Saturday, July 30, 2011

Looking and learning

What am I looking for? I try not to ask myself this question too often. It is weighty right, and the real answer is as cliche as it comes. You don’t know until you find it. So maybe I should make a list of all the things I’ve found and loved in the last few years and use it as a guide for the next set of searching.

I found community in St. Louis in a tinny stained carpet apartment with 9 beautiful people I found and loved community, friendship, space, freedom, and solitude in Abaco. I found companionship at the right moment and let it fade when the moment passed. I found work on the water and a way to travel up the Eastern Seaboard and get payed for it. I found community, friendship, peace, and solitude in Maine. I found lobster, sailing, and the beauty of lakes. I discovered food. I found Chief Raffie (twice). I found comfort in my family. I found connection to my brother as he grows. I found time alone with my dad in Abaco. I found a sweet spot with my mom in the mangroves. I found Mexico and my grandfather and another beautiful community to grow in companionship and solitude. I found I am completely lucky and discovered mobility is wealth.

So what am I seeking? I am seeking myself and growth in a community of people unknown to me in a world not my own. I guess that is travel for me. Not just the surface and the sand between your toes. I am seeking recognition that humans are inevitably connected to place, but at the same time connected to each other in our need to learn and support each other. This connection is what allows us to slide into other worlds and find solidarity. Beyond the looking glass I am ready to walk, eat, and learn with you. I am here waiting with you.

I’m in my rack on magic in the middle of a trip. In the middle of a week of 16 hour days. But I am scheming, thinking, and looking for my next big adventure.

Amanda
Southwest Harbor, ME

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Hello again, Maine and you.

Hello long lost blogsphere. I’ve been traveling, thinking, learning, but sadly mostly working the last year. But I’m back with force! Full of thoughts and beginning to plan my next big adventure. It is a sunny Sunday in Southwest Harbor, Maine. I’ve found a bright coffee shop a bike ride away from the boat to take some time to collect myself before a 10 day trip of guest onboard Magic. I’ve got two guide books to Thailand, a copy of Writing Down the Bones, and my journal in front of me. Once again I find myself searching for reinvention and change. Luckily i’ve put myself in a beautiful place to ease into transition and travel. Three months in Maine is enough to but any restless mind at peace.

Let me describe my present before I reveal my schemes for the future. Southwest Harbor is a tiny community on the quiet side of Mount Dessert Island. Acadia National Park consumes most of the island. It is vacation land! Hiking, biking, sailing, kayaking, rock climbing, lobster, clams, mussels, produce, tennis, writing, sleeping, and socializing with a rotating cast of beautifully salty and eclectic characters. It is my second summer on the island, I instantly felt at ease and at home when we returned a few weeks ago.
So life is good, the weather is treating us once again and charming me into love with this place.

Magic sits at the end of the center walkway of Great Harbor Marina like a wealthy out of place giant among the immaculately maintain picnic boats, day sailors, and trawling retirees. Shinning blue hauled Hinckleys line the far side of the marina. Beyond Magic is a rock whose day marker houses a family of osprey. Then a mooring field and maze of bay and islands. Days on the water never feel the same, where every tack brings another angle and view of the mountains, homes, and inlets. Nights are spent on graying picnic tables marinated with lobster DNA and spilt beer. Gossip, bullshit, and the laughable camaraderie among people who know each other far too well. We wait for motivation to jump in a skiff, call a cab, swim, or skip rocks under the moon. This is simplicity and entertainment from environment alone. A life with fewer distractions to realize whats important and what comes next.