Life Altering at a Breakneck Pace? Take a Vitamin.

Move to a new city. 

Meet ideal partner.  

Fall in love.  

Find adorable Little Red House house in cute neighborhood. 

Get married. 

I have succeeded, unintentionally, to launch myself into full blown grown-up-hood. 

At my age, what I anticipated was:

 Move to a new city.  

Get a bum job.  

Rent a small room. 

Make ends meet.  

Suffer aggravating roommate situations. 

Question my life.  

Worry about my brain atrophying.  

Laze about on the outskirts of careerdom waiting, unenthused, for something to yank me away from a drab, but responsibility-less, hourly wage.

After years spent as a top of the class, overachieving type A, I was thirsting for some downtime--and maybe some Portland microbrews.

Ironically, however, "settling down" feels like anything but.  With this newfound umbrella of unconditional love and support over me, I'm finding myself compelled to seek something better for myself.  To put myself out on the line, be vulnerable, stressed-out and overcommitted. And, in someways, to claim a new revitalized adult self that's independent, invested and motivated all over again.   Should I proclaim the hiatus officially over? 

Dang.  Suddenly that responsibility I pushed away is looking kind of nice.  It sure would be swell to be respected and valued by everyone in my working life as I am in my personal life with Chris.  I have so much loving support that I feel like I might as well use it and go for something big.  Maybe I should be a writer like I've always wanted to be.  Or maybe I shouldn't be letting those hard earned film editing skills sit on the shelf even though the talent in this city scares me into a corner.  

Maybe I'm inspired because I'm with someone who has been driven to fulfill his passions from before he could speak.

Whatever it is, it's put my life out of balance.  I'm so happy with this aspect of my life, that my 9-5, (or, sometimes 11-7 or 3-11 as the case may be) is becoming much more dissatisfying much more quickly than I anticipated.  

Partly, I feel the need to live a fulfilling life all around.  But, on a deeper level, I want a long life with this man, full of many chapters and phases.  Many years from now, which will fly by, I am sure, Chris and I want to start a family.  But we both view that decision as the biggest responsibility we will ever, ever take on and I want to dedicate myself to it fully.  Which means that the dedication I have for a career needs to occur before the family can and should.  So, nows the time to begin investing myself in that aspect of my life.  

Secondly, as my mind opens, for the first time on the image of myself as a mother, much less a wife, I have one ravenous desire, to live and very healthy, very long life.

And, without warning, all my mother's foreboding worry rises up in me.  That motorcycle that I salivated over for years, is more difficult to ride every time I turn the key.  I worry about carcinogens, dark leafy green intake, extended family medical history, flossing, careless drivers, health insurance, cholesterol in egg yolks, the condition of my liver, kidneys and pretty much everything but my heart, which is well taken care of. 

"Someday" my mum said, "You'll have kids and you'll stop taking all these stupid risks of yours."

Kids are still a new and vaguely impressionistic image in my mind, and yet I'm thinking about selling my precious Vera, hanging up my helmet and investing in air bags.

Holding Chris' hand while laying in a bed in the emergency room earlier this week awaiting news of a kidney infection,  I felt myself closing a chapter of my life.  I have spent a lot of time adventuring alone, down Colorado mountain and country roads and through back alleys in Asian countries.  And now I have a partner, who happens to be justifiably terrified of motorcycles.  By association, I find myself justifiably terrified of anything that runs the risk of taking me away from him too soon.  It's a claustrophobic feeling, that the world and all its dangers might close in on me, because, inevitably, something will.  What a pendulum shift, from adolescent invincibility to total fragility.  Before, I couldn't picture myself living past 35, now my only wish is to live a long, savored life with Chris.    Before, what could happen to me just didn't matter, and now nothing could matter more.   I suppose that's what they call "settling down," but really, there's no adventure worth having unless he's experiencing it with me.   It's not to say that I won't jump off another bridge or out of another plane or, transversely that I'll encase myself in some sort of bubble.  But, now that I have someone to adventure through the world with and I won't be making choices that could land me back in that emergency room bed.  At the very least, I need to start taking vitamins. 

The Joy of Being Proven Wrong.

January 2nd, 2010:

"I can't imagine being in love with one person for the duration of my life. Marriage seriously misses the mark in my mind. [.....]
And I fall for the ones that make me laugh until I can't breathe. And the ones that are patient and sincere and are as considerate to strangers as they are to their best friends. I love the people I see by the riverside, who lean into the wind and smile.

And yet, for all the love I know I'm capable of-- for all the facets of people that I fall for-- Something in me still searches for someone that's more than just one or two of those facets. I accept most people at face value and even love some within seconds, but I can't help hoping that I'll come across someone that I can spend years discovering."

August 18th, 2010

I'm typing this with a wedding ring weighing down my left hand.  It might cramp.  It's not a familiar weight, not yet, not after only 4 days of wearing it, but my hand feels naked when I shower without it.  

As I wrote that last post in January, my heart was swelling, almost painfully, with love for a person I couldn't even bring myself to mention specifically.  At the core of my being, I knew I'd already found that someone that I would spend years discovering.  That "one" that I "fall for" who makes me laugh until I can't breathe. He who is patient and sincere and considerate to strangers as if they were his best friend.

He is my husband.  He is my best friend.  My partner in this life and what feels like hundreds of previous lives.

A year ago, I was known for touting beliefs of polyamory and slandering marriage. I was the one who provoked the universe to prove me wrong.

And what a beautiful smiting it has been. 

I fell in love with Chris the moment I met him, and I can confirm the fables you may have heard and the movie plots you may have seen about love at first sight.  One minute I was standing on the solid foundation of what I held true, and within a minute of talking to this man, I felt as if the ground beneath my feet had ripped open and swallowed me up.  Everything shifted. Profoundly and irrevocably.

As much as a part of me wanted to believe in the possibility of profound, unconditional, all encompassing and fully supportive love, it wasn't something I could fathom, much less attempt to seek out.  And then it happened.

If, a year ago, someone would have suggested to me that I'd find myself, on August 18th, 2010 typing with a wedding ring on my hand, I would have laughed hysterically and in total disbelief.

Everytime I look into Chris' eyes, it's not without a large degree of shock.  My astonishment is only outweighed by my deep gratitude for being wrong...

On May 13th,Chris and I hiked up to Waimoku falls and in the torrent of the 400 ft waterfall, Chris offered me a pristine tropical flower and the offer to love, care and support me for the rest of my life and asked to marry me.

The next morning, we rolled out of our tent and walked to the seaside cliffs of Oheo Gluch and watched in silence as the sunrise came up over a torrent of ocean and misty rainforest.  That morning we said our vows and from May 14th on, I considered us bound by our own vows and commitments for life.

A friend of mine made our rings, which we waited to put on until my sisters came to visit and meet Chris for the first time.  On August 14th, in their presence and with their blessing, we exchanged rings and vows again. It was done spontaneously, without a plan, without a dress, without makeup, without written vows, without even the opprotunity to check and see how my wind blown hair looked. My sister took pictures as we cried and whispered vows and thanks.  It was my second marriage to the same man with dozens more to come.  We do not want a wedding, only small spontaneous celebrations of our commitment. (After all, Chris was a chef, we don't need a new blender, toaster or cuisinart.  So why have a wedding?)  I believe that every morning when I wake up and look my husband in the eyes, I reinstate my vows.  I abhor weddings because they create a misguided fervor over all the  pomp and the cake and frills and guest list and and and....  When really, all it's about it two people, promising everything they have to one another every single day and waking up and holding the course, no matter what turns come up. What began as a tradition of witnessing profound vows has become a giant cataclysmic event that sets a strange bar of expection and makes every day of marriage feel lackluster in comparison to the "big day".  Chris and I don't want to begin our life together in debt an we have many days ahead to celebrate.

We want our friends and family to share in our joy, but rather than one giant, costly day that becomes more about appeasing our guests and bad dance music at the reception, we will be having dozens of small spontaneous ceremonies over the course of our life together.  Stay tuned, a ceremony may be coming to a city near you. 

We have not yet sought out a marriage license, I have not yet changed my name (though we are exploring name combinations including G Dub, DubEar, Gebler etc. etc). I still consider the definition of marriage to be tragically flawed in this country.  Some of the best examples of commitment I've seen have been modeled by queer couples who have stayed together for decades out of will, love and unwavering promises -- not because it is legally binding via the government. According to the American government, the most impressive marriages I've witnessed haven't been "marriages" at all.   Chris and I will eventually get a marriage license, hopefully after everyone in the country can, but we're not in any rush because, as far as we're concerned, it's our commitment, not $50 at the courthouse, that makes this a marriage.  A honeymoon, however, sure does sounds nice. 

"You call yourself a free-spirit, a wild thing..."

At any given moment, my affections spiral off in a dozen different directions. My need to multi-task has officially flooded my emotional state. Suddenly, it seemed that polyamory was the only reasonable way for 6 billion + people to attempt to survive together. (Thank you, Dan Savage)
I can't imagine being in love with one person for the duration of my life. Marriage seriously misses the mark in my mind. The only person I've been in love with for a substantial amount of time, does not return the sentiment. Maybe then, all of this is a compensation for that fact. One gigantic distraction divied up between a handful of people who never asked for it in the first place.

Perhaps: My unattachment is merely a guise for the fact that I'm overly attached in all the wrong ways Maybe: My ideals of free love allow me to skim the surface. Very likely: by being unattainable, I can slip away from anything that may prove meaningful.

It's entirely possible that I'm running away.

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You-Are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself. ~From the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's

But it's also possible that I do truly love many people, and love them enough to not keep them or try to keep them. That I can't focus on one person, when I met a dozen fascinating people a day.

The other day, I met a guy who was an arborist, who's job it is to climb trees, all day, every day. He spoke about his work like it was poetry. Within 30 seconds of talking to me, he told me how quiet it is at the top of a 100 year old tree. And part of me loved him right there, on the spot.
And I fall for the ones that make me laugh until I can't breathe. And the ones that are patient and sincere and are as considerate to strangers as they are to their best friends. I love the people I see by the riverside, who lean into the wind and smile.

And yet, for all the love I know I'm capable of-- for all the facets of people that I fall for-- Something in me still searches for someone that's more than just one or two of those facets. I accept most people at face value and even love some within seconds, but I can't help hoping that I'll come across someone that I can spend years discovering.

The Best Love Story

The best love story I ever heard sounded something like this:
"I'd just met her and she was headed back out east to Brooklyn. She'd graduated from college here in Portland and was headed back. Even though I'd just met her, I wanted to spend every possible moment with her, so I quit my job and offered to make the 2 week road trip across the country with her."
"All told, the trip took 8 months"
"We wandered through the entire country, stopping at anything and everything that caught our attention. We worked odd jobs, washing dishes for scraps of leftover food and sleeping in our car or in a beat up tent. New York became a far off deadline and then faded into obscurity as we fell in love."
"Eventually, we blew into New York. But before we even set our bags down, she'd stumbled upon a cheap flight to Sweden. We did right by her family, and stayed with them for a couple days before tucking our passports in our bags and taking off. After all, her folks had already waited months to see her, and, well meet me."
"By chance, on the flight to Sweden we sat next to someone who knew a farmer who took in strong backs like ours. After a stint on his farm, we travelled the country for the summer as WWOOFers, hopping from farm to farm."
"As it started to get cold and dark up north, we trickled down through Europe. But nothing matched the countryside of Sweden."
"Eventually, we found ourselves back here. Maybe New York is still a far off deadline, too obscure to even understand anymore. I've lost track. But I loved that woman from the moment I saw her wake up stiff after 3 days of sleeping in a beat up old grey hatchback full of shit from college. Tonights her birthday and I've been stockpiling presents for her all year, but every year, I realize how little "stuff" has played a role with us. So I stayed up all last night, working on a painting for her. In comparison it all falls flat, you know, but maybe that's exactly how you know."

Dismantling

My New Year began two months ago. On November 1st, I dropped my bags, a couple boxes and a motorcycle down in Portland. This New Years is just an accessory to that. All of the change and transition one person can muster, already occurred. New Years was just a matter of propriety, an official declaration of change long after I'd already surrendered to sweet upheaval.
On the long, glorious drive out to my new city, someone I love most dearly said to me "remember that your cup isn't full yet, you still have more to go and take in."
A lot of the time, I have a way of expressing myself so definitively and matter of factly that it seems like I a) know what I'm talking about (lie #1) or b) cannot be dissuaded (lie #2) or c) I think I'm enlightened (big fat lie # 3 & #4). I only sound that way because I come from a long line of jewish men who are not to be bested in argument and believe, wholeheartedly, that I would have made a damn fine lawyer.
Yes, I've learned certain things, gained certain perspectives that I hold up high... but those glimmers of "faith" or "knowledge"only resulted from a shake down of what came before.
Therefore, in the name of dismantling, I'm resurrecting this blog. So that, every single day, something will be posted here. Be it words, pictures, video or otherwise, it will represent some sort of kinetic process and keep my cup constantly filling to the point of overflowing.

Refamilarizing the Familar.

The most important things I carried through Thailand and Laos were
a 50 cent pair of foam earplugs
a bandanna
and a zip up sweatshirt.

The most worthless thing that I carried through Thailand and Laos was
a top-of-the-line water purifier.

The thing I really wish I'd had in Thailand and Laos was
my ipod (thai music is horrible, really and truly very bad. And what they take from the west is skimmed off the very tip-top of the top 40. Horrific.)
and my old cellphone so I could get a thai simcard and make local calls-- public phones are in disrepair in EVERY country.

Before I set off on my next long trip (hopefully next July, for a year-- around the world) everyone I love will have to get Skype.

I would not have met half as many people, Thai and otherwise, if I weren't noticeably tattooed-- and well tattooed at that.

In the international eye, Americans are thought to be boisterous (in the bad way), high-strung, stressed out, and incessantly talkative without the capacity to shut up and listen or just be silent.

It was a compliment that no one believed I was an American when I was forced to admit it.

Apparently I don't have an "American" accent either. I guess I don't say "like" and "dude" enough. Also, no one believed I was 21, a few even asked to see my ID.

Despite the surprisingly common occurrence of lady-boys, the act of a woman shaving her head really perplexes Thai and Lao people.

Chaco sandals are the best shoes ever created.

Solo women backpackers aren't common in Asia-- but they're perfectly safe. I only felt slightly endangered twice but both situations were easily sidestepped.

Motorbikes are small but powerful. I didn't say anything then, but I fell down on one. There was a u-turn involved, and a hill, and the inherent problem that you always wanna use the back brake on one of those things and that's on the same side as the throttle and-- well, when you're about to run into something, in a panic sometimes you squeeze the brake and rotate the handle at the same time. And fall. But the nice thai man whose storefront I almost hit helped get the bike off of this completely unscathed and laughing farang.

There is nothing more liberating or freeing than carrying everything you need on your back-- being able to pack your life up in under 3 minutes-- and going wherever you feel at any given moment.

While gone, I missed drinking from the tap, hot showers, normal toilets(I can't stress this enough), breakfast cereal, certain people's voices, and a closet full of clothes to choose from(rather than 3 unappealing, unflattering outfits).

But, returning home is hard. Being stationary all of a sudden is hard. Every night is spent in the same bed and filled with frantic nightmares about sleeping on train station benches or in ferry boats bound for bangkok. The dreams aren't nightmares until I bolt straight up in bed and grope around semi-awake for my daypack (which held all my valuables that I would sleep with my arms around in trains/buses/boats/terminals/stations) and passport, and freak out when I can't find either one. Then sit blinking and confused in the dark sameness of a familiar place. Last night, in my dreams, I got into a fight with a guest house owner because he wanted to charge me for sleeping in my own bed. Somehow, constant change became more comforting.

Jet lag aside, I'm having a hard time talking as much as I'm supposed to because I'm used to spending days quiet and somewhat alone. I walk way out in front of anyone I'm walking with because I've grown accustomed to my own haphazard pace.

In two months, I think I did Thailand justice and I am satisfied with all I did there. I only got a taste of Laos, but I don't think Southeast Asia is done with me yet. Tony, an older, very well travelled Australian that I met, told me that I should expect to see many of the friends I made on this trip again-- because people like us, who set off into the world to embrace it at a young age, are setting a restless pace for the rest of their lives-- and the planet is a closed system. I'm only just beginning-- and, I'm already planning the next trip.

It's an audacious plan involving 9 cities, in 8 countries, on 4 continents over 12 months. It's a plan that's been matriculating through my mind for years and is beginning to pool into possibility. And by actually flinging myself far out into the world, I reached a place where I can see the next adventure on the horizon.

My "plan" for the future? To hop from one adventure to the next, stringing them together like prayerbeads: holding on to them for one moment and then allowing them to pass through my fingers.

There's no path ahead. That's what feet are for.

In Thailand, "Mao" means drunk. In China, it means something else entirely.

When I'm exhausted and have been sleeping on a bench for 6 hours, my acting capabilities are magnificent. The subtle choke of tears behind my pleading was enough to get my way at the ticket counter-- or so I thought.I don't trust china airlines. At all. Two months ago they lost the last bag I checked with them. Because they "don't have a contract with Frontier Airlines to forward on luggage." WHAT?Eventually, thanks to my good friend Kolyo in Chiang Mai, I got the bag back, 2 weeks later-- with stuff missing.And yes, when I arrived in Bangkok 2 months ago, I had practically nothing in my backpack. I had one change of clothes in there and some books.Total: 4 kilos.Now, that bag is full of all sorts of thai things-- it weights 11 kilos..... and... is in the hand of china airlines.At first it looked like the woman at the ticket counter was so genuinely sorry about the first time china airlines fouled up that she was gonna let me try to carry it on. She was thai and she was sweet. But she also liked her job and flagged my ticket.I got to the gate and beep beep. Step over there please. Put the bag on the scale.Shit.I tried to see if they'd put it with baby strollers so I could have it back in Teipei.No can, madam, not possible.So, they checked it at the gate-- and agreed to only send it on to LAX. Where I can-- god willing, go through immigration, claim it, go to departures(which is in another building), check BACK in with frontier ( would have had to do that anyway), go back through LA's horrific security, and get to my gate--- and get home.Nothing like a brisk sprint after a 14 hour flight.