373 days

As you can see, its been 373 days since my last post, thats alot of time...thats 8952 hours....i guess i just needed some time to collect my thoughts...

:)

I think the best way to recall the time is in books, so here is a list of the top 10 books I read in the past year:

10. History of Love (by: Nicole Krauss)
9. The Monk who sold his Ferrari (by: Robin Sharma)
8. Blink (by: Malcolm Gladwell)
7. They Poured Fire on us from the sky (by: Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng, Benjamin Ajak)
6. The Road Less Traveled (by: Scott Peck)
5. The Giver (by: Lois Lowry)
4. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (by: Phillip Gourevitch)
3. Chasing Daylight (by: Gene O'Kelly)
2. Difficult Conversations (by: Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen)
1. Atlas Shrugged (by: Ayn Rand)

these are in some sort of order for the mood i am in right now but my number 1 book of all time is definitely Atlas Shrugged....if you havent read it, i highly reccommend it... but as with all things in life, it isnt for everyone so read a bit about it before you embark on the journey

currently im reading "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Im only 41 pages in but so far it is quite an adventure!

Id love to hear what your top books are, so leave me some posts!

natural disaster

I live 7 hours away from one of the worst natural disasters to hit US soil in years and in some ways i can definitely feel the proximity as gas prices jumped by almost a dollar in a few hours, as gas attendants were shot at in my town cause they had run out of gas, as many locals with planes have started daily flights to drop off supplies and as everyone in every restaurant, store and home is glued to the TV watching the chaos ensue in a town not too far away from our own....

Yet i feel so far away, i could be on the other side of the world as everything seems so far removed from society and reality.....as i watch people come to grips with the fact that the life that they knew is no more....as 73,000 people are transported to texas to sleep in warehouses and superdomes, as craigslist posts in every surrounding city skyrocket with people offering up their homes.....and people start to think about what "starting over" really means.....

This constant media coverage starts to feel all too normal as reality TV has taken over our lives for the past few years....this seems no different....watching footage of riots, looting, rapes, deaths....and feeling sorry for everyone who is going through that but knowing that we all are safe from the disaster...at least for now....

i wonder what makes everything feel so far away

why is everyones natural reaction to chaos - violence, anger, desperation? why doesnt help and aid every come fast enough? why are hospitals being forgotten? why did people who were able to leave not leave?

so many questions

i think about this disaster and thousands upon thousands of people are dead.....yet i think back to the Tsunami and over 300,000 people were reported dead, with the death toll never to be fully known....

unbelievable

i think its hard to think about natural disasters because you are completely helpless...it is easy to have someone to blame for things that happen, but when you have nothing to blame its a different feeling....

i think its also easier to feel like you can help when the disaster is further from home, because your circumstances limit how much you can do...you can send money, send food, start programs to help people but most people cant financially just pick up and go there.....you can do as much as you can in that moment....that lets you rest easier at night

but when it is so close to home, theres no limit.....and there is not ending point.....it will takes weeks, months years....and in the meantime if you live close, you live in comfort only miles away from devastation, and usually this drives you crazy because there is nothing you can do right now, not until things settle down and the chaos is gone....otherwise it is dangerous to help with helicopters and boats carrying supplies being shot at.....desperation indeed...

thats a hard thing to grasp

the only comfort is coming up with solutions for long term help....

if anyone has any ideas or thoughts on this, i would love to hear them

Home

Im going to marinate for a bit on a topic that is probably near and dear to alot of nomads hearts....home....

some say home is where the heart is, some say home is where you were born, some say its where you grew up, so i guess to everyone, home has a little different twist...

Recently, for the first time in my life ive started to feel like i dont belong at the home i grew in....traveling around the country and across the world really starts to make you reconsider what home means....recently i found myself walking around town with a friend across the country and i kept saying "Do you want to go home?" or "Im not ready to go home yet" and i realized that this "home" i was referring to was just a house that i had been staying at for 24 hours....and i was calling it home...and it made sense to me....

home to me has become the futon that i stayed on for 5 days or the hotel that i spend 4 nights at or the campground that i spent the weekend in...

i had always considered my home, Marietta, GA.

but now that i am sitting here at my desk in Marietta....i feel like those futons, campgrounds and hotels were just as much my home as my bed right here...

weird.

so ive been thinking about this alot and i guess what ive realized is that

for me, Home really is in your heart

home is the place that you feel comfortable

it is the place that has something that calls you there

and home can change every year, every month, every week

and i think you can have many homes for many different moments

so its so amazing to think about having homes all around the world

thats what traveling does to you

Destiny of Books

So yesterday I went to this thrift store with my sister to see if i could find some cool new clothes and we were walking around enjoying the time and i was checking out the bookshelf...then i saw this book which was the second of a two part series called "The Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior"...you have probably heard of it....well so i went home and last night I started reading it and it was really good...i really enjoyed it so i was like "Hmm..i need to buy the first one in the series called "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior" you have more likely heard of this one....

That brings us to today, my grandmother called and wanted to go to this other thrift store and as this is our favorite pastime, i was like "but of course" so we traveled across town after stopping for food at my personal favorite...the Brazilian Bakery (amazing! and they always ask me why I come in, as I am the ONLY white american i have ever seen in there) anyays...tangent....so then we were off to the thrift store and as usual i do my round...furniture, clothes, shoes, purses and then books last as they take longer.....so i went down every row and I was like "Wow, i really want to buy The Way of the Peaceful warrior, it would be amazing if I could find it at a thrift store" ....but to no avail....so i was leaving and i turned the corner and ALAS there it was lying face up right where I could see it waiting for me to pay the $ .50 to take it home.....

and it was destiny.....my books found me.....

Although Im back

The sweet air still lingers on my tongue
and instead of swallowing it
I would rather let it soak into my skin
and linger throughout my bloodstream
floating in and out of my viens
finding its way through my body
only to escape
through my feet and hands
to be placed on everything
i touch
and to become part of my world
to define my reality

Macedonia to Turkey

Reality is a funny thing.

for the past 13 days ive been traveling between realities...

Macedonia is a land lost in time....a stone bridge divides the old Skopje and the new sides of the city but the division is much deeper than this bridge....on one side you have the traditional bazaar, swarms of people, and old museums and on the other side you have a huge mall wıth designer clothes and fancy restaurants and people dressed up everywhere....yet they arent that different from each other...you can stand ın the middle of the brıdge and see the mountains circling the land...protecting her....

After two days we traveled to Ohrid, Macedonia and stayed in a hotel on the lake....one of the most peaceful places ive ever seen...next door to a monestary we spent 8 days working and partying like we do and all the while the lake flowed....the birds chirped and the wind blew crisp air into the curtains in our balconies....and the sun welcomed us every morning telling us it was time to go to bed....and time flew by and life went on

then 15 hours in a bus through Bulgaria led us straight to our Mecca....İstanbul, Turkey....and as i write, i sit overlooking the Bosphorous....the Blue Mosque to my left...the Aya Sofia and the Palace loom along the horizon....and the cars and the people swarm below hurrying to their next place....this city is truly Amazing....with history in every stone on the ground and stories filling everyones eyes....this place has moved forward while holding onto its past and landed a delicate balance between two worlds....

4 more days await us....4 more realities...and the universal truth is that reality is whatever you make of it...whatever you want it to be....and that creates beauty...and beauty can be found everywhere....

To My Daniel

You came to the US, 18 months and 1 day ago and this time has flown by.

As you journey home today on your way back to beautiful Argentina i hope that you savor each moment and each smile of those of us that are watching you move on...

I am so happy for you

I am so happy because you have a wide open space in front of you...you can make it whatever you want...and i know you will....

We will all miss you so much!:)

but I know I will see you again very soon, so you can show me your home and your family and your culture....

until then, smile....and party and laugh and think of us...

cause we will always be thinking of you....

hasta luego....