a testament to the fact that it happens anyway. And a reminder to stop to tell someone when they change yours.

Thank you Cambodia.

my strange and wonderful life

I am leaving my role at this NGO soon... I think... I keep saying I am leaving soon, but keep staying. I must be liking it. Monday, it seems, will be the day. Where I am going between then and 23 June... not yet sure.

The power goes out in this country, constantly. Tonight, it went out from 6-9pm. Not the best time to be out of power. I did find myself resorting to very very strange forms of entertainment by the end - it was dark outside, couldn't walk down the street to meet anyone, couldn't call anyone because my phone has no credit, too early to go to bed, already had dinner, head hurting from straining to read with my baby flashlight and candle, no one to talk to in the lobby, computer was dead, iPod was dead - but the camera phone was working. So (obviously!) I took a video of my candle. And the strange nature sounds coming from outside. Really surprisingly loud nature sounds. I wish I could post it for you. It is very creepy. But I can't find the adapter. (Don't judge, until you also go without power for 3 hours with no one to keep you company.)

Thankfully it came back on shortly after my strange filming episode and I as soon as I booted up my computer this lady in Roatan, one of the Bay Islands in Honduras, was ringing me on Skype. This is the third day I have tried to have a call with her - 9pm my time, 8am her time. Something always goes wrong. Today, besides the power episode, I also couldn't hear her talking. So she suggested that I talk, and she type. (This was a weird dynamic... talking in this format to someone you have never met before.)

Well, either way, her typing must have been good - as I think she has persuaded me to come there from mid-July. She is currently partnering with an accomplished photojournalist (I googled him, of course) to prepare a photo essay / funding proposal which she wants me to help with, which hits on a number of my interests, at least on paper, so it is worth a shot. This is one of those things that could be really amazing or really awful, but if it all goes to crap, at least I will be on a beautiful and relatively affordable island where I can snorkel every day and practice my Spanish until it is at the right level to move on to the next thing. I have a few other offers on the table after I finish in Roatan. Looking forward!