Cuba 10×10: 10 days. 10 Pics.

Just south of the Tropic of Cancer, rum pulses in the veins of the Caribbean’s largest island, Cuba. The cocktail menus are often more extensive than the food options, and for good reason. They have the rum part down pat and it seems to marry well with everything and everyone.

But, Cuba is so much more than a booze-tastic all-inclusive destination. Yes, the water is cerulean. Yes, the sand is like padding around in sugar. But, it’s also an island of constant surprise, contrast and intrigue. The arts scene is vibrant, salsa music pumps out of every open window, bar and resto—and even on the beach. You will be guaranteed a soulful serenade at some point during your stay.

Many of Cuba’s cities are designated as World Heritage Sites, and the aging facades of the colonial buildings and cobblestone roads are like stepping into a time capsule. The parade of vintage Fords and buffed up Bel Airs are a strange reminder of decades gone by.

In August I spent 10 days in Cuba courtesy of  a partnership between The Adventure Center and The Matador Network. In 2011-2012, The Adventure Center sent eight Matador U students and alumni on adrenalin-kicked trips. My cub reporter duties took me from Havana to Holguin to Trinidad, being chased by Tropical Storm Isaac. Trusty notepad and pork rinds in hand, Canon trained on the sensory assault, this was my Cuba, 10×10. A pleasurable balm to the -12 (“feels like -19″) temps in Toronto tonight.

Okay, that was 12 pics, but…

Viva Cuba?

I’ve unpacked my bag long enough to launder my favourite tees and jeans, only to put them back in the same bag versus drawers.

Last week: Edmonton, Alberta and the fever pitch of the folk festival. This week? Viva Cuba. Scroll back just a month ago to an email from Joshua Johnson, Dean of Education at Matador U. Josh suggested I apply for an upcoming travel scholarship with the Adventure Centre.  My writerly pal Keph Senett had taken the Olympic travel writing gold the previous year and landed a travel writing gig with them in Turkey.

Unaware of where I might be flung if I was a lucky recipient, I sacrificed sleep to post “The Genesis of a Traveler” while prepping  for a camping get-away the very next day in the dunes of Lake Huron.

We eventually returned from the wi-fi free woods (with resistance), campfire smoke still permeating from our clothes, desensitized to stress and far-removed from any type of routine other than basic human instincts of eating and sleeping. My inbox was percolating. Life had continued on and moved forward as we toasted marshmallows and communed with fireflies.

After deleting 50+ tripadvisor, expedia and Flight Centre HOT DEALS adverts, I was about to have my Sally Field moment of “I can’t deny the fact you like me right now. You like me!”  I had been shortlisted for the scholarship! (Insert internal jumping up and down here). Josh wondered how I felt about jetting off to Central or South America for two weeks, and getting to write and blog all about it for Matador.  He asked me to pick from a slew of dates in July and August as my mind raced all over the map from the Bolivian salt flats to Antofagasta, Chile. Maybe Big Corn Island, Nicaragua?

It was the best lottery I had ever played. The odds were tremendously good. I chose the latest dates in August, only because I had already jumped on the Edmonton folk fest press trip at the beginning of the month and thought I should work a few days in between trips to fluff the feathers of my holiday-generous boss (thank you Sara DeRuiter!).

Disclaimer: I do have a day job which finances my writing habit that I am exceedingly grateful for. And now, having acknowledged this on a social media platform, I probably owe my boss tequila shots or something to that effect for yet another work sabbatical granted. But, I digress.

I returned from the woods just as Josh left to go on his own camping trip in upstate NY. We were playing offline tag. When he returned he said, “How do you feel about Cuba?” And, more importantly, if I felt like he thought I was gonna feel about a writing gig + trip somewhere fab, he suggested I “get those shifts covered.”

I will leave for Havana on Monday still scratching Edmonton mosquito bites on my ankles. Between massages at my day job at Body Blitz I am doing a Cuba crash-course.  Of course, I don’t imagine I’ll pull up much Spanish from the dark recesses of my 1994 brain. Prior to my volunteer work with Youth Challenge International (94-95)) in Costa Rica, I enrolled in a three month Spanish course at the local college.  All was lost when my placement was in Alto Cuen, a village where the locals spoke Cabecar, not Spanish. However, I still remember these all important phrases:

“El gato es negro.” (The cat is black)

“Nunca comer más de lo que puede levantar.” (“Never eat more than you can lift.” ~Miss Piggy)

My meagre Spanish barely revived when Kim and I went to Holguin, Cuba in 2002. In my spirograph life of circles, it only makes sense that I return. Our time in Holguin was largely awash in rum (aka: The Original Rum Diaries made more famous by Johnny Depp). Our goal then? Tanning to a respectable shade of mahogany. We did nothing but lie prone and have a ball. A rum ball. Cuba libres, mojitos, daiquiris. It was your typical all-inclusive, culturally-exclusive resort. But it was February and we were from warmth-starved Canada. We had a homing instinct for the beach, and found exactly that. The ocean was as clear as Perrier and I swear you could see all the way to Florida underwater. We gave top marks to the sun and a boo to the menu. We renamed the hotel buffet the “barfet” and survived on nothing more than poolside pizza and pieces of gum. We were like boa constrictors, feeding ourselves once a day, basking and then shedding.

It’s time for a re-visit.

Pressed for time, I will have to cheat on my info uploading by renting Che from Queen Video (about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara). Probably putting sleep on hold until my flight Monday morning, I’ll try and watch The Motorcycle Diaries again too, with hunky Gael Garcia Bernal portraying the young Che on his 1952 South American expedition/transformation.

I think I’ve got rum research down pat from our time in Belize earlier this year. And, I have a Hemingway novel under my belt (The Green Hills of Africa), which will lend to my appreciation of the Museo Hemingway. In 1939, Ernest Hemingway rented a villa at San Francisco de Paula, 15km southeast of Havana. He bought the house a year later and lived there until 1960. Lonely Planet urges a stroll through his garden to see his sentimental dog cemetery, his old fishing boat El Pilar and the pool where Ava Gardner swam naked.

On the bird front: the world’s smallest bird, the zunzun, lives here (Gran Parque Natural Montemar). The bee hummingbird is only 6.5cm long (think toothpick). Ivory-billed woodpeckers were last spotted in the early 80s in Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt. Reading more about the flora and fauna I have learned that there is a “friendly” edible rodent (4kg)—the jutia. And, one of only two clear-winged butterflies in the world lives in Cuba (the mariposa de cristal). Oooh, and whale sharks frequent the Maria la Gorda area on the eastern tip from August to November.

Other miscellaneous Cuban highlights:

1. Responsible diving means minimizing your disturbance of marine animals. Lonely Planet says, “Never ride on the backs of turtles.”

In Luxor, Egypt, turtles are still allowed to ride on turtles.

2.”Most Cubans drink their rum straight up and, on more informal occasions, straight from the bottle.” ~Lonely Planet

3. Ron a granel (rum from the barrel) is also known as “drop her drawers” and “train sparks”

4. “Local chickens are born fried” and SPAM is alive and well.

5. There are over 200 cinemas in Havana.

6. Gyms in Havana and Holguin welcome foreigners for ‘friendly’ boxing training.

I’ve packed my pre-requisite Clif Bars and trail mix in lieu of SPAM and I think I’ll take the one-two punch of a Papa Hemingway Special (daiquiri made with grapefruit juice) at El Floridita versus a sinewy Cuban in satin shorts. Although, legend has it that Ernest pounded back 13 doubles in one sitting. Maybe a round in the ring is a better idea.

Stay tuned for updates August 20—September 1^st as I hop on the Geckos Viva Cuba trip from Havana to Santiago de Cuba to Camaguey to Trinidad to Santa Clara to Havana!

Nice Learning Curves: Matador U’s Travel Writing Course

It was with general trepidation and sheer stubbornness that I enrolled at Matador U. I couldn’t stand re-printing “take travel writing course” into my New Year’s Resolutions List, again. Instead, I re-copied “take ornithology course at Cornell University.” That one has made the coveted list as often as Susan Lucci and her dozen nominations.

I’ve taken a slew of writing courses before, and I kept hearing Caro Soles voice of reason (in response to a rabid course-enroller’s question about what she should sign up for next).“There comes a point where you have to stop taking classes and just write.” She may have said it more eloquently than that (actually, I bet $5 she did, because she was/is one of the most articulate instructors I’ve had. And, Caro articulated to me on several occasions that “chickens lay eggs, humans lie in bed, they do not LAY.” Life lessons were learned in her classroom).

During the winter semester at George Brown College in Toronto, I spent the afternoon learning “How To Write For Children.” By evening, I was sliding into a desk with a stiff coffee to listen to Brian Henry, a Harlequin books editor, impart his erotica-writing wisdom.

At Douglas College in New Westminster, BC, I cannonballed into the deep end of a program called “Print Futures Professional Writing Program” as my career as a massage therapist was beginning to rub me the wrong way after 10 years. During the admissions exam, I was tempted to silently back out of the sauna-like room. I was seated with a librarian who was whizzing through the test like she’d just taken a break from her Mensa social to see what simpler folk were doing.

Simpler folk were trying to determine what the hell an ‘independent clause’ might be. Could I identify it in a sentence? No. Could I describe it in one sentence? I tried. “An independent clause is what Mrs. Clause is sometimes referred to on Christmas Eve.” I was certain I was going to flunk out of the admissions test, so, I aimed for a weak smile from the program director in my attempts to be the funny flunker.

With a hot face and clammy hands I flashed back to the Farringdon Hill Enrichment Centre, age 8. I had been invited to join a weekly class for whizzes and braniacs, largely due to my oh-so-creative writing, NOT my math skills. However, I was attending the enrichment program with Richard Nott, who, was a bonified math magician. I know this because I copied every single one of his math test answers up until grade 9 and maintained an A+. In addition, his mother made the best ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookies, everyday, in my memory. He always had six cookies in a Ziplock, to fuel his math-mad mind.

Anyway, seated amongst the mini-Mensa people on my first day at Farringdon, skeptical that my poetry about smiling pine trees and tales of cats in outerspace and cotton candy cloud-eating monsters had earned me a place, I found out that there had been a mistake. Marg Simpson (yes, really), our vibrant teacher with rose-tinted octagon-shaped glasses, asked if I could, so kindly, retrieve the ‘acetate markers’ for her. I wanted to drop dead. The mini-Mensa society stared at me and observed my actions like I was a zoo animal (about to barf and/or shit myself). Acetate markers? What the hell were those? Clearly I wasn’t smart enough for the enrichment class, I hadn’t been enriched enough!

Richard Nott, my source of chocolate chip cookies and fraction answers pointed out the acetates to me on the trolley of supplies. Panic attack postponed. Duh. They were markers for the overhead projector thingie.

Point is, it seems, I’ve always found myself strutting a little too peacocky into situations, like professional writing courses. They let me into Douglas, even though Mrs. Clause is not AKA the Independent Clause. And that librarian? Bless her heart AND the other precious librarian who I sat conveniently beside in the Technical Writing class. I was 32 and had no idea how to cut and paste. An url? What? Excuse me? Never heard of it. Why aren’t you pronouncing the “h”? And, how do I do italics again?

But, if you have passion in your bone marrow and steely guts, you can leap into such learning curves. Regardless, I would advise sitting close to the librarians if the opportunity presents itself (thank you, forever, Dee and Linda, though, I can’t recall a stinking thing about how to do a style sheet).

Not only did I learn how to cut and paste, in Joe Wiebe’s Writing For Magazines class I learned what a “bildungsroman” was. Yes, somebody actually used that in a sentence, out loud. It’s a coming-of-age story, and this is sort of my travel writing bildungsroman, if you will.

The intimidation factor of taking a new course is always lurking like dark chocolate in the drawer. The overwhelmed sensation is at the ready. Lean into it slightly, and it will happily swamp your once-rational world. The commitment to a course is a trial marriage. There’s a  honeymoon phase, self-doubt, upheaval, late nights, romantic notions , elation, future-dreaming and mucho wine-drinking.

Is there ever a good time to enroll in a course? No. There’s always real work to interfere, social engagements to distract, Pinterest, the cost, beaches in Belize, the Food Network, fatigue, shiny things, insomnia and books more interesting than course content.

But learning is good for the soul, brain matter and alma mater. Sometimes you learn what you don’t want to do (cranio-sacral treatments, homemade gnocchi, stained glass windows, technical writing—insert snoooore here). Other times you are immersed before you know it.

Matador U, the new media school created by MatadorNetwork.com (the world’s largest independent travel magazine) kept niggling its way into my web pages. Matador is the internet’s facsimile of the water cooler for travel writers and it continued to pop up like cupcake shops in downtown Toronto on my Twitter feed and Facebook. Hundreds of students worldwide had enrolled in the first two months. My high school prom date, the very handsome Mark Picketts, virtually introduced me via Facebook to a writing friend of his, Keph Senett, who was ironically taking the Matador Travel Writing course. He thought we’d get along like a house on fire, and in turn, that very fire ignited my concentrated writing again.

The glossy appeal of Matador U is that the course content is accessible for life. You can work your way through the curriculum assignments repeatedly if you choose. Each chapter is designed to propel you further into the industry with the lure of press trips, potential stints in Belize with the Road Warriors program (via the Belize Tourism Board), valuable networking opportunities with fellow students and links with National Geographic Traveler.

For $350 US, the 12 chapter course instantly throws you into the market. If you already have a blog, you’ll have a head start, as most assignments are posted in this format. Matador provides a blog space for you (“off the air”), but kickstarting your own domain and going public on WordPress.com is recommended.

You should be relatively disciplined and treat each week as a class that you have to attend. The chapters become available each Monday, and in addition to course work there is recommended reading. But, it’s the kind of stuff you’d want to read anyway, not the usual Shakespearean drudgery. There are links to hot travel bloggers, New Yorker articles, Modern Gonzo, tips from Anne Lamott and steady support from a swat team of pro writers and editor Julie Schwietert-Callazo.

Students are from all over the map: South Africa, Australia, China and also on the move to Peru, Thai hostels, Turkey and latitudes in between. The forums provide the perfect venue for grabbing feedback, collaborating, inspiration and harnessing possibility. Job leads, contests, grants and press trips are posted in the hub of the Market Forum. And, there’s always lively chatter spreading across the Twitter timelines between Matador U students and alumni.

It’s solid content and a concrete launching pad for a beginner or seasoned writer needing spark. Wonder how you can monetize your blog? How to land a press trip? Want to write for Lonely Planet? How much does a gig like that pay, anyway?

Yes, there’s a bounty of work, but it’s doable and fluid, and there’s a captive classroom to interact within and gain momentum from. The Introductions thread alone makes for a great late night read! I was impressed with the calibre of the writing of my colleagues, the differing travel itineraries and motivations, Julie’s insights and referrals and the grit of the assignments.

Think you’re ready to quit that dumb day job and call yourself a fancy freelancer? Can’t wait to see what you post in Chapter 7– Myths vs. Reality: 9 Things You Need to Know to Make Travel Writing Your Career.

If you have unbridled ambition and want to harness social media, talk amongst a talented niche group, get some insider scoop on branding, media kits, advertising and stretch yourself out of your writing rituals, Matador U deserves an investigation.

 

Find out more here:  Matador U Travel Writing Course, just as I did so innocently in October, on Keph’s page.

Life always unfolds in unexpected and reassuring ways.

 

Signed, not with an acetate marker,

Jules, Matador U grad

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task Uncommitted

In case you are just tuning in: I’m taking a travel writing course through Matador U, a new media school for writers, photographers and filmmakers. This week’s assignment zoomed in on social media platforms and our connections to them. We were asked to find and critique five blogs in a geographical area of interest to us. What appeals? Visuals? Design? Content? Navigability? How would we make the blog better?

After this comb over, we were asked to check the Alexa rating of each, which is a web information system that identifies internet traffic stats and metrics. The site where you can find out that .000043 of global internet users visit your blog. Wow!

The final task involved setting up a Twitter account and an additional profile on another platform such as Stumbleupon, Digg or Reddit (insert groan and nauseating feeling of hypertonic trapezius muscles here).

So…

Five Blogs

Having just pounced upon expedia.ca sell-off flights to Belize for February, investigating blogs with a bull’s eye on manatees, quetzels, cashew wine, Ambergris and Caye Caulker seemed obvious. Finding five Belize blogs wasn’t an issue. Google matches revealed a strong presence of blogging expats, some even hawking promotional blog fan t-shirts and hats. However, the format, granny-friendly font and garage-sale advert clutter of most Belize blog pages led me elsewhere.

I decided to examine the blogs that I am already attracted and dedicated to.

Clearly, the strength of a blog’s writing is the magnetic force for me. The content can range from surviving the Burning Man Festival, Oregon’s best microbrews to chimp rescue stories to how to make sushi rolls out of mac n’ cheese. Similar to my writing force field, I read in the same manner. All over the map.

What I know for sure?

I refuse to read white script on black background, or blogs that have been brushed with too much Hollywood (flashing widgets, WIN THIS! and running scripts). I find danger in too many hyperlinks within the text. Like a magpie that spies something shiny, I too have been known to fly off, distracted, clicking a hyperlink to another page, never to return again. (Which means you are NOT allowed to divert from my page to discover my go-to blogs below. An alarm will sound.)

What appeals?

Clean lines. White space. Simplicity. Seductive, high resolution photos and engaging writing that meshes with my interests, or musings that spark interest, unplanned longer runs in the rain, another glass of wine, deeper conversation and restless sleeps.

Writers that mesh and spark:

Andrew Westoll

An automatic network emerges among those who have worked with primates. I was initially virtually introduced to Andrew via a friend in Suriname who thought we might like to share and compare our Jane Goodal-esque love and chimp sanctuary volunteer experiences. His body of work is humble and honest, showcasing the grit of a writer’s life and hope in chimpanzee crusades. A former primatologist, sometimes CBC Radio One science columnist, sometimes vodka expert, the author of The Riverbones and The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary writes intelligently here:

http://www.andrewwestoll.com/    Alexa: 13,226,465

Brene Brown–Ordinary Courage

With a PhD tucked up her sleeve, the University of Houston Research Professor poses big questions about vulnerability, courage and authenticity in a smart and accessible way. She made her rounds on Facebook in a viral way with her TED video (Ideas Worth Spreading) on the power of vulnerability. She captivates and enlarges a sentence in a remarkable way. And, I might just copycat her sidebar that spotlights what she’s listening to and what’s on her nightstand. It makes Brene Brown a little more 3D to me.

http://www.ordinarycourage.com/    Alexa: 256,306

Ryan Coelho

We were both shortlisted for a prized travel writer internship position with G Adventures in Toronto and I admired his rock solid empowerment and personal brand from the get go. He is a former aerospace engineer turned brand & marketing strategist and leadership coach. I gravitate towards his writing because he adheres to his blog mantra when he posts: Dream. Explore. Discover. Inspire.  He is also consistent with his brand via Facebook and Twitter and has a graphically tidy and splashy site:

http://ryancoelho.com/    Alexa:  7,379,662

A Bus Called Forward

A mutual friend in Mexico thought Keph (Matador U alumni) and I would get on like a house on fire with our shared passions. He thought our writing had a similar slant and groove. I was flattered and became hooked on A Bus Called Forward. Keph’s photos will transport you to everywhere she has been in a blink and her succinct words fill in the textures, temperature and tastes.

“When she was 28 years old and I was only 5, my mother bought a renovated 1950s school bus and named it Forward. We left Toronto in the spring, driving westward towards the Pacific. Her incomprehensible plan was to drive to New Zealand but Forward blew a radiator hose in the mountains in the interior of British Columbia. Ever pragmatic, my mother sold the bus for $500 and a wheelbarrow, and started a garden. I haven’t stopped moving, but my mother’s still there, still gardening.”

http://www.abuscalledforward.com/   Alexa: 4,315,987

Julia Dimon: The Travel Junkie

A few years ago I was velcroed to an OLN (Outdoor Life Network) program called Word Travels that followed two scrappy travel writers pitching and landing gigs as fast as their planes around the world. Firecracker co-host Julia Dimon has visited 80 countires on all 7 continents. She is hopeful, insightful and a writing dynamo. Her site is glossy, enviable and the ultimate time-sucker. In a good way.

http://juliadimon.com/julia/blog.php  Alexa: 4,611,331

 

About the Alexa Ratings

My blog currently perches at 3,206,262 in worldwide blog rankings. Is this good? How many jellybeans in the jar does that equal? This does not change my life in any way. Do I really care that 3.55% of visitors keyed in “he farted in a hermetically sealed suit” and were led to my blog? Did I ever mention farting in a hermetically sealed suit? Should I take note that high impact search queries were tagged on the following terms: cat crap coffee, chips with gravy, bug bite soup, rotten confessions, Czech beer and chocolate covered marshmallows?

The Alexa rating serves a purpose to someone, but, it won’t influence my writing enough to narrow my niche to farts and marshmallows.

About Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit

I just can’t. I can’t be responsible for another social platform. I feel like I’m trying to barf up content in too many places already. Facebook obligations alone have angry “friends” upset with my lack of communication (interpreted as “ignored”). I drop off the face of Facebook for a few days to enjoy life as it was before the Techno Whore Wave of the 2000’s and I am berated. I can barely remain verbally active on Twitter. I refuse to Tweetchat or Twitpic. I don’t want to Stumbleupon anything else, there are enough viral videos and cuddly kittens and tsunami dog love stories on Facebook.

If shunning more social media platforms will be the detriment of my writing career, I’m okay with that. I’m not Twitter-friendly enough because I don’t have a cell phone. And I don’t have one for a reason. I would disconnect my home phone if I could. I never check my home phone messages when I’m at work, or away—mostly because I don’t know how to, but also because I don’t need to. I’m not that important, and socialites have to move in mysterious ways sometimes.

So what?

Social media is an accessory, not a necessity in my life. It has its place like shortbread for breakfast, Kobe beef and champagne. I can’t do it all the time. I will commit to my blog, the established blog writers that stretch my static thoughts, to intermittent Twittering and near-daily smartass Facebook updates.

That’s it.

Waffles and Waffling

I’m not that mysterious. There are constants in my life that serve as a cement foundation to my predictable Sturm und Drang (a fancy German term for “storm and stress” that I love and lifted from writer Keph Senett as she also contemplated her annual autumn Sturm).

This afternoon I sat at the The Starving Artist on Landsdowne Sturm und Dranging with a Labatt 50, because, sometimes, a Labatt 50 is the perfect balm for such epic thinking. And, it seemed to pair nicely with my bacon, chive and cheddar studded waffles.  I was reading the latest Zoomer magazine, which, yes, has a masthead that indicates “For 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s PLUS.” My mom usually gives me the back issues and I am totally absorbed in the pages (like a tween with the Twilight series) and gladly trade her for my Toronto Life mags. (Disclaimer: I actually stole this copy from Jimmy’s Coffee, but surely a hundred drip coffees qualifies this steal?)

As I read about Jeff Bridges and his second career as a musician, and a west coast 60-something couple that picked up and moved to Cairo, I realized the appeal in Zoomer. The articles are entirely about pursuing arrested passions. The sun-soaked ads for turqouise beaches target the about-to-retire, Freedom 55-ers and  lucky snowbirds with perma-Bob Barker tans, 4pm happy hours and a schedule that accomodates reserved dreams. The focus is on transition and how everything familiar evolves and resolves. It’s comforting and hopeful. It’s 24-7 philanthropy. Chicken Soup for the Retired Soul.

I  dog-ear the spoils of the lavish Armani Hotel in Dubai where guests are appointed their very own “Lifestyle Manager” for the duration of their stay. I read about weekend jaunts to Vienna for the sole purpose of eating: Andalusian Jabugo ham, mustard-rubbed organic roast beef, veal scallops fried in bread crumbs and warm chocolate souffles.  There are endless pages devoted to career reinvention. I want to retire and reinvent! Retired people, Zoomers, do all the things I love most–they travel with itineraries that involve finding the best souffles and riojas. They fly for nearly a day to maybe spot the fabled Double-Watted Cassowary in Queensland, Australia. They move to Cairo and establish shelters for dying women and their soon-to-be orphaned children. But why not do this sooner?

My fulfillment doesn’t necessarily come from my paid work as a massage therapist, it sneaks in right here. It is deeply rooted in one of my constants, writing. And, so, tonite, after waffles and waffling, I enrolled in a writing course through a new media school for travellers called Matador U. Because, it’s not so much that I want to retire, it’s more that I don’t want to put my bleeding passions on hold much longer. I don’t want to wait another 20 years to do what makes me truly stretch my mind and soul.

I wasn’t actively looking for signs to take this course of action. In fact, I was mindlessly sweeping to Buffy Sainte Marie and paused in front of my bookshelf to see if I could get rid of a few titles to make room for my latest. I pulled out How To Live on Nothing, not because it was ready for the discard pile, but because it makes me smile. My mom gave it to me when I was 17 or so. When she thought for sure I was going to live on some commune, plant trees with eccentrics named Ladyslipper and Sparrow and make clothes out of feathers and shells. Really. I leaned the broom against the wall (this is why it takes me an hour to sweep 700-square feet) and randomly opened the book to “How to Vacation on Pennies.”

The Starving Artist Waffle Espresso Bar biz card

See? A sign. Although we spent a lot of pennies on three weeks rounding Egypt in September, I would do it all over again. But, not in Egypt (see previous post). The How To Live on Nothing author’s advice was more in the vein of, you can have an adventure in your own neighbourhood. You can discover pseudo vacation thrills a mere subway ride away. And this is true, which is why I went west of Bathurst (which, as everyone knows, always gives me a nosebleed. What? I can’t see the CN Tower. I’m still in Toronto?).

I made a field trip out of The Starving Artist just to try their much-raved about bacon dipped in waffle batter. Perfect time to have an epiphany.  Plus, cheaper than the trip to Vienna and that Andalusian Jabugo ham.

I know what I want but am really gifted in avoidance. Of course I want to write travel guides and be sent to Belize to interview a toucan expert on mating rituals.  I’d be equally happy to write about the banana chocolate chip muffins at Jimmy’s that are nearly Mom-like. I’d jump at the chance to document Peregrine falcons nesting in the “a” of a Wal-mart sign in Ancaster. I want to write more but I only seem to want to start things on Mondays and every Monday passes until it’s another year of Mondays missed. I blog and blab and blow my energies on attempted witty Facebook status updates, and when I don’t write at length, wow, I am disjointed and disenchanted in every way. Like I said, not very mysterious at all.

 I have kept an anonymous quote that was probably an epiphany on another sunnier day. Maybe I came up with it, I can’t remember. “Stop thinking about what you think you could do and start doing what you know you can do.” My brain server threatens to crash with all the electrical activity I generate when I think of the hope injected in this statement. I am overloaded with possibility and it makes me pant and pace and drink Malbec like I am already celebrating. I write entire books in my head while I massage and run.

But then I re-read another quote I squirreled from somewhere and it sounds tres Oprah-ish. It may have originated from an inspirational poster in some dental office with a serene country landscape backdrop with horses and such–”Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” (Lau Tzu). So then, thanks to Tzu, I’m content and rejoicing. And still drinking Malbec. And celebrating how I am lacking nothing.

I am want for nothing. I say this all the time. Somehow I work more and make less every year, so this is a good thing. What I know for sure? I like vacation versus vocation. My work-life balance tips towards life, always.

Frito, world's cutest chihuahua at rest

A few nights ago Kim asked what I would do with $350,000. We were talking about housing prices and how $350,000 basically buys you a crackhouse without a roof or plumbing  in Etobicoke or a condo more suitable for a chihuahua than a human. I imediately thought of a share in a winery (Argentinian), owning a bookstore with an extreme  blood red espresso machine and a hunky guy named Joel (with an South African accent) doing the latte art, a trip to Bora Bora with very idle days just staring at the water and each other…and maybe a donkey sanctuary with room for retired llamas and Plymouth Rock Barred cockerals.

With Kim’s imaginary $350,000, she opted for a LandRover (so she could drop me off at the sanctuary) and would donate the rest to the vet bills of the donkey sanctuary.  This is why I love her so immensely.

But really? What are we all working for? What do you want? Why not do it now?

What do I want?

I often wait until decisions are made for me. But sometimes, as rare as the Double-wattled Cassowary, I jump-start my writing bones again. It is Monday. Or it was 42 minutes ago. It’s 12:42 and I’m 37 and not a Zoomer, but realizing in this very not-so-profound moment, that I want and need to write more. And when you say things out loud, they get bigger. Or, you say to yourself, “shit, I said that in a blog, now I better put out.”

The rest will follow.

It always has.

***

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