Transition

My original intention with this blog was to develop a theme that I could continue into my Fall/Winter travels through Israel, India, and Thailand. I thought that by starting my posts much earlier, I could get used to the ritual of looking for love and writing about it, thus making the transition into my travel-blog easier. However, I have found that I am in a different state of mind than when I first started writing.

It's not that I am no longer looking for love--it's just that I see it literally everywhere. And to be perfectly honest, I don't feel inspired to write about something that feels so intrinsic to daily life. I don't want to write about mere contemplation--I'd like to become more actively involved in my blog topic.

This particular blog has been wonderful because it propelled me back into my writing habit, but I'm ready to take a new direction by becoming truly engaged with those around me, by learning new things from them and sharing those experiences. I have a feeling this will be a better theme for the purposes of a travel blog, anyway. I'll be writing posts periodically before I travel, in order to continue to cultivate my writing habit--in fact, I've written my first post already. So if you're curious...please click here:

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

--Rumi

The Great Escape

For my dad’s sixtieth birthday, he flew about 8,600 miles away from home. No party, no family, no friends. He took three weeks off from work—the most vacation time he’s ever requested from a high-pressure job that has him literally dreaming about conference calls at night—and took his girlfriend, surfboards, and a few pairs of swim trunks with him for his grand escape to Indonesia.

When he first told my sister and me about his plan, I was a bit hurt. Why wouldn’t he want to celebrate such a significant moment in his life with us? I knew he wanted to travel for his birthday, but suddenly he was going to Indonesia a good two weeks before the date, a Houdini act to avoid the inevitable fanfare. 

“I don’t want to do anything but surf,” he said.

Was my dad scared of turning sixty-years-old? He certainly has a good hold on youth, so maybe the number sixty was too heavy, too refined, too old. He prides himself on his physical agility—as he should. Every morning before work, he jumps in his VW surf van and heads to the beach for a run and to catch some waves. He lives for the rush of adrenaline that he gets from pushing his body and playing with his muscles’ capacity for strength and flexibility. I think he especially enjoys when he is in better shape than the twenty-five-year-old surfing next to him in the water—which is often the case.

Most of the truly special memories I have with my dad involve our shared love of physical activity, a lively enthusiasm that I inherited from him. He pushes me just like he pushes himself, challenging me with a competitiveness that infuriated me when I was younger but I understand now as the fuel that keeps him so shockingly spry.

When I was four-years-old, he surfed waves with me on his back. I gripped the surfboard with my tiny, pudgy toes and wrapped my arms around his neck while he rode on his knees. When I was still a pole-less ski bunny, he took me on the highest chair lifts on ski trips—upon my stubborn insistence—and then when I balked at my boldness and tried to sidestep my way down the icy face, he ordered me to make well-formed turns because that was the only way I would learn. As I got much older and I needed his serious council, we took our conversations to the beach where we ran down the cusp, side-by-side. That is still my favorite form of discussion with him.

With the way my dad races down mountains of fresh powder, I wouldn’t hesitate to call him the oldest kid I know. But his playfulness, his ability to accept any physical challenge like it’s a game that he knows he can win—that goes beyond the foolishness of youth and steps into a whole new territory of play that transcends age restrictions.

My dad is a laughing Buddha. His dimples betray him when he’s attempting a straight face and he can turn any moment of tension into a joke. As much as he has dedicated his life to working hard, he has dedicated an equal amount of energy to appreciating life for its silliness, brevity, and joy. He seems to live the Madhyama Pratipad, Middle Path, albeit to an extreme.

Although, in retrospect, maybe the scales were out of balance as he approached his sixtieth. In fact, they were probably out of balance for a while. Like I said, he dreams about conference calls. My dad is not one to say, “I need a break,” but he is a man who will seize an opportunity for adventure. I have a feeling his three-week-escape was the perfect combination of excitement and peace, an act that needed no explanation, since he clearly needed to free himself from attachment: work, definitely; home, certainly; and family and friends, yes, those too. He only needed his partner and a beautiful place to surf.

I don’t believe my dad was afraid of sixty—or growing old—when he decided to fly the coop. I think he was finding his way back to the Middle Path. For someone who works as feverishly as he does, it was a beautiful move for him to cool off so completely, immersed in a vacation dedicated to peaceful living.

Indonesia was a gift that my dad gave to himself, but from that gift, he also imparted a gift to me: From his example, I deepened my understanding of non-attachment. I didn’t even know what I was witnessing at first, because my initial reaction was to feel personally affected by my dad’s decision to travel across the world for his birthday. But what he did had nothing to do with me or anyone else—it had everything to do with following his own path regardless of others’ expectations. He honored his birthday—a moment commemorating his life—by stripping life down to the barest essentials of what he needed: he had love and relaxation, a new space for exploration, and plenty of surf to play in.

July 27, 2012

After days of feasting, fast.

After days of sleeping, stay awake

one night. After these times of bitter
storytelling, joking, and serious
considerations, we should give ourselves
two days between layers of baklava
in the quiet seclusion where soul sweetens
and thrives more than with language.

-Rumi

Passion

“Don’t go into the sex trade.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“No, really. Don’t go into the sex trade.”

My sister and I were discussing my upcoming trip. All I could talk about was yoga in India and she was afraid I would get kidnapped and sold.

“It happens all the time,” she said.

As crazy as her warning sounded to me, she did have a legitimate reason to be concerned. The newest development in my evolving adventure is that I will be traveling alone, first taking my birthright trip to Israel for eleven days, and then extending my stay abroad for another two months or so. My tentative plan is to travel to Turkey, India, and Thailand for the remainder of my time there. As Emily pointed out, the sex trade is fairly prominent in some of those areas.

Now I know that it can be dangerous to travel alone as a young woman, but I’m confident in my ability to take care of myself. I have traveled a decent amount in my life, and I learned how to stay alert and resourceful from two backpacking trips in the last three years. But despite my self-assurance, Emily’s concern brought up an old fear.

When I was eighteen-years-old and in a Grecian island paradise, I was raped three days into my vacation. One of my best friends and a large tour group of people were all partying on the same beach, but I was a girl who trusted easily and someone took advantage of that. I spent the remainder of the trip and my summer pretending that nothing had happened. I remember feeling like I had been turned inside out; I couldn’t make sense of my sadness.

I ran through the gamut of coping mechanisms, both healthy and not-so-healthy. More than anything, I did not want the experience to define me. The first therapist I talked to simply handed me a pamphlet, as if all the answers to my questions were readily available in stock-answer form. So I fought against the “victim” label and took my own route to recovery. I even went so far as to return to the same beach three years later. I danced into the night as an act of defiance, an attempt to seize my freedom as a sexual being. Love, sex, traveling—I made all of these important parts of my life, and I felt liberated because I didn’t allow one dark moment to overshadow the rest.

The way I saw it, if I didn’t let rape have a lasting effect on me, then I was taking the act’s power away. I didn’t have to suffer if I didn’t want to. According to Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, suffering, or dukkha, is an integral part of life. It only ceases when attachment ceases. I was trying to disengage from my suffering under the guise of non-attachment and forgiveness, but part of forgiveness is acceptance.

It’s okay that I was hurt, and it’s okay that I’m a little nervous about backpacking by myself. Of course I’m doing it anyway, but perhaps by acknowledging that my freedom was violated and that it affected me, I can turn my suffering into something beautiful; I can focus my love and energy outward. I’ve realized that suffering and love are not so distant from one another. Even the word “passion,” synonymous with devotion and love, comes from the Latin passio, suffering. To love is to be alive, and to be alive is to suffer.

However, with any suffering I have experienced I have also been blessed with the opportunity to grow stronger because of it; I have a good life and I am surrounded by supportive, loving people. How many others are out there who are unable to rise above their pain? How many people are alone? How many are literally incapable of freeing themselves?

I want nothing more than to show my gratitude for a liberated existence, by using it to help others regain their freedom. The best place I can see myself beginning that journey is in Thailand. The sex trade in Thailand is a part of the huge, global issue of human trafficking. The traumas of women and children who are enslaved in that circuit are beyond my comprehension. The more research I do on the treatment and prevention of human trafficking at the grassroots level, the more I am absolutely convinced that I am supposed to get involved. I can’t look at an informational website without my heart pounding and my throat closing up—I’m not talking about emotional testimonials, but the dry facts on how these organizations work.

I have already reached out to one organization kindly recommended to me by my aunt; I would be honored if they would have me. On their website, they quote activist and educator, Lilla Watson: “If you’ve come only to help me, you are wasting your time...but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This statement explains exactly why I have been high on enthusiasm all day. I’m a ball of energy, ready to burst at the seams with what I can only describe as full-blown passion. Anything I have suffered, I have suffered for a reason; perhaps just to feel the tiniest hint of how it feels to be enslaved. I had my freedom taken away for a moment. There are millions of people in the world who don’t know what freedom even means. That breaks my heart in a way I can’t explain, but opens it up at the same time. Suffering and love, hand in hand. I think I have found something to be truly passionate for.

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.

How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling,
they’re given wings.

-Rumi

Fearless

“I would rather get hurt than feel nothing at all,” she said. We were sitting at a bar and I had just warned her of the pain of a broken heart. She didn’t seem to care. After a five-year-long relationship and about a year of trial-and-error dating escapades, she encountered something she hadn’t known for a very long time: the intoxication of what could be love.

Rebecca is one of the most practical and rational people I know. She believes in science over religion, in proven facts over intuition. Yet here she was, ready to risk heartbreak, because whatever the outcome, at least she would feel something.

The hopeless romantic I saw before me was a completely different Rebecca. She was talking about a brand new romance that, in a very practical sense, was destined to end. She was getting ready to move hundreds of miles away and she had met this guy only a few weeks prior.

But suddenly Rebecca was a warrior for love. She was ready to risk pain by continuing to see the guy and opening her heart to him. It didn’t matter what the logical outcome might be, because logic is of the mind and love has nothing at all to do with what goes on in your head. If anything, the mind only gets in the way of love. How could there be any romance in the world if we all approached love like it was a science? Being illogical is the only way to have hope for love, period.

It’s funny, the term, “hopeless romantic”—it really is a judgment of romantics to assume that they’re hopeless. To believe in love is to trust in a mysterious force that is nearly impossible to define, but who’s to say that there’s no hope in that?

Rebecca’s going-away party was an occasion for hopeless romantics everywhere to celebrate. She invited her closest girlfriends to her almost-empty condo, so we could toast to how much we adore her and wish her a bon voyage. This was a big move she was making, and an important moment to celebrate. And guess who showed up.

The first person there was The Guy. He could have found a way out, said that it was too intense to meet her close friends all at once or insisted that he didn’t want to make any more moves to get closer when they were about to be so far away from each other. That would have been the safe option, the practical option. But he didn’t. He was present for her.

I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to call this love, because that’s not my place to say, but as a third-party observer, knowing the effect that meeting this person has had on Rebecca, and seeing the way he unabashedly wrapped his arms around her in front of scrutinizing eyes, I would say that whatever does exist between them is real. There’s a reason that Rebecca is no longer rational, that she insists with all her fierceness that she knows what she is doing. It’s impossible to know what will happen in the future, but at least she is jumping in with both feet and giving her heart a chance to feel whatever comes her way. That is fearless, and a far cry from “hopelessly” romantic.

Someone who does not run

toward the allure of love walks

a road where nothing lives.

But this dove here senses

the love-hawk floating above

and waits and will not be driven

or scared to safety.

-Rumi

Screwed by a Screw

My car has been to the shop not once, not twice, but three times in the last month: body work, broken taillights, a disconnected coolant tube (I betray my ignorance of car parts here), and then today, tires. The last mechanic who saw Bruce the Benz suggested I would need new tires soon. But oh, I did not know how soon that would be.

First there was a strange flapping noise, sort of a wap…wap…wap.

Unsure if it was my car or another car next to me, I turned off the radio and sped up. The rhythm increased. Damn. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, but I continued to drive because I wasn’t in a good place to stop and—Oh, I don’t know, I guess I just thought it could wait or something. 

Not so much. That, my friends, is the result of a screw...and my driving on a flat tire (again betraying my ignorance of car parts). 

I kicked off the day with an easy-going man from AAA. It was nice to have someone else drive while I typed on my phone—an email to my supervisor on a project, and that picture of my wheel, on Twitter for my boss (only in advertising). It was a very smooth ride to the shop, considering I was in a big truck with Bruce in tow (see what I did there?).

As soon as I landed at my tire place of choice, I met more nice people. I’ll call them Sam and Jeff. I actually chose this shop over the others because I had such a great experience on the phone. They were so friendly and so kind in person, that it turned the entire escapade into an adventure, rather than a disaster. Jeff was the person I had spoken to before, so I thanked him.

“Happy I could help you this morning, Miss Amanda.”

They smiled and joked with me as they hooked me up with the last tires in stock for the size that I needed. They gave me a great price as well as a discount on the tire rotation. And then, on top of it all, when I asked them for a ride home (which I learned from their hesitation, they don’t usually do for customers), they agreed.

Jeff drove me in a brand new car from their lot, even though he’s the manager and the main guy behind the desk. He called me “Miss Amanda” the whole time, which made me smile, and congratulated me on graduating from college (my diploma is still in my trunk…) I asked him about the shop and how he and Sam met.

Sam first hired Jeff thirteen years ago at another shop, but they eventually went their separate ways. Two years ago, Sam decided to start his own business. He reached out to Jeff so they could run the place together. After thirteen years, they had come full circle. I think this is a credit to each man’s character.

At the end of the day when I picked up my car, they smiled at me like I was an old friend. Jeff asked me how work went; he offered me a free tire rotation every 5,000 miles; he helped me get my bike in the back seat of my car. Now I know that customer service is crucial when you want a successful organization, but to start and end my day with people who were so down-to-earth and human about it—I don’t think that’s about money. Anyone can make a respectful business exchange, but these guys made my day better.

I believe this wasn’t a random experience. There are many lovely people in LA who are happy to help make you happy too. Hurrah for examples like Jeff and Sam. Unless something else goes haywire with my car (knock on wood), I look forward to seeing them again in 5,000 miles.

 

Disgraceful, Crazy, Absentminded

Flashback to earlier this summer:

I pulled out of the parking lot at Trader Joe’s and this song came on the radio—something cheesy and sad, the antithesis of why I had my radio set on that particular station. I had hoped for a steady stream of superficial tunes that would make me feel upbeat while I was driving. As it turned out, every single peppy pop song on the radio had something to do with a broken heart.

I waited for the light to change and sobbed, my face crumpled into an ugly teary mess, when something grabbed my attention out of the corner of my eye. A panicked, handsome young man in a business suit was sprinting from the sidewalk into the middle of the street, towards my car. He mouthed something at me through my window while gesticulating wildly. I was dumbstruck. It actually took me a minute to realize that he was talking to me. Without wiping my eyes or my nose, I cracked my window open.

“Are you okay?” He asked. The guy looked so genuinely concerned that I tried to compose myself, and said, “Yes I’m fine.”

He was not convinced. To be fair, he did just see me in a full blown sobbing session and the evidence was all over my face.


“Are you sure?” He asked, still alarmed. At this point I was simply moved by his candor, by his boldness of running to my car in the first place.

“Yes. Thank you—thank you, but I’m okay.” As he walked away hesitantly—he really wanted to make it better—I realized that he did help me in a way.

The light turned green, the cheesy song was still playing, but my urge to cry had completely dissipated. At first I wasn’t quite sure why; perhaps, because that was such a strange interruption to my emotional breakdown, I was in a state of shock. But no—it was the revelation that I was not in a vacuum.  A person who did not know me, who had no context for understanding my sadness, or any agenda other than compassion, wanted to help alleviate my pain. Now obviously no one could do that for me, but this display of compassion from a stranger gave me enough perspective that I could start to release my pain for myself. This was the peak of my heartbreak.

I cried more after this encounter (and possibly just as hard), but it was a different sort of crying; it was cathartic. I knew I had to experience the fullness of my sadness, but I also positively knew that I would come out the other side with a strong and open heart.

The beautiful thing about a broken heart is that it is capable of so much love in the first place, you actually suffer from the inability to share that love with someone else. As I have been reassured in the past, I will experience much more heartbreak throughout my life. Well, okay. Fine. If that’s the price for true, unconditional love, then I suppose it’s a price worth paying, because none of the hurt I have felt from the absence of love even compares with what it feels like to experience its presence. I will continue to treasure love in all its forms, even the smallest. I’m going to go ahead and call that surprise moment of compassion outside of Trader Joe’s, love. Felt like it to me, and so far, that’s the only qualification I’ve got.

Seems appropriate to close with the wise words of Rumi:

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober

will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

-Rumi

Mission Impossible

For a little while now, I’ve wanted to start a blog about human connectedness, focused on a theme that unites us all as people no matter what our background might be. In the coming months I’m going to travel outside of my Los Angeles habitat to the other side of the globe where I will continue writing, but for now, I have the opportunity to begin my blog in the city I grew up in. Seems like home is the best place to start.

The comfort of being home can sometimes make me complacent in my interactions with strangers, because it’s easy to go through the motions in a familiar city. I can show others courtesy and respect without really considering the secret stories I’ll never know. Everyone has a past that informs how he views the world. As soon as I remember that, my acts of kindness towards others become more deliberate and I also become aware of the kindness I see from others. I believe that these acts of kindness—no matter how small—are evidence of the love we all have for one another as people. I don’t think love is just the emotion you have for those most intimate with you, but that it’s a force that connects us all, familiars and strangers alike.

At least in the part of the world I’ve grown up in, “love” is a word thrown around all day every day, almost to the point of overuse. It’s applied to material objects just as much as it’s applied to other living beings. How can the same word be used to describe how one feels about a song or a type of food, and also be used to describe how one feels about a grandmother, a child, or a lover? But perhaps the widespread use of this word speaks not to its irrationality (of course, who ever says love is rational?) but more to its overwhelming power over all of us as human beings. We love because we are human. We sing about it, we write about it, we hunt for it—we are driven towards finding Love for the entirety of our lives. Yet what is it that we are searching for?

It is nearly impossible to define love without circular logic and it can’t be identified by concrete characteristics or examples. But in the words of Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.” I believe we come to know love by observing it in action, until our understanding of what love is and what it is not becomes intuitive.

I’m no expert on the subject, but I know that I have felt it and I know that I have seen it around me wherever I have been in the world. I would like to investigate the nature of love and discover it in ways I haven’t before. Perhaps then I can help uncover some truths about this intangible mystery—or at the very least, uncover some truths about the search for love itself.