a day in the life

On a sunny Ecuadorian morning a few days ago, I awoke with something funny in my head. From the depths of the warm cocoon that is my alpaca blanket, I jotted down on the nearest sheet of paper a few lines of haiku that flowed out without much forethought. Funny how Zen just happens to disappear and reappear in my life with surprising spontaneity. Mind you this doest happen very often, but perhaps it was brought on by a recent bout of meditation in combination with some independent research I’ve been getting more and more involved with along the lines of self-knowledge. Perhaps a simple occurrence of Syncronicity more than anything else.

:: chameleon
climate fluctuates-
little color changer waits
basking on a stone

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Today was an exercise in life simplification. The routine equaled any other saturday spent grounded in the city; slept in late… struggled through a midday capoeira workout… enduring the dreary ride back home across the city… and so it continued, but with one subtle difference. Today I began what is probably considered one of the more difficult tasks of preparing for liftoff: reducing clutter.

Corporate downsizing, a buzzword popularized by the end of the american economic boom (coinciding with the end of a Gregorian millennium), is a commonly accepted method involving cutting costs, exporting work and resources to needy and cheap third world countries. Its generating lots of buzz these days with companies moving to offshore labor and resources, but somehow cutting down on personal dross tends to go against everything the commercial world preaches through cleverly placed adverts to their target markets.

Introducing Acme product line QRSTU. You need products Q, R, S, T, U! [repeated 2x daily]. Ok, so you bought and own my products S, T, and U. I know you love them but wait, have you heard of new and improved F? You REALLY need F… buy-one-get-one-free.

I’ve suddenly been sparked into action to start my consumer downsizing as an effort to loosen my roots from the red clay that binds me to my home in north carolina and to free me from the “work, produce, consume” state of mind. cleaning out corporate deadwood is a fundamental technique embraced by every businessman in all history but generally the individual does not possess the motivation to cut out their deadwood. But then, seemingly out of nowhere a swelling grows from within. Its some basic inexplicable instinct to experince new sights and sounds and cover new ground. To be an airbourne seed, lifted from the tree by the whisp of a windy day. This is exactly what has happened to me; since my return from a six month circuit through south america, ive been hit once again with a serious case of travelbug. I’ve known for a while now that I will inevitably be pulled back to the road and it’s just been a matter of time for an opportunity to present itself and for another burst of wanderlust to grab hold.

So I finally acted upon a process that I’ve been devising in my head over the past year or so of just exactly how to clean up my living space and cut out the deadwood in order to facilitate ease of globalmotion. The first step was that I took a veritable boatload of old well used clothes that I’ve aggregated and carried with me to the various dorm rooms and cheap college apartments over the past 8 years. I parted with white running shoes, brazen (a.k.a., gaudy) floral neck-ties, soccer cleats with 5 year old mud stains, holy white tee-shirts (from years of over-bleaching), multiple pair of corduroy pants, stretched out sweatshirts… I even left behind the luggage that I used to carry them to the drop-off point It was a truly liberating feeling to get this stuff thats been collecting dust in my closet out of my bedroom and into the hands of some people that perhaps can make good of the excess crap i own. Although I’ve done my share of thrift store bargain hunting this was my first experience supplying products to the cause. I was surprised to find out that you can give away your junk and get a receipt for the transaction. A momentary thought flashed through my head. Could you actually claim someone taking your leftovers as a deduction when you file taxes? I guess I’ll never know because I turned down the receipt with the justification that the additional paper would only add to the clutter that I’m trying to clear out.

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![45413573][medium][alignright]yesterday was my first ride in the rain. after a decent ride home from work, i proceeded to the dojo where i get my daily fill of capoeira on the other side of town, without a second thought to the impending thunderstorms that loomed to the north. As a matter of fact, i was in such a great mood to start the workout i left behind any kind of rain gear i might have normally tried to wear. as it was, the rain began to fall with cat-n-dog intensity half way through class, drowning out the instructors voice, and the berimbau on the tape deck. I broke out of an esquiva de frente to bring in my helmet that i left hanging upside-down on my bike already filling up with water. The rest of class i pondered the fact that I’ll be riding home in the rain for the first time in my life. After class, the rain intensity had not tapered, so i threw my caution to the wind, my right leg over the saddle and had parting words with my instructor. “God willing nothing should happen, but if it does, please call me”, he said. With a look of confidence and chivalry i rode off into the storm, grinning from ear to ear. The experience was great. I started off quite conservatively under the speed limit. But as i realised that i was getting wet either way, i picked up pace…. but still decided to avoid the beltline freeway. So i rode right down Highway 1 all the way through the capital city towards home. The feeling of water seeping into my boots and down the crack of my ass was interesting, but admitedly not very comfortable. By the time i reached a certain stoplight downtown my feet were swimming in their own private puddle held in by my leather boots, my denim jeans were completely water weighted and saturated to the core. At home, i pealed off my clothes piece by piece leaving a puddle of water on the bathroom floor. I’ve always thought of Autumn in hurricane alley as my favorite time of the year, with all of the changing colors, warm days and cool nightly breeze, and of course the spontaneous shower (read, hurricane-induced knock-down-drag-out ) to stir the soil.

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