Today I told the story of my movements and experiences after I graduated from my Masters program in Machine Learning at CMU in May of this year. I actually told my story all the way from Guatemala, but the part about my post-graduation time was especially taken into account. I was given some advice to write it down, and it feels like the thing to do. So I intend to do it. Start. Now. Yes..
Well, so I was studying in my Machine Learning Ph.D. program at CMU, here in Pittsburgh, at the beginning of this same year 2013. Even since January, I was already tiring. It had been not the first time I'd felt this way - travel had been on my mind and heart's desires for a long while, and every day I spent in CMU, doing research I barely understood, walking the same path, talking to the very limited few people only superficially, because we had not enough time nor motivation nor material to talk about anymore - it made me feel pretty trapped. Every day I dragged my feet and hands to finish off whatever task that was put in front of me. Actually, that's not quite true. That had been the case in the Fall of 2012, when I was together with Ping. But we broke up in December of 012, and after a short family vacation, I returned to CMU, and started the spring semester of 2013 with a single main purpose: to graduate from the Masters program that very semester.
It was not a terribly hard feat. I was taking only one course, Algorithms in the Real World, and past that, I had only to complete a Data Analysis Project (DAP, for short). Usually students already have some body of research that they can adapt to become a DAP, and they fill in the requirement for the Masters degree quite nicely. I had very little of this research thing, though, so it was something I had yet to do. But my deep desires really drove me to it. It didn't matter what it'd take - I was going to finish my Masters that semester.
So I began. I signed up for my DAP talk as late as I could during the semester: March 23rd, a Thursday, I believe. I had no solid research to build upon, but Bhiksha had a very neat idea: to automatically cluster audio segments based on their proximity to fairly-certainly labeled audio segments. Assuming we had fairly reliable classifiers for several types of audio, we could take a large set of unlabeled audio data, classify as much as possible of it as we reliably could, and then augment the audio features from the unlabeled segments with the proximity to other labeled audio (temporal proximity within each audio track).
It was a neat idea, but we had no data. Well, we had a little - acting upon Rita's idea, I'd sent 1, 2, and 4 second segments of audio onto Amazon Mechanical Turk to be labeled by the masses. I downloaded the labels, cleaned them up, and used them to build a few classifiers (perhaps 10) of the labels that had most data in them. I remember they were labels such as "people", "water", "horses", "insects", "sheep", etc. Using this as bootstrap data, Bhiksha and I designed the experiment, and I went to work.
In January, Bhiksha and I discussed the problem, I cleaned up the data, and I set up a fairly solid mental frame of what I was going to do for my project. In February, I worked on the project itself. It was imperative that I advance and finish it all the way through, so I removed procrastination from the equation. I refused to answer any personal emails, I stopped going out with friends or seeking them out or looking for social news on facebook, or doing anything that would distract me from finishing up my project. Friends from Guatemala - Scarleth, Ivania, Paola, Silvia - they all emailed me at some point, and I remember telling them that I would not be online much, as I was very focused on finishing up a project. I heard little of them after that.
In March, I wrote down what I did. I wrote the report, I compiled the results, I refined the code a little bit, and made the PowerPoint presentation - but in essence, the meat of the project was done, and I focused only on creating clear and presentable reports for the DAP committee. I believe the amount of work smoothed down reasonably well before the day of the presentation. Bhiksha revised it, and he even said that he was impressed with how correct my writing was (grammatically and story-wise). Carlos was very supportive - he attended my talk, and took pictures of me as I presented the project. I remember preparing for the presentation - my green laser, a borrowed mouse to switch forward and back on the slides, and enough audiovisual material to give the audience a clear idea of what my project was about.
The DAP committee passed my project, and in the meantime, I passed the one course I was taking. (Algorithms in the Real World). Actually, I hadn't quite passed it yet, but I was almost sure that I would. I remember now! There was only one homework left, and barely any more classes (if any?), so I decided to take an early leave. I had already told Bhiksha and Rita of my intention to leave my Ph.D. program after I achieved my Masters, and they seemed to be concerned, not for them, but for me. Bhiksha was extremely supportive of my decision, though he did warn me that he was in the same position, and as he put it, "he had not met a single person who regretted he had gotten a Ph.D". That proposition seemed fairly tautological to me, though, so I politely took his advice, but kept to my decision.
It was only April, and I talked to Pedro. I told him that I was happy about having pretty much completed the requirements for my Masters program, and he said that if I wasn't doing anything, I could visit him in Waco for some time. That seemed like a great idea, so I went there. I was going to say that I flew, but now I remember better. The one-way flight over there cost about $280, and the Greyhound bus cost about $100. I considered both options, but as I had enough time and little hurry, I took the bus. Pittsburgh to Waco.
As usual, it was long and uncomfortable. Oh, I remember! Nick Nuar happened to call me the night before I left, I think? And as I told him that I would be leaving Pittsburgh soon, he offered to drive me to the Greyhound station, since my bus would be leaving sometime around 1 or 2am. I took my bags, got in the bus, and left.
The entire bus trip had about 3 layovers (where we actually had to get off the bus and catch a new one). They happened at random hours, and I felt they happened mostly when I was tired. OK, maybe only the first one. But it did feel pretty grueling that time. The first layover was somewhere in Ohio - Toledo, perhaps? The station was badly lit, unmaintained, and the food was quite expensive. The second layover was in a somewhat nicer station, but as I stood in line to board the bus, the bus got filled up, and the bus left without me, along with a few other people. I was then talking to a slightly pudgy, unkempt, chatty girl, who told me she was heading to San Antonio. Her clothes had visible wear and continuous usage, and she told me about how Child Services wanted to take her newborn baby from her, only because she smoked marijuana all the time, both while and after being pregnant. She told me how marijuana is way healthier than tobacco, and that nothing would happen to the baby because of it. Her baby was in San Antonio, so she was on her way to see him. She was pretty chatty, and took me as a recipient for her words. I listened pretty intently - I was pretty interested in this girl who had such a different lifestyle, context, priorities than me - she was getting by on her last dollars, it seemed, as she was trying to get together with her son halfway across the country. I didn't agree with some of her viewpoints, but she presented them genuinely, and she was acting on her principles. Just another person.
So anyway, I waited for the next bus to arrive. It came by about an hour later, and we boarded. It was the middle of the day then, and I remember sitting on the window seat near the back, looking at the green spring landscape beside the road, thinking how "wherever you go, there you are". And that I was always here - that perfect invariant. I had several items outside - Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a pen, a notebook, and my Galaxy S3, with which I occasionally texted Pedro to update him on my arrival time and just to chat. The bus wall to my left was topped by some aluminum grating that seemed to work like a flat surface for any of my items. There I put my pen, my notebook, my book, and my cellphone. And I was reading, and watching the scenery, and thinking, and writing, and looking, and texting... and I set my phone down on the side. And right as I did, I saw my "ultra-thin" smartphone slip through a broken opening in the grating I had somehow missed to see before, and fall a meter down to an unreachable dark area in between the inner wall and the outer wall of the bus, directly below the metal grating. And I immediately despaired - where was it?? How could I get it back? How would I communicate with Pedro to tell him when I'd arrive? My GMail was directly accessible from my phone! My contact information was there! My text messages, my notes - they were all there! I had to get it back!
I would've shone my phone's LED light into the hole to see it, but it was my phone itself that was fallen. So I took my bike LED light and used it to see my phone. Sure enough, it was there - a meter down below a broken grating just thin enough to fit in a Galaxy S3, but hardly enough even for a finger to get through. How was I going to get it back?
I spent an anxious half an hour before we got to a gas station, where I got off and took to finding some phone retrieval tools. Such tools are not in very high demand, but I found a back scratcher made with a green metallic rod that seemed thin enough to fit through and some chewing gum, and I went back into the bus.
For the following two hours, people around me in the bus saw me chew green gum, take it out of my mouth, put it on the end of the rod, and insert it into the sub-gratins's void. I went fishing. People asked me what I was doing - I told them my story. They looked at me with vague empathy, then looked away.
For the following two hours, that is what I did. Many times I stuck the fresh sticky gum to my phone, and lifted it until it was just visible under the grating, touching it, almost. But nothing else that could grab the phone fit into the opening, and the opening was JUST big enough for the S3 coming up vertically, and I wasn't even sure if it was coming up in the right direction (after having dropped as it did), so it was a pretty hard fishing task.
I chewed through a whole packet of chewing gum trying to get my phone back. Each time I managed to get my phone up to the grating, I could see it being stickier with more green gum, each time dirtier, each time the stickiness of the chewing gum was less effective, and it fell off the rod quicker, giving me less time to try to pull it through. The guy in front of me yelled at me two or three times, saying "Hey bro! Stop breathing down my neck!" I guess our cramped places in the bus, my clunky moving around my bus seat while in motion, and my anxious breathing as I struggled against gravity and tight spacing got to him. I was careful after the first time, but even then he came back again and yelled louder, and he looked mad enough that he might have started a fight with me, were we not confined to our tight little bus seats. "Hey man! I fucking told you! Stop breathing down my neck! I'm not a fucking fag!". Or something of the sort. After that time I was really careful, and covered my mouth, only exhaled consciously, all the while poking around with a sticky rod in between the bus's inner and outer walls, longingly looking at my phone. I didn't get yelled at again during that ride.
Short story - the bus arrived at our next destination, and my phone is probably even now, months later, still in that bus, covered in old, sticky, green, dried out chewing gum, grimy bus dirt, depleted battery, forgotten by the world. May it rest in peace. Luckily, I found a prompt replacement on Craigslist with a Galaxy Nexus for $100 a couple of days later.
I followed the bus layovers all the way until Austin, where I knew Pedro was teaching some math class before picking me up, as we'd agreed on. I managed to borrow a cellphone from a girl at the station, I called Pedro, and told him what had happened. In the end I got picked up by Pedro, we drove up north to Waco, and I stayed with him for three weeks.
It was pretty awesome seeing him again - I hadn't seen him in two years or so. I stayed on the extra bed he had in his apartment, and I spent the days hanging out with him, watching YouTube videos of spanish comedians, meeting his girlfriend Silvia from Venezuela, his friends Ricardo and Silvia from Costa Rica, and Francisco from México. Despite of three people in the group being musicians, I never really got to see any of them playing music - we just hung out, watched videos, drank wine, and went out for tacos once in a while. Typical Waco life.
So after a very relaxing three weeks, I went back to Pittsburgh for my graduation weekend, yay. My dad visited me, and we spent a couple of days together. On Saturday I showed him around the campus and neighborhood, I picked up my graduation clothes, we went to eat, and went to sleep. On Sunday May 19th, well, I graduated! I remember Bhiksha stopped by to congratulate my dad and I while we were lining up for the walk up to the stadium. He told my dad I was a "very smart boy", and he left running to attend someone else's graduation - I believe Sohail's.
So we walked all the way to the stadium, and my dad walked over there by another path. He took some pictures of me, I sat down in one of the many chairs on the field, and a lot of speeches were given. I dozed off at times, stood up when required, and finally walked back out to rejoin my dad. We walked together to Carnegie Music Hall, next to the museums, where we sat through the smaller diploma-giving ceremony, this one specific to the School of Computer Science. The act was highlighted by an initial bagpipe-playing robot and the glowstick-carrying CS professors. After that, I was given my nicely leather-bound diploma, and I sat down for a while as we waited for all the graduating CS students to be called out. They were A LOT, so I walked out early and went to look for my dad. I didn't find him until near the end of the ceremony, when we grabbed a couple of spring rolls from the grandiose-looking banquet table, and we left to have a simpler lunch somewhere else.
My dad went back to Chicago, and that next week was a transitional one for me. By then, I'd made my scheme to step of my life temporarily, and take one long, months-long, metaphorical deep breath to find purpose and center again. My blog entry, "Social", says more about what I'm talking about. That week I got rid of most of my stuff. The furniture in my room had already been there, so I didn't worry about it. I threw out old collected Autumn leaves, their colors faded and dry. I selected only the clothes and things I'd like to keep for a lightweight lifestyle, and put the rest in bags for Goodwill. I collected my personal notebooks and journals, gave away miscellaneous items, threw out the rest. By the end of the week I was down to three backpacks and myself, I had a confirmed WWOOF'ing internship down in New Mexico starting on June, a ticket to Albuquerque for May 29th, and a couchsurfing offer to host me for the night when I arrived there.
I wrote much about the Pittsburgh->Albuquerque->Chimayo farm transition in my notebook at some point, so I'll skip ahead and insert that piece later on. Here it is. So several days later, I'm at the farm, working with Mario the mexican worker and Adán the farm owner.
Finally having no online distractions, I resolved to develop a routine. I began working at 8AM, so I decided to sleep early and wake up at 5AM. I would get out of bed, lay on the rug beside it, and do a morning mediation and Yoga practice. As I had plenty of time, I didn't set a clock or anything - I just felt my way through it. My meditation exercises were simple, mostly taken from the book "Psychic Energy", or simply gentle breathing, just being there, feeling myself inside. Afterwards, I would also practice some Vinyasa Yoga as I learned at a class in Pittsburgh, and it felt fulfilling to stretch and feel my body intently every morning.
By 7AM I usually showered and went off to cook my breakfast, which was most often pot-cooked oatmeal. I began eating fried eggs for breakfast, until I decided to go vegan for a while, at which point I only ate a generous amount of oatmeal in the mornings. I would leave a pot of pre-soaked beans cooking at low flame, and come later during my lunch break and eat them. Mighty efficient, I thought to myself. Then just before 8 I'd dress up in work clothes (worn jeans, white T-shirt, hat, work gloves) and walk out to the farm, where Mario would be waiting for me.
Our tasks switched every day, but our mornings were mostly either dedicated to weeding the chile plants or harvesting sweet peas (the morning is the best time to harvest, they all said, as they still retain the night's humidity). Sometimes we'd also go out to Adán's father's farm, and take care of his chile plants. Sometimes we'd cultivate the land with a metal fork thing, and sometimes we'd flood-irrigate the chile canals.
All the time working with Mario was at least distracting, if not pleasant. We talked much in Spanish - he seemed to not have anyone else in the farm besides his wife to talk one-to-one in Spanish, so we shared a lot of little facts about Mexico and Guatemala. He taught me about plants, and which ones you could and couldn't eat, and he taught me a song, "Qué bonito es el quelite", which praises the appearance of wild spinach. He told me that "Marriage is a muscle", because it must be exercised, and if you don't exercise it, it wastes away. I thought that was a pretty good metaphor.
He was also a solid Jehova's Witness, and I often sensed him trying to introduce me to the teachings of Jesus, and to how we should know that God has a plan for us, etc. I diverted his inquiries as politely as I managed, and after about a week or so, he realized that I really wasn't interested in the subject, and we simply talked about other issues, like economy or plants or soil, or how once his entire 1-year's-worth-of-work plantation of watermelons in Mexico had been destroyed by a freak hailstorm and had left him with almost nothing. Or how he met his wife back in Mexico, or how he hadn't been back in at least 8 years.
At first I tried to spend my lunches reading one of my books, but then I realized I didn't have enough time. The combination of my light breakfast and the physical morning labor, even if light, made my body need time to digest my bean soup lunch properly, and I'd barely finished digesting by the time I had to work my afternoon shift.
We spent the afternoons either weeding, planting melons and tomatoes, or picking up trash branches from one piece of land and piling it up somewhere else with a tractor. At times we did other things: build a gate or chop up trees. But most always, in the end, we'd walk to the animal area of the farm, feed the chickens, look for newly-lain eggs, feed the dogs, feed the goats, guide the goats into the pen, and I'd walk back with the eggs to record and put in the main fridge.
The first week or so was idyllic. I used my first weekend to walk out into the rocky, arid hills just across the road from the farm. I took some food in a tupper and some water with me in my backpack, and just walked, sat down, listened to the scarce sounds in the desert, and admired the reddish, dusty, rocky, gorgeous landscape spread out before me in all directions.
On the second weekend, I decided to bring back my laptop from Irini's place, with the intention of looking for a car on Craigslist. So I did, and after my second week there, I found a used car worth looking into - $1200, manual transmission, and Idaho plates (New Mexico plates had to be removed before being sold. By the third weekend, two regular farm volunteers (Josh & Tyler) had come back from their time off in Austin, and they gave me a ride to Santa Fe to check out the car. I met up with the seller, we test drove the car, and I agreed on the $1200 price. The car had a couple of kinks, but in general, it ran just swell. I only had about $900 cash at the time, as the ATM wouldn't let me withdraw any more, but we decided I'd stay at a hostel that night, withdraw the rest of the money the next day, and finish the transaction on Sunday.
So we did just that, but before all of that, Tom (the seller) and I spent an afternoon hanging out. We had lunch at an Egyptian place he knew, and I saw him give a Tarot reading to the restaurant's owner's daughter. He asked her to shuffle the cards and pick a starting point, and then Tom began to place cards on the table. First a central one, then another on top across from it, then 12 different cards, each for one of the houses in her life. A couple more were given at the end for her "ultimate purpose" and "current context", I believe. Through the reading, I sensed she was genuinely affected by what Tom told her about most of the cards. It was the first time I saw a Tarot reading. It seemed more of a reaffirmation process, being told vague definitions of her life for her to adjust and define it more solidly, as only she knew how.
So the next day, I withdrew the remaining money, he gave me the keys and title, and I drove back to the farm. Now I had a way to go places! If ever I needed to.
Two more weeks passed, during which I helped Josh & Tyler work at the farm, instead of working with Mario. The schedule was slightly laxer - we worked until noon as always, but then we took a break until 3pm, and stopped working at 6pm. I spent my new post-lunch times sometimes reading, sometimes napping, and sometimes meditating. At times I saw Mario, and I helped him out with things like getting a laptop for his wife, getting him an iPod to listen to music from Atalaya, getting an email address, and other such stuff. But I mostly spent time with Josh & Tyler. The following weekend, they invited me to ACE, the Albuquerque Comic Expo. They were both pretty big comic fans, and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.
It was a fairly new experience. We entered a convention center filled with Wolverines, X-Men, Sailor Moons/Mercury/Jupiter/Saturn/Venus, Commander Shepards, Dragonball, Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar the Last Airbender, Disney movie characters, among many, many, many others. What else... a Ghostbusters dude, the archer girl from Brave, plain old Supermans, Batmans, Wonder Womans, Aquamans. We spent a whole day there! At times I joined J&T at some talk that a famous actor or artist was giving, and at times I simply wandered around and looked at booth with quasi-popular comic people selling original art, impromptu art, new comic books, old comic books, jewelry, or whatever else comic-or-fiction-oriented merchandise there was. It was alright. At the end of the day, I preferred to read some of Plato's dialogues in the corner of a big room.
I remember the last thing we did was team up with a few girls in the expo, and play a team trivia game. One of the two girls seemed interested in Tyler, so after the game (which we got about 6th place in), we followed them out to a local night club, and spent the night dancing to hip-hop/techno music, and then watching superhero-themed strippers remove some of the few clothes they had left down to tape-covered nipples and panties. Tyler was making out with the girl, Josh was just chilling, and I was bored, so I went out for a walk around the area. Albuquerque downtown was lively and creepy at the same time - lots of people hung out in the small area of about 5 blocks, but a large part of them looked a lot like actual gang people. I went into a small gallery, laughed at a painting of "Starry night" by Van Gogh painted over with Leono and the Thundercats sign, got some breakfast at a corner diner, and went back to the club. By that time, the girl was gone, and the strippers had finished their show. Apparently the girl had just disappeared after she'd gone to the bathroom, probably the act of her friend, concerned that she'd inebriated a bit too much and would end up drunk-fucking this random guy.
With the girl gone and the show gone, we drove back to the farm. I was pretty tired, and went directly to sleep when we arrived (at about 4AM).
I didn't know that following week would be my last at the farm. Some of my tasks at the farm pained me to do. Until now I'd been fine with weeding the crops, cutting down trees that blocked the sun from the crops, and moving branch trash around. But then one day we began cutting down plants because they were overgrown. They caused no problem besides being there and "looking ugly", so we were cutting them down. Now, I can imagine that if I lived there, I would like to have it look pretty. But doing it personally - seeing the plant alive and healthy, doing nothing, and rip it out from the ground and put it on the trash pile - I despised it. I really didn't like it, and at one point I asked Josh "hey, I'd like to do something else".
Little things like that, plus a little farm and isolation boredom, got to me and convinced me to leave the farm. So I began searching. What to do? Where to go? I considered going to Nepal to volunteer as an English teacher with Ping for a couple of weeks, but the cost to get there alone seemed way too high for only a few weeks of being there, and afterwards with no other place to go. In the end, Ping's emails seemed less interested in us going together, so I opted to not fly to Nepal, and I looked for other options. I had a car, and I was going somewhere, but I didn't know where. I didn't really care much, so as long as I was going somewhere, I could take someone else that needed a ride with me. So I looked up Rideshare ads on Craigslist.
As I looked through the recent ads, it was evident that a lot of people wanted to go to a "Rainbow Gathering" going on in Montana, starting on July 1st. I had no idea what that meant, but the ads were very love-and-peace oriented, so it seemed alright. I looked it up online, and I liked what I found! Wikipedia told me:
Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities, held primarily in the US and Europe in outdoor settings, and supporting and practicing the ideals of peace, love, respect, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.
I was exactly on an "alternative" path, and it clicked just right, so I decided to go. I contacted several of the ads right away, and I got to talking with one of them on the phone. Jami, she was called, was in Santa Fe, and was trying to get up to Montana as soon as possible. We agreed to meet up on Saturday, so I said goodbye to everyone in the farm, left a letter for Adán, who had left for the weekend, packed my stuff, and drove off Saturday morning, June 29th.
I met Jami at a little bookstore in downtown Santa Fe. I got from her the same peaceful and loving vibe that I'd gathered from the Rainbow Gathering description, and we began talking about our trip. I thought we were supposed to talk about the trip during the afternoon, but she had agreed to go to a music concert with a few musicians she had met on the street, so we agreed on meeting the following morning, leaving early, and driving out to Montana, express mode.
So that's what we did. She ended up staying at a motel with a dude she had met at the concert in Madrid, NM. The dude was around 50 years old, but he was a "perfect gentleman" and had "acted like my he was my father", according to Jami. She was very impressed by his generosity and selflessness at letting her stay with him like that.
After a quick breakfast at Denny's, we took off on I-25N, and began talking about the Rainbow Gathering. She said that I definitely needed a sleeping bag (which I didn't have), so I made plans to buy one as we were on our way up through Denver. We were connecting a fair bit and having a good time, when we saw a guy walking up the freeway, dressed in a similar fashion to Jami (worn, black clothes, big backpack, and colorful stuff hanging from him). Jami said "he is so going to the Rainbow Gathering", and though a bit late, I decided to stop, about 100 meters ahead of the guy. He began running up to us, so we waited up, and then we greeted him.
He was about my height, bearded, a long-haired fellow, with bushy eyes and a stoner, self-reliant expression. His name was "Reddy", he was also going to the Rainbow Gathering, and he offered to drive whenever I got tired. He seemed to get along with Jami really well, as they shared a lot of their lifestyle.
We drove up to Denver, where I had already contacted a seller of a $15 sleeping bag. I bought it from him when we found the meeting place, we stopped for a couple of hours to wash our clothes at a laundromat, and then we continued driving. I got tired north of Denver, where Reddy took over, and we spent the night at a rest stop just north of Cheyenne, WY. We spent the night eating some packed food, burning some of Jami's perfumed incense on a grill, and talking and listening about the rainbow life. They talked and I listened. Eventually we set our sleeping bags on the grass under the clear summer sky, and went to sleep.
That night was the first time that I slept outdoors that year (well, I tried it before at park in Pittsburgh, but it was too cold to just have a blanket on a bench). Reddy took over the driving, and we crossed up north to Montana, made a shopping spree at Bozeman, and then I took over the rest of the driving, and we arrived at the National Park near Jackson at about 11PM.
After finding parking at a lot high up a hill, we grabbed all our stuff, and we began walking out to find some camping spot. Reddy seemed to have gotten caught with some other dudes drinking whisky, but Jami and I began walking and asking how to get to the Main Trail. It was pretty much completely forest-night dark, but we found several people on the way who were happy to help us find the trail. I remember Avian, who had a checkered white-and-red bath robe around him, and was very welcoming. We talked as we walked down the hill, and he answered all my curious questions with exceptional tranquility. He greeted me with "Welcome home, brother", and guided us to the entrance of the Main Trail.
Once there, we began walking on the Trail into what seemed like a meadow, but it was hard to make much of it in the dark. A hundred steps or so into the trail, and Jami went left into the forest and proposed to camp right there. Any flat-enough surface was good, I thought, and when I found one where I felt cozy inside my sleeping bag, I stayed there and decided to go to sleep. Jami and our newly-made friends decided to go to that night's drum circle, so I said goodbye and just went to sleep under the trees.
The next morning, the same trees were still above me, but they were bright and colorful. They shaded me nicely, so the already-high-up sun didn't hit me straight in the face, but rather just caressed me in some spots I felt warm. Jami's tent was closed, and I was curious, so I walked back out to the trail. I began to take in my surroundings. The trail really went through a long meadow, surrounded by hills on either side, where people had set up camp. There weren't many people camped in the area, but a few steps further into the trail, and I began to see several bigger structures, like kitchens and little café places. There was "Buffalo Tribe Camp", "Mudder Earth", "Chai Baha'i", and others such. People I met on the trail greeted me with "Welcome home, brother", and it all just seemed peaceful and naturey.
I didn't have any ready-to-eat food of my own, and I heard that the kitchens gave away food, so I figured I should do something for the kitchens. I carried some water for "Buffalo Tribe Camp" from the water source with a 5-gallon container, and I was given some food in return.
After that, the first week just developed organically, and I met all kinds of people, in some kind of chain reaction. Each action brought another, and another, and I was always surrounded by friendliness, new options, and much love, hospitality, helpfulness, and joy.
Without going into much detail, that Tuesday morning I was surprised by a lady who said "I'll jump you for your eggs!", to which I decided to give her the eggs I was about to donate to a kitchen. She told me that she had been dosed with LSD for 30 years now, and that she only recently had found out. She took me to her camp, Fairy Camp, where the gay community abounded. They gave me a pancake over there, and she gave me a little handful of Labradorite stones, allegedly very good to balance the chakras. I thanked her, and walked off down the hill, trying to find an alternate path down to the meadow.
On the way down, I met up with a trio - two guys and a dude, sitting outside their tent, eating sprouts, and they invited me to sit and talk with them. One of them, Brandon, told me how he'd spent one year living in a forest near Mt Shasta, eating sprouts and living alone, and how he now felt that it was time to come back and contribute what he can to society.
Back down in the meadow, I helped a guy called Hayden carry his unicycle up to his new camp, and on the way, I met a guy called Luke who told me a quote he thought I'd like from a book on Taoism: "I have only three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion". I shared with him "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit", from Nature, by Emerson. And we parted. That night I met up with Jami at the camp, ate some food, donated a lot of the food I'd brought, attended the dinner circle before dusk (at which I donated my ceramic bowl as a serving spoon to the Mudder Earth servers but did not get back), and went to the drum circle at night. I heard from a guy called "Bhajan" that he would be telling Indian stories at a Hanuman painted tent that night.
At the drum circle, lots of semi-clothed and semi-naked people danced next to the fire, many danced outside, and many drummed. And many just stood outside, watching, amongst them me. The spirit of it all didn't quite click with me yet, but I did see Luke, who was in an entirely different attitude at that point. He pointed to a girl in the crowd, and said "see that girl? I think she was looking at me... wish me luck!", and walked off to talk to her.
The fire and dancing people were little more than a cute distraction, so I decided to wander off. I found the Hanuman tent that Bhajan had mentioned earlier, and waited for the stories to begin. They seemed to be taking a while to start, so I decided to leave and come back later. By the time I got back, though, the tent was filled up, and I only found space right outside of it, next to a thin girl with glasses. We made a brief introduction, as we heard the story of Sita being abducted by Ravana in the forest through the deceit of Ravana's uncle morphing into a golden deer that Sita desired with all her heart, making Rama run out to get the deer for her. Carmen, that was her name. I think. Soon after I got tired, I passed by the heart circle on the way back, and went to bed.
Then on Wednesday I began my day by offering to carry water for the kitchen again. The local water source was out of order, however, so I went off to bring water from a farther source, which they said was QUITE far. I had not much else to do, so I went anyway. I met up with a girl that called herself Honesty, but that I think was called Beth. She also had a couple of big water containers to fill up, so we walked together. I can barely remember any of our conversation, but I remember we opened up, and I was fairly excited at the idea of having found a female companion. The water source was really QUITE far, and even after, Honesty went out further to pick up her stuff and move camp. We went back and carried our water, but I had to ask for help, because two 5-gallon containers were a bit too much for me alone. I carried it by bursts at first, and then at some point coming out of the forest into the meadow, a big guy whose name I forgot helped me out and carried it for most of the way back. I was very thankful to him and hugged him, and the kitchen was very thankful for the water, and they gave me a good portion of food for my breakfast.
Later that day I attended a yoga class with a teacher called Aaliyah. She gave me a lotus seed at the end of the class, and I gave it to a woman later on who just happened to be traveling with a girl I sat down to talk with. In gratefulness, she gave me a shiny metallic gray rock, which she described as something similar to Hematite. The girl herself, Tanya, was able to whistle exactly like many bird calls, and she had conversations with some birds in the neighborhood. She told me how sometimes she tricked birds into coming over to where she was, only to be disappointed by seeing only her and not a bird from the female sex, and flying away soon after.
That day I met many more people - I feel it would be a shame to mention them only slightly without going into the richness that they brought to my day, but I really don't remember all the details of some of them. I do remember Clear, whom I met right in between Chai Baha'i and Mudder Earth. I was coming down the hill from getting some Chai, and I saw a man about my age, dressed in a native-American-ceremonial-looking white robe, with a light beard, and a kind look. He was talking to someone else, and I happened to see them talking. He turned to me and said "Hello Blue".
I was temporarily stunned. I had introduced myself as Onyx to everyone at the Gathering up to this point, but I had never told anyone the suffix to that name: "Onyx Blue". Not anyone, and I asked him why he'd just called me that. He said it just came to him, and he told me that he was on the quest to be clearer. I met him again at the fire later that night, and I keep with me one thing that he told me while we were meditating, as I asked him how I could develop myself in the spiritual aspect: "Are you ready for it? You are always meditating". I shared with him how I thought that "Willpower is the currency of the Universe", and he seemed to take it in and absorb it as it came. He said he understood what I meant.
The next day was Thursday July 4th, the alleged "climax" of the Rainbow Gathering. I'd heard that people did not talk during the whole morning, observing a personal vow of silence, I imagine to bring a spirit of silence, tranquility, and self-reflection to the entire village. I got up on Thursday, silently offered a banana to Jami, hugged her, and went out to walk on the trail. I felt like honoring the vow of silence as much as possible, and I walked silently on the trail, trying to feel all that came to me - every step, every breath, every muscle movement, every thought. I walked on the trail until I found an entrance to the left hill, at which point I climbed it to the top, and looked at the view. The little valley we were located in was fantastic. The stream flowed right through it, beside the path all the way behind the opposite hill, behind which I could see beautiful rocky mountains in the distance. I walked, invoking my thought of "Conscious steps", feeling the sensation as my leg raised and dropped in graceful precision, and as each part of the sole of my foot flexed and touched the dusty trail beneath it. I sat down, I meditated, I reflected, I breathed, I made psychic exercises, and I adopted the Yoga Tree pose for a while. It was my alone time, and only I was there with me. I remember being tranquil, and having some deep thoughts, but I remember little of them now.
I do remember that at some point, I began hearing noises from below, and I saw people assembling into a very large circle around the meadow. During dinner circle, we sat down in several concentric circles, so the area we required was fairly compact. But this time, everyone was holding hands, standing up, in a single circumference around the limited meadow. Thousands of people holding hands, their trail followed the ups and downs of the opposite hill, it went into the forest from one side, and came out on another. They were all holding each other, and almost holding the forest and meadow itself. The silent breath of all of them together could be heard, and at some point, they began to chant OM. Three times. Or was it more that time? I'm not sure. But then, a single file of children walked into the middle of the circle, and started the OM, I believe. And I believe they also sung songs. I was still on top of the hill at the time, so I only listened and stayed quiet, attempting to attune my perception to everything that was happening. About 20 minutes later, I heard them begin to sing more cheerful songs, and I walked down to the meadow and joined them.
What I found when I came down surprises me as I remember it now, but it didn't surprise me then at all. I was in a very relaxed, neutral, soltiduminous state. Everything was the way it was, and people were joyful, and that was the natural way of things. People were dancing, singing, playing around, and being merry between each other. I met some people who were chanting
Earth my body, Water my blood.
Air my breath, and Fire my spirit!
Earth my body, Water my blood.
Air my breath, and Fire my spirit!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the elements!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the Earth!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the elements!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the Earth!
I felt the meaning of those chants got to me, and I sang with them. I followed them as they jumped and danced, and sang alongside with them. I was happy knowing that I was really one with the elements, and that there really was nothing else. Modesty and/or distraction grabbed me soon after though, and I drifted off to see other parts of the scattered circle of the tribe.
Earth my body, Water my blood.
Air my breath, and Fire my spirit!
Earth my body, Water my blood.
Air my breath, and Fire my spirit!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the elements!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the Earth!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the elements!
III-ee-II-ee-am one with the Earth!
I felt the meaning of those chants got to me, and I sang with them. I followed them as they jumped and danced, and sang alongside with them. I was happy knowing that I was really one with the elements, and that there really was nothing else. Modesty and/or distraction grabbed me soon after though, and I drifted off to see other parts of the scattered circle of the tribe.
On the other side of the circle, I met a very talented Hula Hooper called Miah. We didn't talk that much, but we played around with her Hula-Hoops. A friend came over and took a picture of me and her, but I later asked her to tell him to delete the picture from his camera. At the time, I was quite anxious about keeping this part of my life absolutely separate from all the rest. She accepted the request, and then I didn't see her again for a while.
As the main meadow circle was still in full celebration, I decided to venture further into the forest to explore what was in there. The trail took me to a "Kiddie Village" area, which had a smaller meadow, easy to jump, run, and play around with, where several teepees had been set up, and further in, a wooden trail deeper up a gentle slope. I thought I was walking at a leisurely place, absorbing the colorful tents, the quiet woods, when I saw a girl, also on the trail. She seemed to be walking, but about 20 times slower than I was, moving each muscle with care, seeming to feel every speck of dirt under her feet, and humming melodiously while she walked. She had a thin, tall, graceful figure, fair skin, deep golden straight hair, and was wearing a white shirt and a yellow pair of short shorts. I asked someone else "is she all right?". And a guy answered "Ye-ha-aha! Yeah, she's something special!" And he walked away. And her intention seemed so perfectly true, that I knew I'd found something real when I saw her. So I followed her.
I took off my shoes, hung them by my fingers, and followed after her with full intent. I felt it was of the utmost importance, and I followed her every step in earnest and diligence. After about 10 of those slow steps, she turned back, looked at me, and walked back, always with that slowest of speeds. Once we were close by, she talked, almost whispered, in a voice like that of an angel: "You are more than welcome", and she continued walking.
We walked for a more steps until we came to a meadow, where she said that she would go pee now, and she bode me farewell. I asked her not to leave before she answered my question:
"Are you aware?"
And she only nodded.
"How can I be more aware?"
"You already are."
"But, how can I spread this awareness to other people?"
"Let your mind lay down. It is like a child, and it's always looking, always searching, how to protect you, how to be better, how to look good, how to succeed. But tell it to lay down. It won't do it, of course, unless it feels safe. It needs love to feel safe, so love it, tell it that you love it, and that it doesn't need to be afraid. Humming helps".
"Thank you, so very much"
And she left. My heart was left motionless - my entire interaction with her had been one of wonder. She was beautiful in face and body, she seemed wise and posed, and she spoke directly to my heart and to my deep questions directly like no one ever had before. I felt a turning point in my Life in that moment.
Later on, I began walking in the same way on the path, as I really felt a connection to that exercise. Soon after, I heard a voice behind me ask "Zen Meditation?" I smiled and told him about how I had just learned it. We talked for a little while. His name was Patch, and he also seemed to be on a quest for spiritual depth. We parted, and I kept on walking slowly for a little while.
The rest of that day, I bumped into Carmen at least once, got to know a guy called Bee, and explored "Lovin' Ovens", other kitchens in the area, and so on. I was so impressed with the tranquility of that area of the forest that I decided to move there. I walked back to my camp, packed up my stuff, and found a meadow to the right of the wooden trail past Kiddie Village. I set down my sleeping bag and backpacks, and kept exploring.
That night, it was rumored that Lovin' Ovens would be baking pizzas. I decided to visit and volunteer, but I was there quite late, and they were making danish pastries by then. I volunteered anyway, and I got to knead the dough, cut the dough, put cream cheese filling into it and fold it into itself, and carry the trays to and from the earth furnaces that were working at full speed. After coming out and cooling down, we served them, and I was happy to see that we helped everyone there satiate their hunger and keep being merry around the fireplace, singing songs together.
It must've been about 1AM when I headed back to my camp. When I got back, however, I found none of my stuff! It was all gone - sleeping back, backpacks, everything. Concerned but not really suspicious, I imagined that someone had taken it to shelter from the mild rain we had a few hours back, and had simply kept it there for the time being. Unfortunately though, I had nowhere to stay now, so I decided to go and sleep next to the fire at Lovin' Ovens. I lay down on the long spot closest to the fire I could find, I bundled up inside my blue hoodie, and went to sleep the best way I could.
After an uneasy sleep, at about 6AM, I got up again, cold and hungry, and went back to my camp area. As I'd thought, someone had just sheltered my stuff inside their tent. I thanked them much, and kept my stuff there.
I met other people during that week, and many I met again. Amongst them were Lauren, who I first saw at a singing circle at which I decided to pitch in by harmonizing with the melody someone proposed. She saw me singing and harmonizing, and smiled at me. One of the following days, she ran over to me while we were at dinner circle, opened up her "flaps" on her chest, and exposed herself topless to me. A bit shocked but not quite ardent for passion for her right at that moment, I hugged her and kissed her affectionately on the cheek. She seemed to walk off slightly disappointed, but then just went out running in similar fashion to other guys in the vicinity. I also saw Brandon meet a girl called Bliss along the wooden trail, and they began looking at each other, and looking at each other, and they would not take their eyes off each other. After that, I never saw them separately again. Apparently, they fell in love and became together.
Later that week I explored further down the trail, and found the "Medicine Warriors" kitchen, and an even larger, more retired, and peaceful meadow next to a more gushing stream and greener grass. I was delighted with the place - it seemed as if I had reached the 7th chakra of the Gathering at the very end - a naked guy and girl meditated on the top of a rock next to the forest, there were flowers everywhere, plants were healthy and untouched - it was magical. I moved next to the stream in a neighborhood of two tents or so, and they welcomed me to the area. I slept on that meadow only once, though - the chance of rain was always around, and a shady area would offer slightly better protection to my belongings. Th day before I moved, however, I met Alice, Emily, and Emily's boyfriend. Emily was a beautiful woman, from NYC, with dark hair, fair skin, and with gray eyes with amber veins through them. Alice was the beautiful humming woman with deep golden hair from the trail. They both had a graceful, spiritual air around them. I found them chanting with the very people I had sung "One with the Elements" a few days ago, and I learned other songs together with them:
We dance in all the colors of the Rainbow
Embracing each and every one
Until we know them all so deeply
And then we become one
And then we become white light
And then we become white light
And then we become one
This is the one other I remember most. I met them on Saturday, and I hung out with them, sang with them, and visited them up on top of a hill where the "Shining Light" kitchen was located. I moved my tent to the 7th chakra meadow later that day, hoping to see Alice more than I had until now. The next morning, I was walking around my camp area, and sure enough, I saw Alice peek her head out of her yellow tent, a gentle smile on her face. I hoped to talk to her more - I knew that she knew, that she felt, an essential spiritual fact that I ached to know about, and I hoped that she would help me find it. So I went over to her tent, and I heard her have a conversation with Emily and her boyfriend. They seemed vaguely inviting to me, and I stayed, hoping to talk to Alice further. Emily and her boyfriend left, and I was left to ask her what I wanted. And she gave me a long answer, which I recorded and have yet to transcribe. But it was beautiful, and it began with what she said before. ***
I then left her to packing, as they seemed to be in a hurry to leave. I found Emily somewhere near Greenpath, and we got to talking. She told me her current dilemma - all three of them needed to get back to New York, and they were driving, but her boyfriend's car had broken down and was getting fixed. She needed to be back ASAP for an internship that she had been accepted into, but she was already late, so she was considering getting a ticket and flying out as soon as possible. On the other hand, she felt it would be unjust to abandon her friend who was having car trouble before he could get his car fixed and driven back.
I tried to help out by telling her what I thought about big decisions - that most of the time and energy is used up in indecision, and that usually going with the gut is a good way to go about it. She pondered for a long while, and eventually she said "I'm going to go with Levy", and she smiled. And she was happy, and said "I smiled when I said that! That's a good sign, right?" I fully agreed - smiling instinctively when making a decision would seem to indicate that it's the thing one agrees most with. And she walked off with the solid decision in her mind. I then saw them all packed and ready, hugged them goodbye, and they left off.
That was a Sunday. I moved my camp once more, this time into the left side of the trail near Greenpath, under a few shady trees. Levy had given me a slightly broken tent, whose zipper didn't close up entirely, and I tried it out. I set it up, and I took to sitting down and breathing, meditating. The environment was so very peaceful - many people had left the Gathering already, and I heard only occasional birds chirp and the rustle of the leaves above me. A few men approached me, and I said "hi" to them. One of them was "Guru Lou", and after a warm introduction and words of general joy and praise, he told me how to bless my own camp. He said that I breathed in, imagining a white protective aura around me, and then to walk clockwise in a perimeter circle around my camp three times, consciously, willing a protective membrane around my camp. So I did just that, and went back to meditating.
A little while later, another man came into my camp. Zhenia, he was called, and he told me about how he was trying to take his wife and children to an intentional community in Oregon called Circle of Children, but how he had to be back in Chicago at a conflicting time. I had been intrigued by people talking about Oregon during the Gathering, and I said that I could take them if I had no plans by the next day. He gave me his information, we departed, and the rest of my day was fairly uneventful.
The next day was Monday, and officially past the end of the Gathering. Many people were still around, especially those picking up trash and belongings left by other people, cleaning up firepits, bringing down the big structures, and others such. I decided to move out closer to the meadow, where I could better see if I could be of help. So I packed up my stuff and was walking out, through Kiddie Village, when Zhenia looked at me and said hi. "Hi!", I said, and he asked me if I would still be willing to drive out to Oregon. I said "sure", as I had no other more solid plan, so I hung out with them. I was introduced to his wife Rushana, a beautiful petite woman, fair-skinned, with a wide joyful smile and a dancer's body, and to their two children, Yasha, 4 years old, and their tiny 2-year old whose name I just can't remember now.
We hung for the next few days, at first near Kiddie Village, then up at the hill near Shining Light. We'd camped next to a tall, fit guy called Jeremiah, who ended up asking us for a ride, to which we acceded. Zhenia told me also that a guy and girl called Sasha and Sally would also be riding with us, and I always answered pretty much felt and answered "the more the merrier!"
About two days of deciding what to do and where to go later, we set off. Sasha and Sally were thin, Sasha slightly dark, with a marked Belgian accent, and very tall. Sally was shorter than me, with light skin on the darker side of the spectrum (not quite hispanic, but not quite caucasian, either. I think she had some italian in her). They were temporary lovers, as I noticed when they made out on the back seat of my car as we headed out to a music festival out in Butte.
We spent the next few days camping out in forests, attending the Butte Music Festival, and visiting the 1000 Buddhas Garden, 200 miles out west. It took quite some patience - I was following Zhenia and his family, as I was tasked with taking them to Oregon, but Jeremiah, Sasha, and Sally were riding with us only because they had no other way to move around. I noticed their patient silence, as I also wondered when was it that we'd begin moving to the intentional community that Zhenia had talked about, Circle of Children. Zhenia and family woke up late, made a full and hearty breakfast and meals for everyone with an outdoor stove, but we always ended up starting our days after noon, which was a bit annoying. Jeremiah was an expert at making and breaking fires, and it was fun to play around with Yasha and Rada, and sometimes with their two dogs, Tsoy, a tall, black, loyal, territorial Rottweiler, and Laika, a playful golden retriever.
Finally the day came when we parted ways. We were all camped out at a park in Butte, near the Music Festival, along with dozens of other vans and tents in a grassy area. Sasha and Sally were still hanging out and camping together, and probably got a ride with some of the other campers, Jeremiah got a ride with a dude in an old car (but he forgot his pink hula-hoop), Zhenia drove off to Chicago with his two dogs, and I packed in Rushana, Yasha, and Rada into the car, along with baby car seats and their camping equipment, and we drove off to Circle of Children, near Eugene, OR.
We started off pretty late the first day, but we drove out on I-90W up to Spokane, WA, then headed southwest on highway 395. That highway had crops around it, but it was even drier than what I'd seen in New Mexico - there was dust and sand everywhere, and one time I saw a small tornado. I mentioned it to the girl at a gas station later on, and she said they were only called Dust Devils, as they really only bring up dust but nothing else.
Rushana was bent on following small roads and camping out at national forests, while I was bent on arriving to the community sooner. We stopped for lunch beside a river still in the Montana area, had dinner at a Thai restaurant in Richfield, WA, and camped out at a rest stop in Oregon, as we began riding I-84W.
That next day we began a little earlier, and we drove down all the way south on highway 97 until we reached Crater Lake National Park. It was almost 5PM when we got there, but it was still fair daylight. The road quickly got steeper, and we drove up and up and up the steadily more wooded path, and my ears began to clog, like they do when my flight takes off. Up and up we continued driving, and finally we reached the top. And then I saw Crater Lake. And, OH......... it was magical.
I felt like an adventurous explorer in Lord of the Rings. The huge crater was evident just to the left of us - a gigantic hole almost perfectly conical in shape. Lush forest surrounded the crater at every point above it, and only sand and a few brave plants grew in the sand on the cone itself. And at the bottom of the funnel, a deep blue rippling surface of water, tranquil and quiet yet powerful. An immense reservoir of pristine mountain water, with two volcanic islands, covered in trees, jutting out of the lake near the shore. It was gorgeous.
We camped out two nights there, as we visited the natural scenery of the park. But my car was overheating for no reason - I would turn it on cold, coast it down a hill for 2 minutes, and the temperature gauge would go all the way hot. Worried for my car, as well as for being able to get out of there, I pushed to leave the park just as soon as we had gone and jumped into the lake. So two days after, we left the park westward on road 138, heading to Roseburg.
We were lucky the whole way was pretty much in downhill, so I was able to drive down by runnning the car on gear compression. We stayed at a Howard Johnson that night, got a recommendation for a good mechanic when Rushana asked the lady at the hotel counter, and I went to have it fixed first thing in the morning. My serpentine belt had broken off, so I needed a new one. I bought one for $6, had it replaced for $45, thanked the mechanic, and we drove off north on our way to Eugene.
After resupplying at Eugene, we drove out west to Triangle Lake, OR, where Circle of Children was located. We arrived right around dusk, and we were welcomed, Rainbow style, by men, most of them with grown beards, women, and a few children. We were just in time for dinner, and we ate with everyone else at the table, and I began to know everyone by name. A cheerful and active woman, Deva, had brought her three teenage children with her: Jasmine, Austin, and... the third. Black Horse, the "main guy", said usually few words, and they were most always gentle and welcoming, though somewhat distant in attitude. Then there was Chauce, a young guy who only later I found out was 16 years old, gentle and self-effacing, who mostly took care of the herb garden. Jordan, a funny-looking teenager with apparently some kind of Asperger syndrome (just inferring from the way he talked), then a guy called Phoenix and a few others.
The community worked like a small perennial Rainbow gathering. None of the villagers had any financial obligation, they simply "put forth their intentions for the day" every morning at the morning circle, and then they collaborated with the community in any number of diverse tasks needed for the upkeep of the community. Some people helped out in the garden with Chauce, some people collected firewood and set up the cooking fire, some people worked in the kitchen to make lunch and dinner, and some people just hung out. Black Horse never really *made* anyone do anything, nor anyone else did, but there were times when I was sure that he really wanted to.
The first few days we were there, there was an old man there called Michael with a dog he called "Rainbow Peace Dog". I'd met him at one point in Montana, but a few days later, he was leaving. Black Horse had known he was smoking, so he was being expelled. He told this story to me, and the next day, his truck, his dog, and himself weren't there anymore.
The land used to be called "Triangle Lake Conference Center", and it had several buildings build deep in the lush forest we were in. The main hall we hung out at had a full commercial kitchen, all kinds of plates, cups, glasses, cutlery, pots, pans, ovens, and a big table to dine at. One corner of it was filled with musical instruments, mostly percussive and guitars, and another was filled with bookshelves and books, mostly children's, some of them meant for all. Art-related books, mythological books - I read "The Princess and the Lion", which impressed me, because I'd never heard of it before. I then read "Gwinna", which stands to this day as the best and most insightful children's book I've ever read. Then I remember reading "The Little House" to a little boy brought by one of the visiting families. During the three weeks I was there, many families came and went. Some of them I talked to more or had a better connection with, but I made some kind of special bond with Isabel.
Isabel was the oldest of four children brought by two Hawaiian parents. The mom was called Luanna, and I forgot what the dad was called. The parents were fun, alternative, and artistically-oriented, and the children were all home-schooled. During their introduction, Isabel mentioned "Just so everyone knows, I'll be making bracelets, so if anyone wants one, just let me know". I let her know that I wanted a bracelet, and she let me choose up to three different colors from the yarn that she had. I chose colorful ones: blue, green, and orange, I believe, and she set to work. She had done many of them before, I could tell, and when she was done she simply gave it to me. Her character was pretty serious. She was 14, wore glasses, was thin and tall, like her mother, except her mother was pretty short herself.
We got to talking, and we realized we both loved AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER!! And we began sharing all the different funny scenes, and which one was our favorite. When we got to the part about Aang and Katara having ended up together, she lifted her nose a little bit and said "I don't believe in Canon". I said "what?". "Canon is what the story producers say really happened. I know that what they showed is not true; Zuko and Katara were meant to be together, but they just changed it at the last minute to please the crowd. I'm a full Zutara (Zuko+Katara) supporter".
And she showed me her drawings of Avatar the Last Airbender, and they were GREAT! Not meant to be realistic or to imitate the anime - mostly stick figures, but I could recognize every character perfectly! The clothes were just the right colors, the poses were just like those in the comic, and she drew funny comics like one of Zuko with a perfectly stern, rock-solid face, with a talk bubble coming out of him, saying only "Honor".
She considered herself a Waterbender, and I told him I was Pisces, which made me a Waterbender also. We also both loved electronic music, and were happy with all kinds of music except with country music. And we both loved writing! She showed me some of her Avatar the Last Airbender fanfic, and I simply went "wow. She's got TALENT". I was impressed by her writing. She showed me her notebooks, and other artistic creations she makes. We really bonded, and she didn't want to leave three days later, when her parents said she had to. She proposed that she stay in the community alone, and that they could pick her up later. But her parents refused, and she got into a sullen mood. I think that the friendship connection was mutual. Just before leaving she painted a chalk drawing on the sidewalk, a beautiful circle logo with white and blue waves, with the inscription above it: "Once a Waterbender, Always a Waterbender". We hugged goodbye and she left along with the rest of their family.
Those days, a guy from Spain called Manu came into the community, riding along in Reuben's truck. He barely knew any English, and he seemed a bit sullen and frustrated. I felt like talking to him in Spanish, though, so we got to talking one day while we were in the garden. He told me his story - he used to be a farmer and land-owner in the north of Spain, where he had a stable life: wife, farm, crops, house, bills, etc. That life fell apart due to his crops failing, him getting divorced, and finding the Rainbow Gathering over in Europe. He began to follow the Rainbow lifestyle, moved to the Canary Islands, met a girl there, and lived in a paradise lifestyle for 3 (or was it 5?) years. He had only just recently flown to Guatemala to attend the Cosmic and World Rainbow Gatherings in the end of 2012. Since then he'd been living with Rainbow communities in Mexico, he traveled up north across the border to the Rainbow Gathering in Montana (where I met him even if only for a glimpse), hitched a ride to the Butte Music Festival, where I got to talking with him for a few minutes, and then he caught a ride with Reuben. They were originally going to the World Rainbow Gathering up in Canada, but then Reuben changed his mind and decided to go to Circle of Children and other festivals in Oregon. Manu was sick of paying for half the gas of Reuben's 8-cylinder truck across the country, and he was looking for a way to get to the World Gathering.
He told me how the World Rainbow Gathering was very different, and much more genuine, than the one that happened in Montana. In Montana, most people were "tourists", he said, while in the World Rainbow Gathering, the smaller amount of people there were the ones truly intent in connecting. He described a more intimate, deeper, experience, and I was piqued. I proposed we travel together to the Gathering in Canada, and he thought about it. He hesitated, thinking he could hitch a ride somehow else, but when he saw that I really meant it and was excited about it, he agreed to leave with me, and so we left that very evening.
We spent the night at the house of a lovely lady, owner of a daycare, strongly related to Circle of Children, in Eugene. And then we set off on I-5N, straight up. We stopped at Isabel's house just outside of Portland for lunch. She had forgotten her Sara Tone CD at CoC, and asked me to mail it to her. I thought that as long as we were passing through, I could deliver it personally.
We were welcomed very warmly by Isabel and her family. We had a plentiful lunch with them, all the kids showed me their artwork, which differed by each one. Some of them made legos, some of them drew pictures, some of them made play-dough figures, some of them made iPad animations with consecutive pictures of their art. I was both bored and impressed by everything that they showed me - they were better at any of it than me, and they were skilled and creative. In the end, Isabel, showed me more of her older artwork and her room, and she even granted me to write her name on one of the blue hanging bracelets, representing Waterbenders, in her room.
After our visit with the family and a nap that Manu needed, we kept heading north. We spent the night just north of the Washington/Oregon border, under a bridge, next to a river. The next day we kept moving north, and we stopped at Olympia, as Manu wanted to stop somewhere to sell his artisanship and jewelry. We found a Farmers Market at the end of town, but we were kicked out because we had no merchant license. He set up his stand again, this time on the sidewalk, and he managed to sell about $80 worth of merchandise. We met some volunteers who were collecting food remainders at the end of the day, and who would distribute it at some shelter the next day. They lent us some internet access (where we found that the Rainbow Gathering would take place in Vancouver Island) and their activist main house during the afternoon, and gave us a lot of leftovers from the food donations. We then headed out to a forest next to the University of Washington campus, where we'd heard many students just camped out year-long.
We camped there for the night. We were going to camp on the beach of Puget sound, which we were guided to by a certain local camper, but the terrain was not ideal for camping, and we decided to camp under some tall trees within the parking lot itself. In the morning, Manu would always make a delicious oatmeal breakfast with honey, sliced apple and peach, and sometimes jam or peanut butter. It was awesome. I got a $10 parking ticket for staying there overnight without a permit, but it was not too bad. Manu suggested that I just ignore it, but I insisted on sending them a check through the mail, later on.
We kept driving up north on the Olympian Peninsula, hoping to catch a ferry to Vancouver Island at Port Angeles. I decided to stop at a mechanic's shop just because the car shook whenever I drove it at over 70 mi/h. After checking it, the mechanic told me my front right axle was broken, and was leaking grease. And if I continued driving it like that, it would just snap at some point, and I'd be left completely powerless along the road. I opted to fix it, but we'd have to wait til the next day for the right part to be delivered.
So we camped out at the mechanic's land, right next to the Sound. We went swimming in the evening, and I saw Manu make little butterfly bracelets with waxed threads using the Macramé technique. The next morning, the mechanic called us up to tell us the car was ready. I paid him about $270 for the whole thing, and kept driving up north. We made a stop at Port Townsend, apparently a very touristy place in the area, so that Manu could sell his artisanship on the crowded street. I believe he sold a fair amount that day, while I got on email and tried to find places where they'd donate either rain tarps or clean clothes. We were about to cross the border to Canada, and Manu was fairly fearful of crossing borders, so he wanted to dress in a more "traditional" manner.
We stopped by Walmart on the way, and Manu found a rain tarp right outside the building. He said we should take it, but I was really hesitant, and wouldn't do it. When we were at the ferry building, waiting to catch the boat, I changed my mind, and gave the car to Manu, and told him I wouldn't say anything if he were to appear back at the ferry with a new tarp. He was delighted, took the keys, and went to get the rain tarp.
Once we crossed the border on the ferry, the guards at the other end looked at us suspiciously enough that we were inspected further. Questions, questions, ah, and more questions. It was about 1AM by the time we were let go into Victoria, and we drove off, belongings searched and scrambled, and our patiences stretched out a bit thin. Manu was disgruntled to say the least, but he was happy to find some Internet and call his family back in Spain.
We slept at a rest stop up north in the highway, but Manu said he could barely sleep because of the traffic noises. We stopped at a beach to swim, a little town to eat, and at Nanaimo to spend the rest of the day. Manu set up his shop and sold jewelry, and played the guitar, while I walked around the park, just looking at the people enjoy themselves. I also used my ceramic bowl to collect as many blackberries as I could - they grew all around the park, next to the beach, and they seemed to be in perfectly ripe season. I collected a full bowl, and then shared it with Manu to put in our oatmeal.
That night we slept at a small park, at the parking lot, where slugs abounded but mosquitoes were luckily few. We kept on driving north, and I saw two hitchhikers with signs to pick them up. They were evidently going to the Rainbow Gathering, but I didn't react quickly enough. My and Manu's baggage occupied a large portion of the car, and it was hard to imagine two extra people fitting in, along with the rest of their baggage. But I thought it was possible, and if I had been a hitchhiker right there, I would've liked to be picked up. So I went and found the next exit - 6 miles down, went back, made space for them in the car, and then picked them up. Their names were Alana and Danny. They were cheerful canadians (certainly cheerful we picked them up), the second slightly sterner, but in a that's-my-dry-sense-of-humor kind of way. Manu was a little annoyed that we'd gone back so much distance to pick them up, but we all fit in just fine, even if they were pretty cramped in the backseat.
We got to Port Hardy to resupply, and were told by a local woman that we shouldn't go to the Gathering, because they had closed it already. We would try anyway, so we took the rocky road to the town called Holberg, and just drove all the way.
The road was a logging road, frequented by logging trucks, surrounded by forest, patches of which were cut down, and some of which were marked. I was very careful not to hit any big rocks on the road too hard, which could easily puncture any of the delicate tanks on my car's underbelly, or damage the tires or the axles. We drove for about 2 or 3 hours to get to Holberg. Once there, we found some other Rainbows who gave us directions to Raft Cove, and after following them, we got there!
The parking lot was small, the road was still rocky and dusty, and the trail to the beach park itself was long. It was already getting dark when we got to the lot, and as we began walking up and down the muddy, slippery, rocky trail through the dense forest, all lights went out, and we began using our flashlights. It must've taken us 40 minutes to get to the beach, by time we barely managed to find a decent campsite on the sand next to the forest, meet up with some Quebecois people, and go to sleep.
We spent a few happy days in that beach. There were 40-50 gathered people when we got there, and slowly more of us appeared. The place was gorgeous. The beach was at least a kilometer's length of flat beach, hundreds of meters in width, with a marked slope and an area where the tide would rise at several points in the day. The fine, smooth sand caressed our feet as we walked, and past the steady ocean waves we could see a far-off island and beautiful, blue, clear skies. The forest line was very well marked, and inside the forest there were manmade trails and already-set-up camping spaces for the visitors. There were even bear lockers and toilets.
At the end of the beach, there was a tidal river, which was also our main method of resupplying. One of the Rainbows, called Aaron, had collected a whole season's harvest from his garden to donate to the Gathering that year, had built a cargo canoe for the river, and that's what we used to move supplies in and trash out.
I remember Yuka, from Japan, who made sushi one time, and was very proactive in the kitchen duties. I remember the short, pointy-bearded guy who yelled a lot, had a croaky voice, and was always complaining exaggeratedly about something that was wrong or that had to be done. I remember Aaron, I remember Amita of Indian race but Australian citizenship, I remember Aparna, an indian girl of same origin and friend to Amita. I remember Damian, who always wore glasses and a cowboy hat, and sometimes would stand on the beach and practice his "Morningstar" technique. I believe it was also him who told me about his two favorite inventions, the time we were coming back from a trash run up the tidal river: the trombe, and something else. One of them was used to cool down water, and even create ice, only with the energy of flowing water. The other was used to lift up a very small amount of water a very tall height, only with the energy of flowing water. They both made theoretical sense.
That time that we went on the trash run, we met up with some park rangers on the other end, who told us that the park was closed, and that we should exit it as soon as possible. Apparently, word had gotten out that 2000 Rainbowers were invading Raft Cove Provincial Park, and that they were probably going to trash it like they did at the event in Palenque the previous year. The locals were not happy about it, so they had filed some kind of protest, and as a result, the park rangers had closed the park, and were letting no one else in.
So here we were, in a place with absolutely no phone signal, hard to get back from, wanting to continue with the Rainbow Gathering, but being pushed to get out. Some acceded immediately and left. Most of us stayed, and asked for a more solid reason than the authorities' directions, since they claimed to have high environmental awareness and would probably leave the place in better condition than it was before. The rangers mentioned that the native Indians who owned the land were concerned and wanted us out, but this was met with a request that the Indian chief himself tell them that he wanted them to leave the park.
Several "vision circles" were held, where the Rainbowers voiced their opinions and proposed actions for the community. During one of those circles, a helicopter flew into the park and landed on the beach. Two park rangers and the Indian chief came out of the helicopter, and they basically asked everyone to leave immediately. The helicopter left, and at that point, people began making plans to leave. A "scout party" of 3 people left the park immediately with instructions to ask other heritage chiefs to let them celebrate the Gathering at their land, and to relay to us which place was appropriate once they knew of a good place. So they left, and then the next day, Sasha and I (oh yes! Sasha and Sally arrived at the Gathering a little later on, and after making a little re-meeting dance with them, Sasha took on a big part of the leadership effort to guide the community into united decisions) drove to Holberg and contacted the scout team. Two days later, however, it was pretty clear that we weren't going to get solid permission from any native group to be on their land, so we decided to move to the best next thing - an area that was already known to be frequented by hippies: Rainbow Beach, near the coastal, touristy town of Tofino.
So we moved. Manu, Alana, Danny, and I packed up, met up at the car, and drove east all the way until we reached the 19S south highway. We resupplied at Port Hardy, where I bought a 10kg bag of oats, we found some cheap showers in the area, drove down south until I got tired, got into a rest stop, and slept there for the night. Manu and Alana slept in a single tent, while Danny and I shared the car. Manu thanked me, grinning, for having let him sleep with Alana the last night, and they certainly seemed a lot touchier the next few days. Danny seemed to be silently, resignedly heartbroken, but we moved on.
We drove all the way to Rainbow Beach that night, and when we arrived, a reporter took a few pictures of us. We parked our car at the entrance to the Main Trail, which was a LOT shorter than the one on Raft Cove. It took us 2 minutes to walk on the boarded trail through the ancient forest, surrounded by gigantic trees, some of them already fallen and rotten, and reach the lake, which kept warm waters inside.
The next 8 days or so, at Rainbow Beach, were wonderful. Actually, the second day there, it rained and was cold all day, I had no camp set up, and I spent all day moving between rain tarps and my car. Morale was low between some people, I could tell, and some of them actually left the very next day, some of them for Burning Man. Miah, who I'd met in the Rainbow Gathering in July, had arrived as part of the bicycle caravan from Montana. We were very happy to see each other again, although she had hurt her ankle on the way, and had hitched a ride to arrive.
But the special thing about that day was the song I learned that evening under the common tarp. It was cold and rainy, and we hadn't seen the sun all day. We all huddled around the one large firepit, holding hands as we sang. And then Miah began to sing this one song, which really got to me in our current context:
I want to let Life move me
I want to let Life stir me deep
I want to let Life wake me
From an ancient sleep
I want to laugh all my laughter (ha!)
I want to cry all my tears.
I want to love the rain just as deeply as
the sun when it's here.
And that was it. All at once I felt the rain and the cold in a very different light. They were also to be felt and loved, like everything that is, and the more I shunned it, the unhappier I'd be. That moments stands now as one of magic and inspiration to me.
The next 8 days or so, at Rainbow Beach, were wonderful. I met more awesome, open people, I walked a few km to fetch water to help out when I could, and I also met Lauren again, who seemed to get together with a tall german-looking guy, but who still seemed to make out with many people and smile enchantingly at me. One time we looked at each other's eyes and we would have kissed, except that I didn't want to kiss her if nothing else would come of it, so I simply hugged her, and kissed her all over her face except on her lips.
But the special thing about that day was the song I learned that evening under the common tarp. It was cold and rainy, and we hadn't seen the sun all day. We all huddled around the one large firepit, holding hands as we sang. And then Miah began to sing this one song, which really got to me in our current context:
I want to let Life move me
I want to let Life stir me deep
I want to let Life wake me
From an ancient sleep
I want to laugh all my laughter (ha!)
I want to cry all my tears.
I want to love the rain just as deeply as
the sun when it's here.
And that was it. All at once I felt the rain and the cold in a very different light. They were also to be felt and loved, like everything that is, and the more I shunned it, the unhappier I'd be. That moments stands now as one of magic and inspiration to me.
The next 8 days or so, at Rainbow Beach, were wonderful. I met more awesome, open people, I walked a few km to fetch water to help out when I could, and I also met Lauren again, who seemed to get together with a tall german-looking guy, but who still seemed to make out with many people and smile enchantingly at me. One time we looked at each other's eyes and we would have kissed, except that I didn't want to kiss her if nothing else would come of it, so I simply hugged her, and kissed her all over her face except on her lips.
I often jumped off from Rainbow Bridge onto the lake as a refresher, and I often bathed naked in the lake, enjoying the warm water on my skin and the bright sun on my face. I saw naked guys and girls walk and yoga all around the beach, many of them covered in clay, abundant on that lake beach. And at night there would be a big firepit, fueled with the firewood we collected during the day, and people would drum and dance around it in a big drum circle. The leadership of a woman called Aiya, or something, made this happen. People were a bit indecisive beforehand, but at one point, she began to speak up and ask people to organize, and to keep the Gathering running gloriously. As a result, people really did organize, and roles were distributed organically to anyone that would help. And the first night we had a large firepit, we could tell people were glad. Energy was high, people would dance and jump all around, poi with lights and fire were taken out, girls and guys went into the lake naked and splashed water all over each other, go back to dancing, and do it all over again.
The full moon night, supposedly the climax night, was fairly intense, but not quite as much as the first firepit night. A "wolf dance" was organized, where people would paint their bodies with colored clay, and dance around the fire with their eyes closed and their hearts open (or something like that). Lots of drums were sounding, and the people flayed arms, and swayed, and danced. At least I know I did. The fire burned strong, and it was amazing to see people, like Carrie, dance right next to it with only their skins to the fire.
Also at Rainbow beach I got to set up my first rain tarp, and I shared a few one-to-one moments with Danny (who was still sullen and thoughtful about Alana). Eventually, around August the 22nd, I decided to leave the Gathering, as my cousin Bobby had asked me to be his best man at his wedding near Mountaintop, PA, on September 1st, and I had decided to drive there. So I took a russian girl called Maria with me, we spent the first night at an ocean beach in Tofino, looking out westward into the ocean, each of us on a different tidal island - the tide would rise at night, disconnecting it from the beach, and it'd lower in the morning, allowing us to step back out of it. I had a fairly uneasy sleep there, since my sleeping surface wasn't as flat as I would've liked. It was still pretty wonderful, though.
The next day we drove off. We took the ferry south of Nanaimo to the Vancouver area, drove south through the border to the US, where we were again detained and asked questions about our belongings and intentions in the US. We drove to Seattle and stayed at Maria's friend's place. It was both nice and strange to stay and shower indoors, after weeks of not having done so. The next day I took my car in to get an alignment, and while that was happening, Maria decided to fly to NYC instead of driving with me. It was very important that she get back before the 28th. I was a bit disappointed and I told her - I was counting on her as a riding partner, since I knew driving alone could make me tired and, well, bored. We parted on a tense but friendly spirit, and after my car was aligned, I drove out east.
Before we had set out driving with Maria, I published a lot of rideshare ads on Craigslist that we were going east, and would take gas contributions if anyone wanted to get a ride with us. By that time I'd gotten a lot of responses, and I decided to take them as my backup riding partners on the way. That day I drove a college girl student from Seattle to the Washington/Idaho border, and I stayed the night just past the border at a rest stop. The next day I drove all day through Montana to Bozeman, picked up a girl called Callie, kept driving east to Glendive, MT, picked up a couple of guys, and then spent the night at a rest stop in North Dakota. The next day we drove to Minneapolis and dropped those two guys off, kept driving to Chicago and dropped Callie off, though by the time we had arrived it was already 4AM, and we just stayed in her car. We had a nice morning chat at her friend's apartment in Arlington Heights, where we gave each other our email addresses, and I drove to my parents' place.
I thought of just saying hi, staying the night, and leaving the next day. I couldn't get ahold of them for a few hours, though, so I diverted myself by giving a random dude $20 and internet at McDonald's. Eventually, my parents came back, we got together, and I spent the night at their place.
In the morning I picked up a couple of dudes and their dog, Osita, up from Chicago Union Station, and we began driving east. They were funny. Batman, on shotgun, was talkative and told me about how he left his school and job in Austin to help his mom in New Orleans, and had somehow ended up being a bum in NYC next to Nappy, who loved to take naps and had adopted Osita from the streets of Mexico. We drove to Pittsburgh that night, where they found a place to sleep on a house's porch in South Oakland, and I slept in my car next to Schenley Park, near CMU. I picked them up on Forbes Ave in the morning, and we kept driving to NYC. We drove all day, stopped only for food and gas, and I dropped them just before entering the NYC bridge, where the toll was $20 to get inside the city. They gave me some money, were very thankful, and even invited me into the city to hang out. I wanted to go, but I didn't want my car to get ticketed or towed, so I decided to hang out in NJ that night. I slept in my car, parked next to a small commercial center.
The next night was the rehearsal dinner night, and I drove straight to Wilkes-Barre, where my cousin lived. Once there, I tried to get ahold of Bobby. He didn't answer, so I asked Marcos, who I knew was already there to attend the wedding. He gave me the address, and I appeared there right after. I saw Bobby and his fiancée right after, and we all said hi and stuff. They both seemed stressed out by the wedding - she by the wedding details and Bobby by her, so they had little time for us as they went out to get ready. For what I've heard of weddings, that seems understandable.
I got my tuxedo suit fitted that day, attended the rehearsal ceremony at the country club, was demoted from best man to just another groomsman because of my appearance (long hair, shabby unkempt beard), and attended the rehearsal dinner with the families of the groom and the bride. It was a nice family event, with candles on the table and lanterns hanging from a piñata wire that crossed the backyard.
The following day was pretty low-key, and then the next was the wedding itself. Both Bobby and his bride didn't seem to be really ready up until at least noon, when I remember Bobby was still hard at work writing his vows. Eventually, we all arrived at the country club, Eric, Marcos, me, and the other groomsmen and maids of honor, all dressed up and ready to attend. Then he got married, and then the party occurred, and I ate candy and cake and some fancy dinner. I danced for a while to some hip-techno music that appeared in the lineup, and Shari seemed really impressed. I was just footing my way rhythmically across the floor, though. I also got to talk to Simone again, who told me she was still painting as her main hobby.
I spent the following two days at Bobby's place, but I did very little. I felt I had nowhere to go in the area - Bobby had just gotten married, and they would soon leave on their European honeymoon. NYC was there - I could go and join Batman and Nappy, but where would I leave the car? Pittsburgh was there - I could visit Bhiksha, Julian, Laura, Carlos... and since I had already reconnected with people that I knew before, now that my Onyx identity had been paused, I might as well give my parents some time with me, right?
But not quite yet. I waited until Tuesday to leave, then found a park called "Seven Tubs" really close to Wilkes-Barre, and parked right there. There I stayed for a day and a night. All day I spent there, thinking to myself, thinking about what to do, or what the heck I was doing anything for. I took out the Dialogues of Plato, and began reading it, changing place and position every once in a while. I reached the dam at the end of the park, then went back to the parking lot in the dark, put my sleeping bag right next to the car, and stayed there for the night.
But a police car showed up at 4AM, interrogated me, and then just let me go back to sleep. So I got less rest than I wanted, but I still managed to spend the night. The next day I drove out to Walmart, and decided to stay there until I finished reading The Dialogues of Plato. So that's what I did. I also decided to only eat oats and water until I finished, and so I did. I spent the next 2-3 days in that parking lot, eating oats from my big bag, drinking water that I regularly refilled from Walmart, going to the bathroom at Walmart, reading Plato during all my free time, and napping whenever I felt tired. And perhaps because of my plain diet, I did feel tired often.
It just so happened that Bee emailed at this point, and asked me if I was the neighborhood of Pennsylvania. I was, so I emailed him back, texted him, and told him that I'd be happy to meet with him. A couple of days went by without an answer, though, so in the end I decided to drive to Pittsburgh, and then Chicago, as I figured out a more solid plan.
So I did just that. I went to Pittsburgh, I crashed with Carlos for the night, I told him about some of my travels since I last saw him in May, and told him that he probably wouldn't hear from me for a while, since I had the intention of disappearing again. The next day I picked up a couple of dumbo rats for a lady who offered $200 to bring them to Minneapolis, put them in my car, and drove off west, anxious to get paid for the gas money I was using on my way.
The dumbo rats died on the way, though. I think they died because of overheating, as my car had no air conditioning. I set the fan on maximum and opened the windows, but it might have even been that that killed them. I don't know. They were suddenly laying down on their cages and panting, so I stopped at a rest stop to take care of them - I brought them along with their cage into the air-conditioned rest stop, got kicked out because pets were forbidden, put them in a bowl of cold water and massaged their tiny bodies and limbs to keep them alive... long story short, they died and went stiff as wood. The lady was sad to the point of tears, politely blamed me for their deaths, I threw the little rat corpses in the trash, and I gave the cage away to a pet store in Chicago. And I did not get $200.
I stayed in Chicago for about 2 weeks after that. But 2 weeks was too much to spend with my mom and dad after having spent so much time wandering "free" and alone with my car. It was also a pain to make sure that my car wouldn't get ticketed by being parked in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that a policeman wouldn't notice that my license plates were expired, and partly because of all the above, I left for Milwaukee as soon as I found a rideshare ad that seemed to be compatible with my plans.
I picked up a girl and her boyfriend at Chicago Union Station one morning, and we drove up to Milwaukee. The traffic was horrible that day, even though it was a Sunday, and we made it up there only until 4PM or so. They stayed in Milwaukee and planned to jump on a cargo train to head west to some farms to find work. I parked on a sidewalk and slept in my car, and in the morning went out to explore Milwaukee.
My serpentine belt broke again that morning, so I thought I'd replace it myself, now that I knew where it was located. I bought the tools, but I failed to replace the belt, so I ended up paying $30 for someone else to do it. I also got new used tires for the car, which was a relief, as everyone that looked at them told me that they REALLY needed to be replaced. And that was ever since Seattle.
That night I slept in my car in North Milwaukee, but I spent the next few nights with a couchsurfer girl in the vicinity of University of Wisconsin. I explored the city in my card during the day, attempting to read through The Analects of Confucius in the grassy parks of the area. I had a good time as I read and wandered around, but I felt that I lacked purpose. I thought of perhaps driving west again and meeting up with Callie in Bozeman, or with Danny up in Canada again, but it felt like I was stretching it now, as if I wasn't really into the travel anymore, and was just doing it out of momentum and personal pride. So I decided to head back to Chicago, and decide what to do from there.
So I drove back south and slept my first night just outside of the Baha'i Temple in Wilmette. I went to a diner in the morning, faced the morning traffic to reach Bucktown, and spent a few nights at my parents' place again. I wasn't sure what to do at this point - I had nothing specific to do, but I had options. There was a mini-Rainbow gathering happening in Shawnee, on the southern tip of Illinois. Two bums in NYC had also offered a friendly invite to accompany them for a while. RW was offering me a temporary project sometime soon to be finished in November. As the offer became more solid, I looked for Macbooks on the Craigslist market and grabbed a decent offer: a 13" Macbook Pro Retina Display with 128GB SSD for $1000.
But most remarkably of all, Marcos was getting married on Oct 4th to his girlfriend, who I had not met until then. I thought that was worth looking into, and a few days later, I decided I would drive to Boulder and attend Marcos' wedding.
I picked up a veeery peaceful/gentle, but veeery talkative and long-winded kid called Robin Root from near Chicago Union Station, who wanted to go to the Denver area. We began driving late at night, at about 1AM, after we'd left a musical party that Zhenia had invited me to. I quickly got tired of driving, so I left the freeway at a random exit, found a random residential street, parked prudently behind another parked car next to the sidewalk, and went to sleep.
At about 4AM, I woke up with a flashlight in my face and some knocking on my window. The cops were here! They had fined me with a $15 parking ticket, and they asked why we were there and what we were doing repeatedly, suspiciously, and searched everything that we had. They were very careful when asking us if we had any weapons or anything of the sort, to which we responded calmly and truthfully that we had nothing dangerous in our belongings. One of the cops asked "Why did you park in front of this house?". "No reason, we just thought we could stop here and spend the night without bothering anyone". "Do you know what this house is?". "Eh, no". "Are you serious? You really don't know where you are?" " I have no idea". "Well son, you better go buy a lottery ticket or something, because, right now, how you are parked in front, right here, you're lighting up red flags all over the place".
The cops let us go after they confirmed that we had nothing dangerous on us, but they did take away Robin's glass bong, which he said that he was sad about. We drove off right then and there, only half-rested, and kept driving until we reached a gas station near Lincoln, NE. There, we picked up another dude, who was also going to Denver. He was actually going to California, but he had another ride lined up from Denver. He drove the rest of the way to Denver through the night, and I enjoyed the ride as I saw thunderstorms rage outside in the stormy Nebraska sky. He told me about his life - he had been part, or friends, of the main drug circles at one point in the USA, centered in the Nebraska area, making huge batches of LSD and selling them, becoming rich in the process. He had not become rich, but he had many connections, and he tried all sorts of drugs, and knew how to control their effects, and everything. Then he said he once went through a Peyote ceremony, and that his animal spirit, an otter, showed himself to him and guided him. He told him that he shouldn't worry so much about what other people had or thought, and that it wasn't really possessions that would make him happy. I don't remember everything of what he said, but he mentioned many meaningful, wise recommendations for Life, and my respect for Peyote only increased. I had heard a similar comment from a mexican guy called Ro at Rainbow Beach the previous month, who said he'd talked with a rat when he did it.
We arrived at Denver at about 5AM, and after they grabbed their bags, I couldn't find them again, neither physically nor by phone. Rush hour was about to start, so I decided to drive to Boulder immediately, and wait to contact Marcos when I was there. So I did just that. I looked for Marcos' apartment based on his address but couldn't find his specific building, so I parked at a grocery store and took a 1-to-2-hour nap. Then I followed Marcos' directions better, found the place, greeted him, and went to sleep in his spare room.
Marcos and Pamela, who I got to know just then, were to be married on Saturday, Oct 5th. The day of the wedding, we got to buy a cake, set out little fruits and nuts on little glass bowls for everyone to eat, and we set up the chairs for everyone to be able to sit down. The ceremony took place at their apartment. They dressed up nicely with matching turquoise dress and tie, and the invitees were Javier and family, John and family, Nicole's parents, and me. Javier introduced their wedding with some nice traditional words for a wedding, then they said their vows to each other, in which they said that they were joining their lives because they knew that they were better together than apart.
We then drank cider/champagne to toast, then went to a nice restaurant downtown, where the whole gang sat down and talked about randomities, while Javier's children ran and jumped and played around, and gave the whole reunion a more carefree and cheerful aspect. Then the dinner was dissolved, everyone went back home, and I went to sleep.
I spent the next few weeks in expectant limbo, at times visiting Javier and family down near Denver. I had heard from Jim, from RW, that there was some freelance work for me coming up, to be ready for November. I thought that it would be worth it if I could make some money out of it, to recoup some savings and plan on my next action with a wider financial cushion. But I waited, and waited what seemed like months, and I heard nothing back from them. When I did hear back from them, we began negotiating the price, which I'm always terrible at. I gave them an hourly wage and a maximum number of hours, which made them get back at me with a fixed wage by using the maximum number of hours. The money was alright, so we set on a date to begin our meetings and the project with. I confirmed with Pedro, in Austin, that I could stay with him for a few days as I settled down in Austin, and then one day, after the wind had blown off my right back window and I had bought a polarized, purple replacement for it at a junkyard down near Denver, I drove off to Austin.
The first day I drove on I-70E through Kansas, south on highway 281, I reached Oklahoma City in the evening, and stayed at a Motel 6 somewhere near the freeway. I tried to re-title and re-license my car while in the state of Oklahoma, as it seemed like an easy thing to do there, but I needed insurance for my car, which I couldn't get without having to process a couple of things with State Farm. I decided to pass, and I just drove south to Waco that day to meet with Pedro, spent a few hours with him, Silvia, and Francisco there, and then we drove down to his apartment in Austin.
And there I stayed for about a week. He lived in an apartment in west UT, so parking was sporadically available, as the busy students frequently left and grabbed the parking spaces in the area. It wasn't long since I began to go to the Reddwerks office every day to work on the project, so day parking wasn't a problem. Pedro and I spent our nights watching YouTube videos, working on Sage and Python, and discussing ideas and details for an automated educational system that would replace the one currently at their university.
I'd be spending a whole month in Austin, though, and I decided to myself that one month was too long of a time to ask him to host me on his only couch-futon at his one-bedroom apartment. So I began Craigslisting, looking for good sublet and temporary offers in the area. I found a few close calls - one of them was snatched from me by another guy, and another one replied too late. In the end, I rented a private room in AirBnb for a month for $960 ($800 + AirBnB fees, I believe) in the Westlake area from Sharon, a cool, hip, traveled, and down-to-earth 50+ year-old lady with chickens in her backyard for fresh eggs, who made Kombucha for herself to drink, who made green smoothies for herself every morning, who would own no pans with teflon, who recommended I go to Trader Joe's, the local gold mine, at every opportunity that I had, who had backpacked all around the world both alone and with her daughters, who once had an affair with her high school teacher, the author of "You must be joking, Mr. Feynman", who had married an Eritrean man who was now running for president, who knew how the visa system worked in the USA and what attributes they looked most at, who stored all the extant jars for all the blenders she'd had in the last 17 years in that house, who suggested that I apply for a job at UNV (United Nations Volunteers) where I'd be able to work and travel at the same time, who had worked as a nurse for the last 30 years, who was now investing in real estate down in San Antonio, where the market was still not quite as saturated as in Austin, and who sometimes would really not stop talking or let me get back to work when I needed to and tried to hint at it. She was just as sociable as all that, but I really felt an almost-overwhelming air of hospitality and warmth from her when she was around.
Her house was large and well-furnished, if a little cluttered. The large living room had a fireplace, a central glass coffee table, comfortable sofas and chairs all around, hardwood floors, and all kinds of travel- and global- related magazines on the table. The kitchen was fully equipped, although I had no access to the large refrigerator - only to a small mini fridge she had gotten for her guests.
At first I chose a room with a bunk bed on the very end of the house, but it felt pretty cramped. Ten days in, the cushion was also becoming too soft and was hurting my back at night, so I asked to switch rooms. Sharon was really accommodating, and I took another small room, but with no bunk bed, so I now had a large, long surface where I could either sit down or lay down without being careful to not hit my head.
As for the project, things were going smoothly. I'd received the final requirements document, I'd set up the previous build version running on my new Macbook Pro, I signed my contract, I met Ajay, the guy I'd be working with on the project, and we began to work. The upgrade was fairly straightforward and we hit few roadblocks. Ajay and I got to the testing phase within 2 weeks, and since then, I switched my tasks between working on new features for the project and developing small experimental features to automate certain tedious tasks in the internal testing process in RW.
By the third week of November, there were no extant issues to fix, and we already had a build of a sort deployed on the main production server. At that point I began to figure out what to do next. I sometimes went out with Pedro, Ricardo, and Silvia, whenever we had time for something, either to celebrate Silvia's birthday, or to just go out for kicks. We went out to Austin Pizza Garden once, and then we visited Ricardo a couple of times to try to resuscitate Pedro's Porsche or to help him pick out a new laptop for himself. But besides the decreasing number of issues and the occasional hangout with Pedro, I was ready to move on. Singapore was my first choice - I had more funds now, so I could grab my bags and go to Asia for a longer while. But then again, I hadn't seen my family in Guatemala in over two years now. So I went for the latter option - Pedro bought me a first-class ticket with his United Airlines miles, and I was all ready to go back to Guatemala in the next few days.
And then the Thursday before my flight, Google called me, and asked me if I was still interested in a job with them. And I asked "ehh... what?" Apparently they had unearthed my application from Spring last year, and decided to give me a call to consider having me as a Software Engineer in their company. My priorities shook and scrambled. Wasn't I about to go to Singapore? I was interested in a carefree, nomadic, work-as-you-move lifestyle! But Google... GOOGLE was kinda offering me a job? What? Would I say no to THAT? It's the best thing I could think of to an ideal programming and engineering job, at least conceptually. Google has an amazing reputation for salary, for benefits, for location, for the CHALLENGES! Umm, and I couldn't bring myself to say no. I told them I was interested, but that I was sort of on the move these days, and was planning a trip to Singapore during 6-8 weeks, after I visited Guatemala. They asked to interview me on the phone while I was in Guatemala sometime next week, I said OK, they asked for my resume, and that was that for then.
So then I flew to Guatemala. Elisa picked me up, I spent my time at the apartment there with her and Alicia, and I then met my mom, to whom it was all a surprise that I had arrived at Guatemala. I met most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins while I was there, but a bit surprisingly, not Joel. I got to see Paola, Silvia, Richard & Nel, Manfredo &Heidi & Josué & Daniela, Marcelo, Fily, Bidkar, and Yorch. I did miss Scarleth and Ivania, mostly because I had no car and I could never gauge when was the right time to tell them I was in Guatemala and that they knew nothing about it.
As things would have it, on my second day in Guatemala, I got an email from Aparna. From the Rainbow Gathering. And she said "hey, I'm in Guatemala! Are you around??". My mouth gaped wide open. I had JUST come into the country. She didn't know I was around! Yet she emailed me just about exactly on-the-dot after I'd arrived in the country! I accepted it as a synchronous event from the Universe, and said I'd love to meet her. She was spending her time at San Marcos La Laguna, next to Atitlán Lake. I'd never been there, and had heard much about it as a spiritual hub, so I decided to give it a try. So on the second Monday while I was there, I took the bus to Pana for Q30.
The boat to San Marcos La Laguna was Q25, and one night at the hostel was Q25. I spent my first night listening to a dude also called Antonio, but nicknamed "El Muerto" because he was so thin, excitedly describing each of the twelve different tracks of his masterpiece album, telling me how his mom was a disaster in the kitchen but how he had learned to cook at the Intecap and was now certified as an international chef, and about how having sex with a condom was a homosexual act because its intent was to interrumpt pregnancy. I listened on and on, one-quarter curious and three-quarters bored to death, and was very thankful when he heeded my way-too-late "hey dude, I'm tired and need to go to sleep". The room was OK enough, but there were way too many flies in the room for my comfort, so the next day I switched hostels to one that cost Q35 a night, but that also had access to the lake and that was filled with international travelers, had WiFi, offered yoga classes in the mornings (for Q35 a class), and where they served food and drinks. And way less flies, too.
I heard no response from Aparna the next day until the late evening, when she said we should meet in the morning at the hostel's yoga class. So we did, and it was very refreshing to meet her. It was a bit bizarre to meet someone from the Rainbow Gathering, what I'd considered a fully isolated experience in my Life, in my home country, though at a town I'd never been in before. We hung out a couple of hours each day, though it wasn't much, as she was taking several spiritual courses at a place called "Las Pirámides", something like Metaphysics, and Chakras, and Meditation, and other such classes. One early morning we walked up to the hill called "Nariz del Indio" to see the sun rise, meditate, and chant mantras. And that was relaxing. I got a bit impatient near the end when I felt I was done but they still seemed lost in themselves.
We had a few deep conversations together, when we basically told each other that we were kind of lost in Life, and figuring out our best next step in Life. Or whether there was a best step. Or just enjoying it. All that existential stuff. She told me her story at a Tai Chi temple under construction up a hill, and I told her mine on the town's main dock, our feet dangling over the lake, a starry background in our eyes, a single long shooting star falling down from the sky.
I did a lot of Kindle reading while I was there. Aparna was often busy, and I had nothing else productive to do, so I took the time to read. I read The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain and Candide by Voltaire. The first a recommendation from my dad, the second from my literature professor at UVG. I saw intriguing concepts described in novel ways in both books, and I was happy to have read them.
And we met a guy called Alfredo. Actually, Aparna met him, and then we all hung out together for a couple of days. He was from Peru, he often wore a shirt with a Peyote psychedelic symbol on it - an outstretched hand with colorful energy signatures coursing all throughout the palm, its spikes peaking at the fingertips, and the core of the energy signature being the Peyote plant. When I asked him about it, he said his animal guide was the deer, which was also depicted on the shirt that he wore, surging from the thumb's energy signature.
Only a few days had passed, and I felt I was ready to move on. By that time I felt a strong urge to reconnect with Laura, and to do so in person. It seemed to me that no matter what decision I took, the concept of Laura still effected my decision, and that did not make sense, since we were not in a relationship, and barely even friends, anymore. So I went back to the city. I began messaging Laura's friends on facebook - Hamed, Mohammed - anyone who could tell me what Laura's relationship status and lifestyle was like. None of them responded favorably, if they did, so I decided to go the direct route. I messaged Laura, told her I'd be in Pittsburgh the following week, and asked her if she wanted to meet for dinner to catch up sometime. And then she said yes! And I knew what I had to do. I bought a ticket to Pittsburgh, I asked Carlos if I could crash with him, I planned everything to leave on Monday 16th, I confirmed dinner with her, and I flew.
Back in Pittsburgh, the 28x still took my old CMU ID as fare to get me into Oakland, and I met up with Carlos there. He picked up along with some friends on their way to a restaurant/bar in downtown called Seviche. That bar was full-latin spirit. We ordered some tapas, had some drinks, we danced salsa, and hung out. There was this one girl, called Lindsey, who acted very lovingly. She started talking to me and said "You have a great smile! So warm and happy!" I was happy to hear her say that, although I had heard it before. It was still nice to be reminded of it, and I thought that she also had the same quality. The whole way she acted was very friendly, warm, and extroverted. She told me something along the lines of: "We have to experience every part of our living, and express it! Everything - not just the happiness. Also the sadness! It's very important!" And while I agreed in theory, after she left and I spent the next two hours along with my friends seeing them dance and feeling useless at it, I could not help but remembering similar scenes back in High School where the situation was exactly the same, and I got to feel the same painful, silent tears from 15 years back. And I felt like I had no one to say it to, and I wondered how else to express my sadness, like Lindsey had just told me to.
The next day I prepared for my dinner with Laura. I rented a car for a day, I bought her flowers, I cut my hair, I bought her chocolate chip cookies, I bought us a bottle of cider, and I spent the day figuring out which was the best place to take her out to dinner. We ended up going to a Thai place really close to Carlos' place called, what do you know, Thai Place. I got there 20 minutes earlier to give them the extra gifts in advance, asking them to bring them in at several important times in the meal. The cider during the drinks, the flowers as we were eating dinner, and the chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
And we had a nice dinner. And I told her a bit about what I'd done this year. And then, without waiting for her to tell me about her own life, because I knew I didn't have enough time in a single dinner, I plunged in and told her how I'd figured out that I still loved her, and that I really needed to know whether she and I still had any kind of chance together. It was critical for me to move on. She didn't like my offering, though, and she came with a self-determined "I know what I'm doing with my life and I don't want anyone else taking over it!" She was adamant about it, though, so I knew no silly convincing of mine would make her change her mind. But still I did my silly convincing, but for my own sake, because I knew my heart would not be convinced unless I tried my best. And I guess I succeeded. I ended up convinced - our time together was over.
Though I shed tears at the dinner, I took the whole conclusion surprisingly well. The next day I took Carlos to buy a computer at BestBuy for his mom, and a Polar heart rate monitor for his dad, dropped him off at the 28x bus station for his trip to Guatemala, returned the rental car, went to look for Bhiksha at his office, but he wasn't there. I did run into Seza, however, who invited me to dinner at her place that night. I said "sure", as I had no other plans, so that night, after helping her with some LaTeX trouble she was having, we walked up to her house on Beeler and got ready for her dinner party.
She, a Turkish girl who lived in Holland, had invited an Egyptian guy, a Persian guy, an Indian girl, and me, a Guatemalan guy. The loose relationship (fair geographical neighborhood) between all their diverse cultures impressed me, and they often found words that meant the same in Indian and Turkish, or Turkish and Arabic, or Indian and Persian, or Turkish and Persian, etc. We talked a little about CMU also, but I remember the conversation being mostly about cultures and personal hobbies. Most everyone was an avid speaker, and as I am mostly an avid listener, during the first part of the party, I listened in.
Mohammed, the Egyptian, practiced kickboxing, squash, Jiu Jitsu, running, and other such sports regularly, or as a stress buster, was pretty much in love with his research in ECE, and was working on Novel Electronics. Mehdi, the Persian, was a stern but witty conversationalist, and it was often mentioned at the party that in a few years, he would be ultra, extremely rich - the king of Silicon Valley. And he was also an accomplished traditional Persian singer. Divya, the Indian girl, loved to dance and participated in Bollywood-like Indian dance performances whenever she could afford to. Seza mentioned little about herself - I imagine she assumed all of us knew her. It was an interesting star-topology social group. The only person who knew each of us was Seza, and she let us interact, triggering conversations by telling the tip of an interesting story of one of us.
After the dinner, Mehdi performed a song for us, in full Persian form and style - impromptu melody and rhythm - only the lyrics to start with. Divya showed us a YouTube video of her performing at a CMU dance. And Mohammed mentioned a lot of interesting anecdotes, but I can't quite grasp any of them right now. Then after a natural pause in the conversation, the group's attention turned to me and asked me "So what's your story?" So I basically told them what I'd been up to ever since I graduated - basically the same story that I am writing right now, leaving out a lot more detail than I am leaving out here. I enjoyed telling it, and at times someone else would interject with a related story of their own, and we'd hear it, but they really seemed to be taken with my story. I remember them asking "But so, what happened after the farm?". Or, " So Oregon? What happened in Oregon?". "But we want to know what happened to Oregon!" Almost like an encore. It was really nice to be able to tell my full story to someone, and all the while they asked things like "and weren't you scared of getting in the car with a complete stranger?". Or "How did you survive out in the forest?". Or "How did you pay for all your travels?". I thought how some of those might've been questions I would've had before the trip, but the answers just seemed simpler and clearer now.
They all seemed quite taken with the story, and Mohammed urged me to write it down. He said I should've written down something every day. I had not written something every day, and I said how I was attempting to live the experience more fully by not attempting to record everything that happened. Divya could relate to this, and told me how she sometimes felt that way too. Nevertheless, I liked the idea of writing all of this out. It seems like a right time to do so. I've had farther memories fade before, and I've felt myself regret this loss already.
That night, Mohammed gave me a ride home, and I agreed to meet up with Seza the following day to help her out with MySQL, Python, and to accompany her for her first flight lesson! It seemed like a fun day, so I met her a little after 9AM that day. We worked on the DB and on Mac OS X skills, and then Sochi, Yukari's husband, took us to Allegheny Airport.
Once there, we were told it was too windy for a beginner to fly out, but Sochi still took us to an airplane and showed us how the controls worked. The steering wheel not only turns left and right to roll the plane, but also back and forth to control the pitch! And then the pedals, left and right, control the yaw of the plane. And then there were some flaps, and some kind of constant fine tuning "nose position" that lifted up a little platform on the airplane's tail. And the wings had some little brush things that were supposed to release static into the air. Sochi said a lot of things about airplanes - it was a lot of fun! I also learned that a course to get a private pilot certificate can cost about $10K, everything included.
Then we went back to CMU and worked on one of her Python scripts. I think I ended up confusing her more than helping her understand more, but we did get the correct result output that she needed from the DB that she was working with. Then I told her I'd be leaving for Chicago that night on the train, said goodbye, and was given a ride by Sochi back to Carlos' apartment. That night I got a ticket, packed my stuff, told my dad I was coming to Chicago, took the bus to the station, boarded the train, and had a 9-10 hour-long, uneasy, frequently-interrupted sleep on my train lower level seat.
The train arrived late. Late enough for my dad to call me and offer me a ride home before I had caught the train back home. I gladly accepted, and waited at the station to be picked up. Then he picked me up, we exchanged joyful greetings, and we arrived to the house in Chicago. Then the first day I slept almost all day, and helped my dad use his new Dell Windows 8.1 Tablet during the night. I woke up quite late the next day, and spent the rest of the day writing this text. The next day I woke up, and beside a brief conversation with Tía More and an excursion out to Aldi's and Jewel Osco with my dad, I've been writing this text all day. Now it's 01:43 in the morning of Dec 23, 2013, and I finally wrote up the first big draft of what happened this year!
So in summary:
- January: I determined to finish my Masters program, and designed my DAP project.
- February: I worked on the DAP project.
- March: I wrote up and presented my DAP project.
- April: I realized I had fulfilled my graduation requirements, and took 3 weeks off to visit Pedro in Austin.
- May: I came back to Pittsburgh, graduated, and got everything ready to disappear.
- June: I volunteered at a farm in New Mexico.
- July: I went to the Rainbow Gathering in Montana, took Rushana and kids to Circle of Children, and stayed there for 2 weeks.
- August: I met Manu, drove north to the World Rainbow Gathering in Canada with him, spent an awesome 2.5 weeks there, then drove east to NYC and Wilkes-Barre.
- September: I attended Bobby's wedding, floated around Wilkes-Barre for about a week, visited Chicago, toured Milwaukee, and decided to go to Marcos' wedding.
- October: I visited Marcos in Boulder, attended his wedding. Drove to Austin, began RW project, and stayed at Pedro's for a week.
- November: Worked on and finished RW project in Austin.
- December: Spent three weeks in Guatemala, visited Laura in Pittsburgh, dad in Chicago, wrote this text. Studies for Google interview. (And in the last few days I tripped with Carlos, Romeo, Marcelo, and Chino through Pittsburgh, Niagara, DC, and spent our New Year's Eve at Brixton's)
Whew!
