A Unique Piece of... Thing

So there you have it. 

Flight leaving Cape Town on 04/30/18 booked during a Tink conference call on the afternoon of 06/30/17.  As various people joked about people never taking time off and the "Sweet Child of Mine" ringtone sounded unexpectedly in the background and the quote above ineloquently capturing a lot of thoughts beyond work.  10 months to the day, and 36 hours total travel time, leaving a nice little layover to test the best Dubai has to offer in a whirlwind 7:30AM to 2:30AM stopover.  Also booked the cancellable room at the appropriately named Never@home hostel for the week on arrival...  Will you be staying there as planned, and will you be on those flights?

Make it so.

Time to pick up a bottle of South African wine to note it, and something else for good measure, as you look to undertake a thorough cleanse and pre-clean of the apartment tonight.  Then a morning drive to glimpse the vessel of your future for the first time.  Oh yes.

Courage, my word

The last of Shackleton's 4.  The imagination, the patience, and the idealism are easy by comparison.  The courage to walk from obligations.  For your own sake, no matter the consequence, no matter the past, or future.  I am surprised of your doubts, but during such a long spell, dating back a year and eight months, it makes sense that questions would be triggered at some point.

But then AG raised the spectre, unprompted, on the boat after his passage through Egypt.  And the Tall Ships have started to arrive.  And the Senator herself is making for your first rendezvous in Charlotte's town.  How dare you toy with the idea of missing her, the chance to place a few dimes in hidden places for collection at the bottom of the world.

The sighting of the potential cottages and your inability to live like a normal guan in this one lead the way.  The chance must be seized, the leap taken.  Conversation to be had in early August to set the stage, a good 6-7 months out.  Buy the Cape Town to Dubai to London flight tomorrow as a token of commitment.  It always starts with the flights, months out.  Who knows, maybe sanity will prevail and all will fall into place.  Or not.  The only thing that matters is where you are on March 3rd.

Don't let me down now, McMahon.

8.3.6

Pursuant to the Reg, here's the prepared plan: harder, better, faster, stronger.  Keep working toward that ultimate escape, in line with the chinese cookie fortune that speaks the future.

Oh, and by way of update, 800 OS in Musquodoboit not the one.  Sadly, I had high hopes.  Looks like retrenchment for another full year, unless you decide to break the bank, or something unexpected comes up next.  That said, intrigued by the 1000 option - might just be worth a call...  We shall see.  Roll on summer roll on.

The Smell of Jasmine after Rain

The CME award lunch last week, mostly laughable but well punctuated by a story from the Middle East invoking childhood memories of Syria.  Inspiring thoughts of a place of thine own - weather beaten and rough and raw.  Something to conjure up further visions, to shake you from the constant lethargy of these endless days.

The Georgia 6th election finally coming to a close tonight, and despite everything, the Republicans emerging with another close victory.  The nature of these ongoing fights over basic issues of democracy and decency and rationality and compassion... all so depressing.  Who are these people, invested so heavily as they seem to be in hypocrisy and shamelessness?  It can be such a strange, sad, incomprehensible world at times.

What is to be done?  The journalistic path?  There are already oh so many tweets and oh so much competition and jockeying among the crowds.  Perhaps, too, it is a touch late to start down such an entirely new professional road.  Begging the question as to whether you are back to where you started, I suppose.  Whether the creative non-fiction choice should remain the dream.  Or whether to punt such decisions out another summer, into the 40th year.

Have been sat here for 5 hours now, going on 6, just whiling away the time, mostly pointlessly, as you would at home.  Dreaming about the routes down to Antarctica, an idea which you cannot let slip away, no matter the cost or hassles or difficult conversations to launch it.  Might have to toss Torres del Paine from that itinerary though, which strangely suits me.  Chile kept on the shelf for a future year, with flights down through Argentina instead, traded as a new country in favour of an overnight in Dubai on the way to London and Hamilton.

There are so many such trips.  La Paz to San Pedro to Mendoza to Santiago to Torres.  Ethiopia.  India to Nepal to Tibet to China.  The low residency option does have its merits.  I wonder, audaciously, if you could get to work on two books as part of it - one election/Trump-related, the other focused on some of the mental health ideas.  Or something else. 

Worth pondering.  Go and hit the road and sleep (again) on it.

Who?

Congrats Brooks, the most ridiculous non-bet pinata of all time - up there in enjoyment with Oxbow's Preakness win, and one worth far more than the 126-1 odds in terms of the stories to be told of this father's day week.  As you schemed a successful 24 hour trip through the Rogers Center to catch the closing dome and a bottom of the 9th home run by Smoak, and Mom continues her cycling through Holland and Belgium.  The summer is soon to begin in earnest, perhaps has already begun.  More please. 

38 + 1

Another successful Krapp's tape, sweet opportunity to recast and reflect on an exceptional year of travel.  Even the Hip-driven concert trips were almost forgotten before the reminder over the Flower of Scotland flight and ferry ride to end it.  With dreams of the coming trips - eclipses and icebergs, Emirates and Ithaka. 

I dream of rain.  Of escape from tedium.  Of so so much.

Shoe Candles

What a June Fifth that turned out to be - the sail, the wine, the scotch, the cups of nature, the old fashioneds, and topping it off at the lounge and then another unfateful night at Cheers.  At least the car is still in situ.  A wise choice, that, and worth the ticket.  Long and memorable celebration commemorating the famous day thirteen years ago, triumphant and hilarious in the zonked out singeing of those old Nikes.  After some unremembered hijinks on the Charlottetown waterfront on the Friday previous, and then a low key Saturday night.  Wimp.  Haha to that text.  Thoughts of the journalism path, which might yet mark a turning point.  All to be seen.

For now, revel in the build-up to the end of 37 and start of 38, the dreams of the future, and the many stories of how you got to there from here.