“I feel as if I am floating, taking it all in, letting it wash over my body . . ."

I feel a bit like I’ve been floating these nomadic days of travel. From desert to mountains, climbing up altitudes and then twisting down again. People we know come in and out of the picture. Friends from random points of both of our lives are dotting the trail we’re on, each with something valuable for us to gain from them. I go back and forth from loving the solitude of just us to craving a sit down with a good girl friend, to wanting to simply be done with people for good.

There are long moments of nothing, where I keep thinking I should be coming up with some amazing epiphany, but no all I am doing is counting the cows on the side of the road. That’s okay. It would be hard to be philosophical all the time. And some one must count those cows. But for the most part I feel like I am just needing to float, to let all the simple things flow through my finger tips. To relax on thinking, on thinking what I should be thinking, thinking what I should be doing, or not doing. To just float and be okay with the world going on in my absence, or rather to be okay with my old world going on in my absence and okay with the floating status of the new.

Those big moments of understanding have tended to sneak up in a split second, some swoop by a few times before deciding to land. And in the few weeks that we have been traveling there have been a few. Perhaps it is too soon to acknowledge them, but perhaps it is not. Perhaps we will state them here as a prelude to future embellishments of thought, I always liked the preview the best at the movies:

You cant make everyone happy, and you have to be okay that some people are not going to like you, and the best you can do is surround them with love and acknowledge their process, what they are needing. And right now there is someone that is needing so very badly to hate me. And I need to allow her to do that.

I’m finding an understanding of myself in the difficulty there is in being someone who has strives for so long to be independent of others, yet needs the security of them at the same time. Understanding in the fight between what I know and want to live like and the way my community raised me.

Understanding the power of the earth itself, the voices of your inner desires and mother nature – how to follow those and not be defined by a society or another persons schedule.

Loving with abandon.

Finding a home within ones self as a nomadic traveler.

Really being undefined by the opinions of others. And the emotions of others. Creating that impenetrable shield in which only love goes in and out.

Stay tuned for the feature . . . just allow for a little float time first.

Blinded by the Food

Okay I admit it. I fell. I fell into consumerism. But does it count if it was food? It was early after our departure from Texas and into a weekend in Santa Fe that I found it. Trader Joes. Like a beacon the sign rose up from the faux adobe walls that Santa Fe insists all its businesses to adopt. It was even more exciting because it was my partners first time at a TJ’s. We walked in, my jaw dropped, and for the next 40 minutes I was in a state of, well I was in an orgasmic state at the sight of all the vegetables, the fruit, the organic reasonably priced unique shopping experience! It was perfect for camper world, our current home for two months. Small packages of pre-cut sweet potatoes, zucchini, stirfry mix. Perfect two portion sized fish and meats. Trail mix, yoghurt that was less then $8! No pudge brownie mix, and of course, 2 Buck Chuck. I had to restrain myself from buying 6 cases of the cheaply priced, but decent tasting wine, as the couple in the parking lot had in order to take back with them to Colorado.

We moved quickly, and tried to get out as fast as we can, and though the bill was in the hundreds, it was a fraction of what it would be at a whole foods. As we walked the cart to the camper we both looked at each other, a little shocked, spent.

What did it all mean? Had I succumbed to what I was at first revolting from? So I began to reevaluate my America opinions. I began to make exceptions for good healthy organic foods, and for the fact that recycling is now prevalent, and there are movies, and there are yoga studios, and good sandwich shops, and good beer. Hmmm, but wait . . . all those things are true in Indonesia too, and it is a fraction of the cost. Oh goodness. Oh goodness.