Belly Button Warmer (Perfumed)

The time has come.

I’m ready.

The Speed At Which It Moves

Suddenly, time seems to be moving at pace.  The nights left only 3, soon 2.  The final packing mostly complete, the cleaning left mostly for the return, which is fine.  Hopefully the motivation will be there.  When you have seen the new ‘scapes and breathed in that air and felt the sun and walked the ice.  When you have crossed the towers and the continent and the whiskey grave drinking and the remotest outpost docking.  When you have done it, and return ready for the new.

One more before the road, I think.  Time to sleep away a few more hours, as they tick further past.  Tock tock...

Latrinalia

A most beautiful word, that.  Thinking continuously about Ahab's, logos and toilet cartoons, as I prepare to embark on this voyage of a lifetime.  The days in the office creep by slowly after a hilarious night out at Battery Park yesternight.  The hand off of the remaining items in the next few days, and the place to be sorted and packed this weekend.  It does not feel like I am leaving for as long as I am leaving.  I wonder when it will fully hit that I am about to take 75 days off.   That's 20% of the year, haha.

As you look at some of the work on your plate, it becomes ever-clearer that time looking out this foggy window is running short.  Keep dropping the hints and preparing yourself for that eventuality, as you are doing.  I think the goal is about 900 hours and $300K for the year, which still leaves a way to go, but hopefully can work.  The nuclear option also on the table depending on status of condo and finances, but realistically you might as well hunker down for the slightly longer haul into the Spring if you can while getting ready for what's next.

Exciting, interesting times. 

Me(et them with) gusto. 

Exit, pursued by bear

Another ridiculous day of impulsive stock buying.  We shall see the result, but it is worth a punt.  Pourquoi pas.  The day of the practical advice for sleepy engineering students at the old stomping ground.  The last day as SBTS chair.  Perhaps some cleaning and packing tonight?

8 days.  8.  Almost unfathomable.  Last week you walked by the brewery and saw the sign for Patagonia.  Right now it is the student, wearing the sweatshirt, in the school’s common area.  So close.

The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out

Nice work Nael.  I feel ya.

Circles upon circles, but forward.  The shifting point approaches.  Embrace it.  With enthusiasm and resplendent effort, embrace it.  The call is being sounded, you have but to listen, and act.  Soon come.

The Forth and Back

So land the comp results and, apparently, at the lower of the expected probabilities.  Which makes sense in the overall scheme, as a further prod along the path toward Freeport, sooner rather than later.  Just as I begin to sense that there may be room to maneuver a longer lead time to departure, then the points emerge in opposition to such a plan. 

And face it, another whole year may just be too long to keep on faking it, and the 40th lingers as almost too symbolic a launching point.  I do need a back-up plan/excuse if Lav falls through or you are beaten to it, maybe MFA or otherwise.  But let's save such daydreams for the Southern Hemisphere.  And hope it does not come to that.

Play out the dream scenario for 2018/19 post-Bark under this route (though it has been done here before)...  Boat.  S.  Signing.  Condo on the market as planned pre-Russia, and ready for rental starting the following May if nobody bites.  Mississippi Delta.  Cottagefest.  Closing.  London in October for Rylance and the Arsenal.  Maybe Companion.  The possibility of a Caribbean jaunt (or two) in Late Winter / Spring.  Just prior to notice end of February/March-ish?  Then another escape and/or further time to prep?

Wherefore 40?  Could it even be at Ahab's itself?  I like that symmetry.  Not a bad grand "official" opening, that Saturday.  Krapp's Last?  Freeing up November for a celebratory whirl off-continent, and then the primaries in 2020.  And then on your face.  Haha.  We shall see.

You'll need practice at the art of frugality again.  Central America needs to be done, but can be on the cheap.  Ethiopia.  Nepal.  Other than that I can go to ground for a few years to make this work.

So, let's.  All that you can't.  Leave behind.

PS.  Get the book, The Elements of Eloquence. 

The Back and Forth

Not many posts below - Jan 29 - you were weighing and dismissing the possibility of holding out until 2020.  But maybe you can make it?  (He begins to think, as investments slide.)  PHP remains the wild card on that front.  As long as they glide into 2019 as well?  I think there are two big questions that can’t be answered until June...

1 - Can Lav be convinced to stay for 20?
2 - Can you stomach another year of waiting?

It would give you a longer goodbye with the SC, and open the door to further vacation funded travel... 2019 as a year for Nepal or Ethiopia?  Would be good to cross off one or the other while getting paid.  2020 primaries are nailed on, but not sure if I’m in for post-NH travels, so timing should work for a May or June wrap-up?

Worth pondering over the waves.  So much hinges on the cow ledges...

Sometimes, X just is

What a great saying, in the midst of market turbulence and concerns over the potential impact on Ahab’s.  Stop seeking out causation in everything, stop seeking out explanations.  The irrational will out in human affairs.  Zen it.  Worry pas.  Observe it, as a bystander, as it smoulders on.  Redouble the efforts toward what is new and real.

Give yourself an extra year in the office if need be.  But make the deal with Lavena.  Fuck, it is all I can think about, imagine that when Antarctica is on the horizon...  it is a sign, like Annie Dillard, like everything...  Mistress Chestnut now pending, the decks being properly cleared for this run.  But first, tick tock, just over two weeks, to start the trip 11,000 km due south, to see about the penguins, and whales, and Shackleton.

Why?  Because, sometimes, X just is.

The Zen of the Market

So the correction has arrived, an African government has asserted itself over mining policy, and you did not time any of it right, in the end.  You had the chance, right after New Bedford, but you blew it.   

And you know what?  I don't care.  I mean I care, or maybe better to say I did care?  Part of the lesson, part of the message, at this exact time, may be that this is all a numbers game being played out on a screen.  It is not reality, or at least not what should be considered the true basis of your reality.  So stop treating it as such.

You agonize over the future plans in terms of the finances to be able to do it and the safety net you may need in place, but maybe that is exactly the wrong way to look at it.  Maybe you actually need less security in place to make this plan work from the outset, or to convince yourself it is the correct one.  Jump in and see if you can swim from there instead, and if not?  There will always be opportunities to resurface, randomly, in the rat race or elsewhere.  Maybe that challenge is part of the point?

Dagger had the great line - "...that is usually a last big trip. Antartica [sic] is usually completing travelling?"  Look at it from the bottom up.  There is still Nepal, and there is Ethiopia, and there is Central America, and there is Southern India.  Those would be the key ones remaining.  Not cheap to get to, but maybe cheap to mess about once you are?  With minimal expenses at home?  But what if this really is a choice to be poor, to get back to the beginning of the travels of the early days?  To downscale everything.  To vagabond.  To hostel and eek things out when you do go.  To budget. 

And to write and hike and meditate and write.  To live above a bar again.  What would be wrong with that approach?  Out with the boat/condo, in with the public house/road?

It is damn exciting as a prospect, and I really hope it doesn't get ripped away by some other clown before I get the chance to act.  Need to trust in the fact that it will not.  Or find another path of reinvention.