Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Dave Korn
Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Introduction
NOTE: this is a highly personal document that has been edited only very lightly, and as
such will likely be at times vague, redundant, or altogether incomprehensible.
The purpose of this study is to examine the time I spent in Boulder in order to distill a
series of lessons which may inform the next chapter of my life. The time held a number
of challenges and struggles, and this project began when I started to craft my next chapter
and recognized that I needed to address those struggles if I wanted to avoid repeating
them. I moved to Boulder seeking space to write and rest, a sense of community, feelings
of home, to grow my craft, serve (do something with who I am), and to self reflect. I
came to make changes and build practices (writing, meditation, reading, exercise, etc)
and to address various unmet needs (for space, loneliness, own lack of discipline in craft,
etc). Where did I succeed and where did I fall short? This study aims to examine what
happened in Boulder and to address the following questions:
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In what ways am I different now through things I learned, changes that I
deliberately made, or habits that I unconsciously formed?
Of intentions and crafted lifestyle I brought here, what happened? What worked
and what didn’t work and why? What did I do right, what important lessons
about how to bring in changes, and what where the biggest mistakes and
hindrances, where did I fall short?
What good things came of this time, and what unmet needs arose?
How can I bring significant changes into my life?
How do I continue forward as a writer?
What kind of lifestyle makes me happiest and feel the best?
In essence, what did I learn here, and what does that mean for what’s next for me?
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Contents
Core Intentions upon Arrival
Brief Timeline of Events
On Habits & Practices
On Writing & Evolution of Craft
On Happiness & General Fulfillment
New Elements of My Life (small things)
Books Explored
Significant People & Meaningful Spaces
Summary of Boulder
Core Lessons & Realizations
Essential Lessons & Ideas to Carry With Me
Key Elements of the Next Chapter
What Now: A Short Essay
Unresolved Questions & Prospective Pitfalls
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Core Intentions upon Arrival
Loosely stated intentions:
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Maintain personal and political consciousness throughout life within society
Refine self image and work with sense of homelessness that accompanied travel
Create safe space to rest, eat, play, create
Build sense of community and home
Create time and space for my work as a writer and artist
Find a form of service that will make use of my talents and passions
Create meaningful lasting personal change through cultivation of crafts and
practices
Previously unmet needs:
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Space to write and rest
Sense of community
Feelings of home
Devotion to craft
Time for self reflection
Lack of beneficial life practices
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Timeline of Events
A brief outline of what happened in Boulder: significant events, changes, questions, and
lessons.
“Four Thousand Miles to Winter” notebook
October – November 2012
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Arrival in Boulder
Early studying of political resistance from within (credit unions vs. banks, tax
resistance, radical communities)
Setting of intentions: to bring many changes and deepen my focus and discipline
“Maybe you’re not ready to stop traveling and settle down.” EXACTLY – the
journey is not ending.
I brought with me a deep aversion to place and a focus on the consistent elements
of my journey: self reflection & expression, seeking of sociopolitical awareness,
discipline and focus on my work. I set up few intentions and left little space to
fulfill the unmet needs that pushed me to Boulder in the first place. (especially
community). In pursuit of things that felt very important to me.
Loss of identity as a traveler and writer
Reconsideration of self image, external image as reflection of internal (started
dressing well)
Moving into the house, work to create my space
Part of why I am here is to form habits
Structure and discipline vs. organic spontaneity?
Mornings are hard. 6:30 AM climbing felt amazing but only did it once
Idea to solidify practices and trust my development to them
Lack of purpose, can’t get out of bed
Sacred evenings
Essentially, this was me first arriving in Boulder. Tried to figure out how to keep my
purity of lifestyle here, by experimenting with resistance from within through banking,
finances, grocery shopping and conscious consumerism, etc. Many settings of intentions
that basically outlined how I wanted to proceed, what I wanted to do with my time here.
It was a vast list. Incredibly long and in depth. Moved into a house and began to build
space. Loss of identity as a traveler and writer, and corresponding loss of purpose and
sense of not fulfilling obligations to myself. Refining of self image: starting to dress well
knowing it would change how people saw me even if it didn’t change anything real about
me. Questions about structure and discipline versus spontaneity and flexibility.
Attempted practices: dumpster diving, clothing, tea, prayer, embrace of mornings, daily
writing, climbing.
Purple notebook
November 2012 – January 2013
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
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Grandpa’s death
Still dumpstering, kitchenware for free
Early Dec. moment with new roommates and friends, wine, hanging, good night
On discipline vs spontaneity, reflections on past attempts through life
Massive outline of needs
Experiments with daily structure: good days.
Further loss of identity as a writer
Routine established: dressing up in vest, fedora, tie, etc, writing at evening café
with wine
Shambala meditation center twice
Began running
Writing letters (typewriter, wax seal, etc, feels grounding, GOOD)
Got job at FATE
Wrote Occupy NYE piece
If a young writer asked me all the questions I’m asking myself, would I say, “you
should give up writing until you can answer them all” or, gently, “keep writing”?
Not doing what I set out to do
Amante coffee shop interview + convo, sharing news w friends, acroyoga with
people, helping Leila move in, good Trident convos, learning about resistance
(GOOD)
Despair about my writing, but I AM writing (Comcast, NYE, no more milk, etc,
and @ Johnny’s and cafes)
Dirty laundry realization (shift mindset of dealing with things LATER to NOW)
Hide & Seek Trident storm sunset (peak moment)
Continued attempts to land here. Mostly despair at feeling like I’m not doing the things I
came here to do, interspersed with a few beautiful moments of Rightness. Continued
work at political awareness within society, low-impact living. Thoughts on how to bring
all needs into my life, experiments with discipline and structure. This made me feel
good, yet I tried to take on too much. Tried to establish the following practices:
meditation, running, writing, reading, correspondence. Among others. All fell apart.
Further loss of sense of identity without writing. Established new routines of getting
dressed up and going out to write in the evenings. Interestingly, I WAS still writing, just
at a slower pace, and not focused on the things I thought it would be. Writing was still
happening, yet it didn’t match my expectations, so it felt like failing. Wrote several good
pieces.
Black Hardcover Hands & Road Notebook (part 1)
February – March 2013
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Not doing what I came here to do
Let go of creating the path – devotion instead to moments and practices
FATE beers on day off – took a while to cross the room because of all the words
to be exchanged
St Juliens + Trappist beer to workshop current failures
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
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Café in Lyons – tired of making same mistakes over and over
At a bar on St. Patty’s, kissed the beautiful red dress girl
Getting sick, and returning to nothing: immense lostness: working to pay rent
snow&ice night walks
Trust in the intensity of my longing to become someone great
Faith: 1. grieve 2. work really hard
Month of March intentions & experiments with craft & discipline
Good craft work
Memorization of perfect high
Excellent books
This was the turning point in a sense, I believe. Feelings that I wasn’t doing what I came
here to do kept deepening. Finally, I got sick, and after a week in bed, I returned to my
life, and could see clearly the life I was returning to: I had become my deepest fear and
aversion, I was just working to pay rent in order to have a place to sleep between going to
work. I fell into deep despair. Learned a few things – that creating the path is not my
responsibility, that I need to devote to the moments and practices, that I must trust in the
intensity of my longing for greatness. This lostness led me to reflect on everything – in
bars and cafes with notebooks, and through sweet wandering through winter snow and ice
with sigur ros. I finally let go. March became my month of discipline, of writing and
creating DAILY, with immense discipline, and this felt incredibly good. Beautiful things
came as a result of this discipline. What felt good: epic thoughts and ideas, writings,
devouring readings, being around good people at FATE and elsewhere.
Black Hardcover Hands & Road Notebook (part 2)
April 2013
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Journey to Moab
Empowerment upon return (knowing how to process)
Coming of spring, almost happy (work & beer, living situation, my work (craft,
reflection, etc), good books, friends)
19th and Pine feels like home
Leila and Aisling, candles, smudging, music, etc
Beginnings of dialogue with Aisling
Realization: the best times of my life were just things I said yes to, not crafted
Continued writing experiments
Questions of purpose, home, community, that keep me from embracing the road,
same problems exist here too
Wrote Tetons, A Short Love Story
Good day: wrote seriously, emails, phone calls, came home to dinner A. made,
read from 2 books, wrote faith a letter, shared words with A
Practice shifting later to NOW mindset
I have systematically avoided community
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
I thought March was the turning point, but revisiting the notebooks, it looks like this
chunk of April from Moab and on was the real one. Aisling and Leila and I hitched out
to Moab and back and then became a household. The place quickly began to feel like a
home; we shared evenings of candlelight and beautiful music, we smudged the house,
cooked meals for each other. This was the most profound development. I also continued
to experiment with my craft and wrote several significant pieces. There were moments of
happiness; these came from the feeling of home, devotion to my craft, good time with
good people, and using discipline to take care of built up tasks. I continued to reflect
upon my path and was just continuously pushed to Be Here Now and Let Go.
Grey Notebook (part 1)
May 2013
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Winter continues
Dialogue with Cheryl at Boxcar
Reflections on process, intentions, tactics, etc; memory and expression of trauma
Romanticization of road, especially in moments of clarity
Experiments with fiction, perspective (Trains)
Trip to mountains: reflections on loneliness and homelessness
I KNOW WHAT I WANT: I JUST WANT TO GO HOME
Held Aisling for the first time as she cried one night
Beginning to brainstorm ideas for next chapter
Instead of writing a list of things to do, I just did them
1st party at our house
Faith in not knowing what’s coming
Got fired. Strange feeling of failing at something I didn’t want to succeed at
Found Wise Men in Their Bad Hours poem
Alt J, candles, hookah, etc
Winter continues and begins to come to an end. Continued dialogue and reflections on
the craft, the road, loneliness and home, ideas for next chapter, on not knowing, etc.
Good writing came of this all. Took a trip into the mountains to camp, up to my old spot.
It was beautiful, yet a deep loneliness and homelessness came, and I began to work with
those feelings, wondering why they came even when I do still have a place I belong.
Recognizing that on the deepest level, I do know what I want now, just like I knew when
Trevor asked me at 19 years old, and I said, I don’t know, I just want to figure out the
answers to all the questions I have. Now: I don’t know what I want, I just to go home.
We began to host parties and gatherings, host travelers, and the house began to hold
feelings of community. My relationship with Aisling continued to deepen powerfully. I
started seeing a therapist because I wanted a professional to take a look at my life and tell
me whether he thinks what I’m doing is ok or not. Beginning to craft ideas for the next
chapter, yet there was a very deep faith in not knowing what was coming next. Got fired
from work, finally it was too much, just wasn’t working for me or management. We
began to have roommate nights of Alt J, hookah, candles—began to create the foundation
for our own home even as the time dwindled.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Grey Notebook (part 2)
June 2013
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As I begin to craft next chapter: call to examine THIS chapter. If I failed here,
what makes me think another attempt to craft a lifestyle would succeed?
Tons of beautiful ideas for next chapter
QUESTION: do we create our own lives or is it out of our control? Have I ever
made a decision?
Last night of work, 2AM drum circle
Feeling that it’s all falling apart, but not my fault this time
Began to bike (deeper intimacy with city)
Espressoria ritual
Frequent conversations with Aisling about the decision to travel
I know what my own way means, I know what I need to do…! (finally!)
What now? Building my home.
Everything happened with Aisling
Begin collaborative work with Joe
Realized that I did what I came here to do
End of winter, beginning of spring. new ideas for next chapter, call to examine this whole
thing, fundamental questions of whether we can even craft and choose. Increase of
community, but sense of things falling apart and coming to an end. This was the time
that everything really began, the chapter of my Boulder experience that I will remember
most intensely. As spring came I began to bicycle around town, which deepened my
intimacy with the city. I had no more work, so I was a full time writer, seeker, and
friend. My friendship with Aisling deepened; she found clarity about her next step and I
began to as well. I realized that I know exactly what I need to do, I have always known,
and it’s time for me to just do those things—as I work on myself, I will be building my
home. Everything happened with Aisling, and I suddenly found myself with a lover,
something I had been craving for the entire time here. And with everything else, all at
once, I realized finally that I actually did what I came here to do.
Blue Notebook (Chrysalis)
June – July 2013
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Everything with Aisling, work with how to love
Storytelling circle silence
Collaborative work with Joe
Profoundly creating safe space – THIS IS IT.
This time I do not hit the road in search but in service.
Hailstorm – I want to live with that fierceness.
This is the end of the time in Boulder. A strong finish, in some ways, and in other ways a
shattering of earlier pieces. Aisling and I became lovers and partners. We worked on a
variety of things – finding home within oneself, being separate but together, fear of
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
parting ways not holding back our connection, intimacy and love as reconciliation for
human suffering. The night saving the deaf child who had gotten out at midnight,
passion and intimacy, sharing the paranormal experience together, Aisling’s family
crises, and finally her leaving Boulder. I continued to anticipate and romanticize my
coming time on the road. I did an immense amount of self reflection, mostly centered on
this summary project. I realized that my task is now to use the road as a vehicle from
which to work and serve. During the hailstorm, I realized that I must live with that
fierceness. Collaborative work with Joe unfolded beautifully. Finally, in creating such
safe spaces in the home with the three of us and Kodiak, I realized in a big way that I had
created exactly what I came here to create. Everything was ok.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
On Habits & Practices
An examination of my attempts to bring changes into my life.
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What habits did I form (positive or negative) and did I form them deliberately or
accidentally?
What changes did I try to make and what practices did I try to build?
Of the changes that I did make, HOW did I make those changes (what did I do
right)?
Of the changes that I failed to make, WHY and HOW did I fail (what did I do
wrong)?
There was a lot of setting of intentions. Way too much. My conditioned approach is to
make these huge all encompassing game plans for myself. To make these beautiful but
useless outlines of my needs as a human being, try to craft a thought-out comprehensive
balanced lifestyle program for myself. Yet the problem is, I wasn’t beginning where I
WAS. I began where I wanted to be, and set myself up to fail over and over and over. I
think I had a deep and unconscious sense that it all had to be accomplished in these 9
months, rather than seeing this as a lifetime’s worth of work. So I would outline many
changes I wanted to bring at once, and in manic fits I’d force myself to adhere to my
ideas, yet over and over again I saw myself slip back into the non-intentional conditioned
set of habits I’ve been living.
Habits I formed:
Drinking craft beer – unintentional, but I enjoyed it enough to push forwards deliberately
Dressing well/style – deliberate
Leaving food on Pearl – deliberate
Typing with correct fingers – deliberate. (noticed during transcriptions my faults, and
spent a few days focusing on addressing this)
Letters with typewriter – YES.
Others
Practices I tried to build:
Running
Meditation
Tea prayer evenings
Waking early mornings
Write daily
Reading as practice
Correspondence
Keep Space Clean
Climbing
Others
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Changes I successfully made
On my General life practice:
When I really realized things were not working, I sat down to examine why. I have a
good creative process for handling this kind of thing. I dressed up very fancy, went
out to a bar, had a classy Belgian beer, and workshopped with my notebooks on my
current failures and why things aren’t working. The next day I went to a new café in
a new town and declared my exhaustion with making the same mistakes repeatedly. I
constantly set intentions, over and over, yet rarely fulfill them, and I grew sick of this.
The month of March became a month for writing as practice. I committed to writing
at least a few pages, on ANYTHING, EVERY single day. This worked well, more
on this in the writing section.
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Scottish accent
I decided I wanted to learn this and I did.
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Memorization of “The Perfect High”
I decided to memorize the poem, and did so in several days. I was amazed at how easy it
was. The biggest problem is always that we don’t have enough time for things we want
to do, right? But I memorized that poem while tying my shoes, while waiting at red
lights, while using the bathroom, etc. It was so easy to just create the time. Can I find a
way to make all forgotten moments in my life a form of practice?
Changes I tried to make and failed
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Waking early mornings
Mornings were consistently hard. Discipline vs flexibililty, remembering law library,
cabin, etc, other times that mornings were easy. over and over setting of intentions,
brainstorming ideas, questioning why, philosophizing.
One morning I climbed at 6:30 am and wrote that it felt amazing. Yet I never pushed
myself to go again because it was hard to get up that early.
Half a dozen attempts to build a morning practice, wake up practice, but they are hard,
purposelessness
Question: how to make mornings sacred
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Running
Started running in the winter. Had a detailed outline for self of how to stay focused, stay
in it, and it really mattered because I knew I was screwed if I gave up on this thing I had
set out to do. Also wanted to get in shape for a long journey later on. Lasted 2 or 3
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
weeks. Ran every other day with minimal slips, constantly improving, pushing to be
better to the next level of the fitness routine. Even in the bitter cold. Had a stopwatch
and never ended early. Ended when a friend came to visit and I stopped making time to
go and never started again.
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Meditation
Went to the Shambala Center twice, 1 week apart, but wasn’t feeling the style. I got sad
and angry at the way they sat, the style of meditation, it wasn’t for me I felt, and I had a
powerful negative reaction to it. eventually read up on different styles. Called Gary at
the Zen Center and left a message. He called me back, twice, offering to teach me how to
sit Zen style, which I know I am most drawn to, and I never returned his call. Began a
practice when with Charles; it lasted a week and a half, and everything with Aisling and
the house began, and I dropped the practice.
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Correspondence
Dirty laundry realization. With everything in my life. Attempts to shift “later” focus to
“now.”
Sat down to fully examine practices and habits and underlying attitudes in relation to
emails, etc – hitting mark as unread to deal with “later”.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
Thoughts on how to bring all needs into my life, experiments with discipline and
structure. This made me feel good, yet I tried to take on too much. there were good days
that made me happy, but it crumbled. Tried to establish the following practices:
meditation, running, writing, reading, correspondence. Among others. All fell apart.
What I’ve learned about building habits
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Structure and discipline vs. organic spontaneity?
Idea to solidify practices and trust my development to them
Shifting later to NOW mentality
Instead of writing a list of things to do, I just did them
CORE LESSONS ON HOW TO BUILD HABITS AND PRACTICES
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Contemplation: choose ONE thing at a time. Rather than imagining where I
want to be and trying to outline a life full of things, begin where I AM NOW
CURRENTLY and choose one thing at a time to focus on.
Take small steps. Instead of trying to meditate for 15 minutes a day, run 2 miles,
read for one hour – begin by planting a deep practice. Meditate for 30 seconds a
day. Get on running clothes and get out the door and make a one block lap. Open
at least one book a day and read at least one page. Just implant the practice.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
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This is the time for discipline. Do it every day, do not falter, do not fail, and if
you do falter, let it go immediately and do not falter again.
Once discipline has ingrained the practice, spontaneity comes from the way I
continue to engage the practice.
Stop excessive setting of intentions. Just choose one thing and do it. Instead of
taking 5 minutes to write about all the things I am going to do and change, use
those 5 minutes to actually do one of them.
(still to work with – how to make lasting change instead of just for a couple
weeks)
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
On Writing
An exploration of the evolution of my craft.
The question I exploring is not even what did I learn about writing but what did I do
RIGHT in regards to writing, and where did I fall short.
Timeline of writing:
Four Thousand Miles to Winter notebook (Oct – Nov)
Early blogs of despair at new life
Space, desk, creation of sanctuary, empowerment
Bought typewriter
Amazed at size of notebooks on shelf
Purple Notebook (Nov – Jan)
Evening of reading old writing, struck by beauty and intensity of some of it
I write to honor moments
Studied habits of other writers
Losing identity & purpose, despair at not writing
If a young writer asked me all the questions I’m asking myself, would I say, “you should
give up writing until you can answer them all” or, gently, “keep writing”?
Further loss of sense of identity without writing. Established new routines of getting
dressed up and going out to write in the evenings. Interestingly, I WAS still writing, just
at a slower pace, and not focused on the things I thought it would be. Writing was still
happening, yet it didn’t match my expectations, so it felt like failing. Wrote several good
pieces.
Email to FATE that secured interview and job offer
LOTS of THOUGHTS of writing
Vest and tie and fedora to write in the evenings
Writing letters (typewriter, wax seal, etc, feels grounding, GOOD)
Black notebook:
Month of March – write every day, on ANYTHING
Experiments with discipline void of inspiration
Crises about honesty in storytelling
Wrote many things that became pieces (3 bottles of wine, on books, early memories,
exp.)
Memory and writing
Paul – the thing that matters is devotion
My first pet: setting the reader up to have their own realizations
Work on crafting and refining creative process (ideal amount of time to go by before
writing about an experience?)
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Went to café in Lyons to write. Specifically going places to write helps me take myself
seriously. Writing is my job.
April:
Returning from Moab and feeling empowered that I know how to process the experience
through writing. Continued craft experiments, experiments with discipline, work with
storytelling, perspective, memory and honesty, comparing different pieces of mine on
same experience across various outlets and time periods. Significant work: Tetons, A
Short Love Story
May:
Dialogue with Cheryl at Boxcar
Reflections on process, intentions, tactics, etc; memory and expression of trauma
Experiments with fiction, perspective
Wise Men in Their Bad Hours
June was mostly self reflection work and collaborative experiments.
July during time not on the road was Wholesome & Smoldering
Core technical lessons on craft:
Identity as a writer when not writing
Separation of writing from travel
Pushing through blocks, forcing it w discipline, it feels great.
Honesty in storytelling
Simple: writing makes me feel really good.
Communication of core lesson rather than lengthy personal narrative
On process for narrative – honest notes in journal, then write from heart (jewel center of
nostalgia) & mind (the meaning my powerful mind has distilled over time), then refer to
original honest journaling during revision
On ideal time to let by before writing about significant experience (6 months)
Stories are to make sense of what happened and share lessons/meaning/beauty –
something SPECIFIC. Not just to spit everything, that’s what the journal is for.
On memory distortion over time but clarity of lessons
Experiments with fiction and perspective to share lessons in a different way
Significant work produced:
4+ new full journals in 9 months, numerous typed journals
Article/Essay Length
Arthur Croissant
Doing a Trust Fall with God
The First Time I Watched Somebody Die
Occupy New Years
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Comcast
Three Bottles of Wine
Tetons (revisions)
Chatroulette
A Short Love Story
Watermelon Story (revisions)
Trains
On Books
Why You Can’t Imagine What It Feels Like To Be Homeless
Why Kids Drop Out of School
Reasons to Stay Alive
Reconciliations for Human Suffering
Wholesome & Smoldering
Short Pieces
What If God’s Eye Is The Moon
Query: Do Not Delete Before Paragraph 2
There Is No More Milk
My First Pet
On Honesty In Storytelling
Want To Hang Out Some Time
On Seeking
Letters (one or two dozen)
Experiments with Craft
On memory distortion (Tetons)
On honesty in storytelling (what I did vs. what I remember)
Experiments with fiction, perspective (Trains)
On reader having realizations (My First Pet)
On honesty (Three Bottles of Wine was a lie)
Experiments with Fictionalizing (want to hang out some time)
A Summary of 9 Months in Boulder
HOW DID MY RELATIONSHIP TO THE CRAFT TRANSFORM?
Timeline Summary
In the first two months, I used the blog to continue chronicling my journey. I engaged in
deliberate preparation for my time as a writer in Boulder: I set up my desk and creative
sanctuary, bought a typewriter and supplies, and set up all of my notebooks on the
shelves in front of me. I was amazed at the volume of material. I began to study the
habits of writers I admired. I began to review some of the writing I had done in the past,
and I was blown away by the beauty and intensity of certain pieces.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Then winter settled over the Rockies. I tried to develop my writing routine but found
myself stuck. I didn’t know what to write about or how to bring writing into this new
life. I had been writing to honor the experiences I was having, and without a radical
lifestyle from which to source content, I had nothing to say (actually it was that I just
didn’t know how to say what was in my heart without a narrative journey to create space
for myself). I had too many questions about the craft, and they froze me. Suddenly,
without writing, I lost both my sense of identity and my sense of purpose, one of my
main reasons for being in Boulder. I never put it in ink, but I had expected to write about
Occupy. Interestingly, I was still writing, but it was happening at a slower pace than I
was accustomed to, and I wasn’t focused on Occupy with the same kind of discipline and
productivity as other large projects. I wrote Comcast, No More Milk, The First Time I
Watched Somebody Die, and began to work on Reconciliations. I typed letters and wrote
the crazy outside-the-box email to FATE and got a job as a result, yet this all still felt like
a failure. I began to establish a new writing routine: I would get dressed up in a vest, tie,
and fedora in the evenings and head to Johnny’s Cigar Bar or to a café where I was
unknown. I wrote a piece on Occupy New Years Eve that felt beautiful to write but that I
was ultimately unhappy with. These were a long three months of despair.
March became a turning point. I had asked myself: do I wait for inspiration to strike, or
force myself to the desk? In March I tried to force myself to the desk, every day, to write
on ANYTHING. This was the beginning of my experiments with discipline void of
inspiration. Paul had emphasized that what a person does is irrelevant: the thing that
matters is devotion. I began to draw from memory—Occupy stuff, old blog pieces,
childhood memories. Some of these became pieces (Three Bottles of Wine, Why We
Read Books). I underwent crises about honesty in storytelling and found wisdom and
guidance in other books about writing that dealt with these ancient questions. I asked
questions about memory and nostalgia in relation to the creative process. I just continued
to experiment with the craft. I wrote My First Pet and learned how to guide the reader
into his own realization. I worked on the old Tetons blog and compared current writing
to the blog and to the original journal to explore how time distorts memory and to see
which time and style of writing produced the best work. I experimented with going to
places specifically to write (continuing to dress up and go to cafes and Johnny’s, as well
as a café in Lyons.)
As winter eased into spring I continued to experiment with craft and discipline. I
explored storytelling, fiction, perspective, memory and honesty, more comparing
different pieces of mine on same experience across various outlets and time periods. I
wrote Trains and revised the piece about Grandpa into A Short Love Story. I began a
variety of essays that I never finished. My dialogue with Cheryl continued, which was
immensely helpful. I continued to reflect on process, intentions, tactics, memory,
expression of trauma. After March ended, so did my period of prolific delivery, though
the reflections on the craft continued strongly. Summer was directed at self reflection
work (like this project) in lieu of literary creation. I briefly engaged with Joe in a few
fruitful collaborative experiments. Before leaving Boulder I produced Wholesome &
Smoldering, a polished work of 6,000 words.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
So: to summarize my experience with writing in Boulder in a few sentences: without
travel, I temporarily lost my ability to write, thus I instantly lost a major chunk of identity
and purpose which led to acute temporary despair. I continued to write sporadically
about whatever I could, and writing was forcibly separated from travel. I began to dress
up and pretend I was a writer, which helped me write. The month of March, my
experiment with discipline, helped crack everything open again. I began to explore many
different forms and styles and gained a much deeper understanding of the craft and my
relationship to it. Dialogue with other writers was immensely helpful in building a
system of inspiration and mutual support.
In a nutshell, Boulder was this: the separation from travel caused my loss of identity
as a writer and thus forced me to expand my relationship with writing from merely
the personal narrative to something more universal and wide reaching.
There are core lesson nuts and bolts about the craft, some detailed above, others in the
scattered pieces on this computer in the “experiments with craft” folder, most of which
have probably been internalized and just made me a better writer. But things to carry
with me:
CORE LESSONS ON HOW TO CONTINUE TO DEVELOP MYSELF AS A
WRITER (IE, THINGS I’VE LEARNED)
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The first thing is that though it’s often a battle to sit down at the desk, especially
when devoid of inspiration, especially when doubting myself, when full of too
many questions about everything, etc. One of the major things I learned every
time I forced myself to sit down with the pen: writing makes me feel really
good.
When I’m stuck: make some kind of change, shift something. For example,
dress up in a vest and tie, wear a fedora, carry a fancy wooden pipe. Do
something to help me take myself seriously, feel stronger.
Dialogue with other writers and books on writing can both be extremely helpful
to create systems of inspiration and mutual support.
One very fascinating thing that emerged as soon as I began this reflection: I did a
LOT OF WORK! I wrote so much, I explored the craft in so many ways. Yet the
entire time, I felt like I was failing, because I wasn’t doing all that I had outlined
for myself (an unrealistic quantity), and I wasn’t living up to my own equally
unrealistic expectations for myself (levels of understanding&clarity, writing
specifically about Occupy). I was doing great work but still felt like a failure.
I need to ease up on myself.
What was the most important thing either that happened or that you did, that worked
WELL in service of my dream to be a writer?

Writing. It didn’t matter what I was writing about: just writing. March was a
breakthrough. Using discipline to force myself to sit down and make writing a
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
daily practice was extremely beneficial. It helped me both produce work and
explore the craft.
o To produce work, I need to just apply myself to a piece that I want to
work with, and once I’m invested, just keep applying myself consistently.
Creating deadlines for myself could be helpful. I am now somewhat
familiar with the process it takes to craft a piece, and a bit less familiar
with what it takes to produce essays, and mostly clueless about the process
that a book length work might demand.
o To explore the craft, just follow my own curiosity about myself and my
craft. Willful experiments with craft were wonderful and very powerful.
Don’t worry about outlining a curriculum for myself and sticking to it.
Just go wherever the curiosity and interest of the session takes me; don’t
even worry about documenting what exactly it is that I’m doing or
learning (like I’m trying to do now…); instead, JUST KEEP WRITING.
Understand that asking the questions is more important than answering
them.
What most got in the way of me following that dream and growing as a writer?

Not writing.
The continuation of this work:
Just keep writing. Polish pieces and prepare them for submission. Consider exploring
submission and publication of pieces. There is also the question of blogging, and the
question of any kind of work about Occupy. But ultimately, I just have to keep writing.
Writing must be a DAILY PRACTICE.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
On Happiness & General Fulfillment
(What way of living makes me feel the best?)
Good days and bad days: common threads? What made the good days good, what did I
do RIGHT? When was I most happy or productive or fulfilled?
Good days
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Early Dec. moment with new roommates and friends, wine, hanging, good night
On discipline vs spontaneity, reflections on past attempts through life
Amante interview + convo, sharing news w friends, acroyoga w people, helping
Leila move in, good Trident convos, learning about resistance
Hide & Seek Trident peak moment sunset storm while working on self study
(“wouldn’t trade nothin’ for my search now”)
Experiments with daily structure days (never maintained it but those days were
good)
FATE beers on day off – took a while to cross the room
Epic thoughts and ideas, writings, devouring readings, being around good people
at FATE and elsewhere.
Coming of spring, almost happy (work & beer, living situation, my work (craft,
reflection, etc), good books, friends)
Leila and Aisling, candles, smudging, music, etc
Good day: wrote seriously, emails, phone calls, came home to dinner A. made,
read from 2 books, wrote faith a letter, shared words with A
Romanticization of road, especially in moments of clarity
1st party at our house
Alt J, candles, hookah, etc
the moment with L and A on high street for sunset, scald of sky purples, crescent
moon in sharp blue above, so beautiful over hills, parked and played sigur ros, I
leaned against fence, A sat a little away on fence, L wandered to pick flowers, the
air was perfect.
SORRY NO ADMITTANCE – ROOMMATE TIME IN PROGRESS (door will
be open again in 15 minutes) – creating the safe space was so powerful
Things that made me feel good
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getting dressed up and going out to Johnny’s or a café, to write
Writing letters (typewriter, wax seal, etc, feels grounding, GOOD)
Nights with Leila and Aisling, those perfect nights: pizza, beer, candles, Alt-J,
hookah, incense, loving each other.
Reading!!!!
CORE LESSONS ON HAPPINESS AND FEELING GOOD
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
What made the good days good, what did I do RIGHT? When was I most happy or
productive or fulfilled?
After briefly glancing over this page, this is really simple, almost ridiculous. What
makes me feel the best: being around good people, and doing the things I love. Isn’t that
revolutionary? (writing, good books, typewritten letters, self reflection, taking a while to
cross a room because of all the good people)
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
New elements of my life (small things)
How to drive stick shift
Americano is my new drink
How to use a typewriter
(and using it for letters)
Typing with correct fingers
How to do the cup slap beat
How to dress well/style
Regularly leaving food on Pearl & taking in travelers
Knowledge of beer and spirits
Enjoyment of craft beer
Café and tie to write
Running (attempted practice)
Meditation (small steps)
Tea prayer evenings (small steps)
Experiments with craft
Reading as practice (small steps)
Correspondence as practice (small steps)
Keep Space Clean
Climbing outside
Beginning new journals with a summary of where I’m at
Home brewing
New beautiful music
The office
Writing in bars in evenings
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Books Explored
William James? – On Habit
Edward Abbey – Desert Solitaire
(Compilation) – New New Journalism
Hemingway – In Our Time
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Gandhi’s Autobiography
Ken Wilber – Integral Life Practice
Natalie Goldberg – Long Quiet Highway
Story of the Eye
Erich Fromm – Escape From Freedom
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Joseph Conrad – On Art and the Artist
CS Lewis – A Grief Observed
The Little Prince
Shel Silverstein – (poems)
GK Chesterton – The Man Who Was Thursday
Paul Theroux – The Tao of Travel
Gerard – Creative Nonfiction
Scenes From Occupied America
Tim O’Brien – The Things They Carried
Rilke – Letters on Cezanne
Lamotte – Bird by Bird
Zinsser – On Writing Well
Jensen – As The World Burns
Safran Foer – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
A Very Bad Wizard
Joseph Cambell – The Power of Myth
Paulsen – Winterdance
Paulo Coelho – The Fifth Mountain
Phil Cousineau – Synchronicity
Kahlil Gibran – Sand and Foam
Kahlil Gibran – The Prophet
Per Petterson – Out Stealing Horses
Richard Bach – Illusions
Alain de Boton – The Art of Travel
Jack Kerouac – On The Road
Daniel Quinn – Ishmael
Robinson Jeffers – Wise Men In Their Bad Hours
Chinua Achebe – Hopes and Impediments
Mary Oliver – American Primitive
Patrick Clary – Dying for Beginners
Deschooling Society
Steinbeck – Travels with Charlie
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Meaningful Spaces
Leigh’s place
9th & Walnut spot
2136 19th
My room & creative sanctuary
Backyard winter
FATE FOH after hours
Atlas Purveyors
Folsom Street Coffee
Laughing Goat
Trident
Brewing Market
Boxcar
Sbux 29th
Sbux 30th & Arapahoe
Sbux 28th & Pearl
Johnny’s Cigar Bar
Connor O Neill’s
Absinthe House rooftop
The Pirate Ship
Top of the parking garage
Espressoria
Front yard
Bench at that school
Gas station on Folsom
High Street
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Summary of Boulder
In essence, what was this time?
During the two years I spent on the road I explored a variety of themes: community and
home, alternative lifestyles, creative ways of engaging the system, the craft of writing,
how to be of service in the world, the cultivation of faith and purpose, taking risks and
confronting fear, happiness, etc. Boulder was a radical alteration of lifestyle and
presented the opportunity to pass these themes through the filter of a totally different
external environment (society). As I engaged in self reflection, the lens of a new lifestyle
allowed me to tease out what was a product of the road and what was actually an element
of Dave.
I worked in a restaurant and paid rent. It was the first time since hitting the road in 2010
that I spent the bulk of my time doing something I’d rather not do just to pay bills. On
the road, much of my work involved writing, reflecting, and attempting to bring positive
changes into my life. I attempted to continue that work in Boulder. I arrived with a hefty
array of intentions: to write seriously, build community, form good habits and break bad
ones, refine my self image, find my way to serve, address current unmet needs in my life,
and so forth.
It was hard for a while. The first half of my time in Boulder was marked by consistent
feelings of failure. I had tried to take on way too much, and I had not yet solidified a
process by which to bring lasting changes into my life. I struggled to write as well; prior
to my arrival in Boulder I had only really written about my own journey, and suddenly
without travel, I didn’t know what to write about anymore. Thus without writing I
instantly lost a major chunk of identity and purpose. Questions of home and community,
discipline and purpose, some of the things that helped push me away from the road,
persisted even in this new environment. I learned that these deficiencies had little to do
with the fact that I had been on the road; in reality, many people my age struggle with
these things, and building them takes hard work and patience, not just a radical alteration
of lifestyle. Autumn gave way to winter and most of my unmet needs remained unmet. I
spent most of my time at the restaurant, and instead of catching beers with coworkers in
the evenings I holed up in cafes and kept making new lists and setting new intentions and
things kept not working. I couldn’t figure out whether I was trying too hard or not nearly
hard enough.
About four months into my time in Boulder, I caught the flu. After a week in bed, I
returned to my life, and I could see more clearly the life I was returning to: I had become
my deepest fear and aversion: I was just working to pay rent in order to have a place to
sleep between shifts at work. I fell into deep despair. This was when I completely
stopped blogging and dropped the correspondence ball, because I just couldn’t bear to
talk about myself anymore. After recovering from the flu I began to rigorously explore
why things hadn’t been working. As I reflected, I began to realize that in fact I had
covered an immense amount of ground, but it was mostly in other areas than I had
planned. I had simply come to Boulder with way too many expectations for myself,
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
thinly disguised as intentions, and those expectations had clashed jarringly with the
reality I was experiencing. I learned all over again that I needed to accept whatever was
happening to me, and that I needed to be a little easier on myself.
Seven months in I picked up the pen again. The loss of writing and corresponding loss of
identity and purpose weighed on me more than anything else and had thoroughly
contributed to the acute despair that marked much of the winter. I had continued to write
sporadically about whatever I could, by which process writing had been forcibly
separated from travel. But should I write whenever inspiration strikes, often on the road
but rarely here, or should I write with great regularity, sometimes forced, regardless of
inspiration? In March, I experimented with the discipline approach and I forced myself
to write something every day of that month no matter how uninspired I felt that day. I
began to explore new forms and styles, perspectives and voices, fiction and poetry,
stream of consciousness and painstaking craft, and I began to gain a much deeper
understanding of the craft and my relationship to it. Ultimately, in Boulder the separation
from travel initially caused my loss of identity as a writer and thus forced me to expand
my relationship with writing from merely the personal narrative to something broader and
more universal.
When spring arrived one of my two roommates moved out and a new one moved in, and
the three of us new housemates took a spring break hitchhiking journey over the Rockies
to Moab, Utah, which allowed me to briefly revisit the road for the first time since
arriving in Boulder. Afterwards, back at the house, the three of us bonded tightly and a
strong sense of space and community began to develop. I continued to explore my craft
and to work on myself, and I began to realize that another reason for my earlier failures
was simply taking on too much at once. I learned that serious personal work must be
done slowly in small steps. I imposed loose discipline on my days and began to spend
more of my time doing the things that mattered to me, and there was a brief period where
things felt like they were almost working.
Soon after spring melted the last snows, things began to falter again. I had to leave my
job at the restaurant as a result of growing tension with management. With the new
warm weather I began to bicycle around town instead of drive, which deepened my
intimacy with the city. I had no more job, so I was a full time writer, seeker, and friend.
I met someone special and found myself with a significant other for basically the first
time in over two years. I wrote daily, devoured good books, spent time with the people
who were forming a community at my house. I realized gradually that though things had
not unfolded at all as I’d thought they would, in a big way I actually had done in Boulder
much of what I had set out to do.
Yet the successes had come about in an interesting way. I thought that moving to a place
would automatically endow me with creative space, forms of service, community, etc.
This was not the case. My breakthrough with writing came not from having a desk but
from finally just committing myself to sitting down every single day. Development of
community did not come from having familiar faces around. Community only began to
develop when I made building relationships a priority in my life. Feelings of home came
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
not from the walls or roof but from the moments when I brought my daily activities into
harmony with my values and priorities. Service was fascinating too. The hypothesis that
on the road, service is brief and generally not lasting because it comes in the form of
short interactions that may be merely temporarily inspiring, and that service in society
can be much deeper because it can be built over an extended of period of time—this
hypothesis did not prove to be necessarily true in my experience. In both environments
there were opportunities for service that were unique to that environment but one was not
fundamentally deeper or more meaningful than the other. All in all, the advances that I
made in Boulder had little to do with my being there.
As my lease drew to a close, I began working on a summary and reflection of the past 9
months. And now, two months of work and some 45 pages later, I have created a list of a
series of lessons that I learned during my time living in Boulder. These lessons include
almost preposterously self evident things such as the following: what helps me grow as a
writer is writing. What prevents me from growing is not writing. What makes me feel
bad is doing things I don’t care about. What makes me feel good is being around people
I love and spending my time doing things that matter to me. It is good to have
knowledge of the vast quantity of work I have to do on myself, yet if I ever want to make
lasting changes I need to take small steps. Two months and 45 pages have yielded
lessons of this nature. Perhaps everything has always been much simpler than I’ve made
it out to be.
I learned a lot during my time in Boulder, and it was extremely important for developing
specific lessons as well as more generalized pieces of identity especially in relation to
seeing more clearly what I had actually been doing on the road. Yet the time was also
rife with problems and unnecessary difficulties and miseries and compromises, and it was
clearly something that was useful to have experienced but that I no longer desire to
continue. Now the task is to look at what did and did not work in Boulder, consider the
lessons of the time, and finally endeavor to craft a new chapter informed by the successes
and failures of life both on the road and in Boulder.
27
Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Core Lessons & Realizations
How to create personal changes
I do not craft the path, but the moments
The power of discipline
Shifting later to now mindset
Activism has made me a good human
On community
On the experience of home
On my hood and fears
I know how to create space and build moments.
I did what I came here to do
With Aisling on how to love
People respond to my energy – I have only my presence to offer
I long for road because of who I become
How to serve
On when I’m at my best
What to do now
I have learned how to bring changes into my life. I spent so much time here setting
intentions, then failing to fulfill them. I envision the kind of man I want to be. I suspect
that one day I may become someone who surpasses even that vision. Yet right now, I
aim for that vision, and try to accomplish everything at once. This is impossible, and a
certainty of failure. Instead, what I must do is aim for something just a little bit beyond
who I am now, and become that. Always. In other words, take small steps. Instead of
outlining how to fulfill everything I want to be, start with where I AM. And from there,
come up with a small idea, a subtle, minute change, and then impose discipline, set up a
system or whatever necessary to ensure that I will practice that thing ON A DAILY
BASIS for some amount of time, at least a month, perhaps two, 40 days, however much
time is necessary until it has been engrained as a new habit. Then move on to the next
thing. It is possible to make changes in this way. I can make at least one. And MAYBE,
possibly, two at once. That’s it.
I am not responsible for creating my own path. I am responsible for creating
individual moments. I have learned that all of the greatest times of my life have not
been things I’ve created. They have been ideas that came and that I immediately
recognized as true and right. (Things that I have merely said yes to, not crafted). The
greatest and most significant times of my life include: Occupy, my journey to Alaska, my
last semester in Miami, my journey with Joe to Nepal and India, my initial knowledge
that I would travel, Semester at Sea, even my decision to move to Boulder. (wow). All
of these experiences were not things I crafted. They were moments and opportunities
that presented themselves to me and I said YES. And often my attempts to craft directly
contradicted with the experience and were shattered. My task, in each, was simply to
fully engage with what was happening to me. I have made no decisions. The Universe
provided these opportunities. My task was not to create the opportunities—my task was
to say YES when they arrived. Here is what this means for how I am to live. Spending
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
so much time and energy obsessing and despairing about where I am going and how to
become the kind of person I long to be: this is not the way (based largely on the
knowledge that it’s not up to me anyway). Instead, my task is to fully engage with each
moment, and to devote myself with great discipline to the practices I have cultivated
within my daily life. If I simply keep plodding forwards with discipline to the moment
and faith in the big picture, I will become whoever the Universe wants me to become, and
each day I will have already arrived.
Most good things that enter my life come not as a result of anything by me—I just say
yes when the opportunities knock on my face. And that’s really all I must do. Just be
ready and willing to say yes when things offer themselves to me: this may be the single
most important lesson I have learned through my time here.
I finally understand. My life is already laid out for me. all I must do is take each next
step. What major decisions have I ever made? Everything has required only a turning
within. I have just walked straight through my life. In each moment, rolling with what
was happening, practice the things I knew at the time I needed to work on. PASSIONS
HAVE CHOSEN ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. When it is easier to throw
100% of myself into something than to do nothing. Travel plans and trips taken? The
idea came from somewhere, like the thousands of ideas I probably have every day, yet
those rare times, I KNEW, a resolution almost like a recognition, that there was no way I
could NOT do that thing. Like Nepal. Like Alaska. Like sem at sea. like occupy. Like
all the greatest things I’ve ever done. They came to me – all I had to do was say yes.
And in the mean time, I had only to keep pushing and growing – it was hard work – but it
was always obvious what I needed to do. I know what my daily work is. but I spend so
much time trying to piece together and read the map that I walk forward so haltingly. It’s
like, your map is in the trunk. Every time you want to check it, you have to pull over and
stop the car. To be constantly trying to figure out where you are going in life, is like
being on a cross country road trip and pulling over to check the map every 5 miles.
“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.” —Rumi?
Discipline is a powerful tool (to bring my life into harmony with my intentions and
desires). Structure can be a destructive force when excessively applied, or when
imposed by outside pressures, yet it can also enable great work and devotion. The days
that I made loose schedules for myself enabled greater freedom to create within those
blocks of time by allowing me to let go of the bigger picture, which is of course crippling
while trying to focus on a simple minute task. Additionally, the month of March and my
commitment and devotion to a daily writing practice was in many ways the turning point
of my time here. It made me feel great, first of all, because there was no way to deny that
I was doing what I set out to do. Second of all, it provided the foundation for some really
important work with craft experimentation. I never fulfilled my own expectations for
myself. But that month spiraled into wonderful explorations of whatever happened to
come up, and it allowed me to expand my craft, explore old and new questions, produce
some decent writing, and keep my pen moving, which is one of the things that make me
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
feel the best. Utilize my ability to impose self discipline in order to fill my life with the
things I love most. (Try focusing for a month at a time – March was to write, April was
to study craft, May to not let emails aggregate, etc—I can choose ANY change, and
create that with a month of time.)
Doing things NOW rather than later. This applies to correspondence, dirty laundry,
etc, and is a larger metaphor; I realize that my tendency is to do things “later”. This
relates to the difference between “constantly trying to become” vs “just being.” The only
way to harness my true power is to just do things now.
Activism has prepared me to just be a good human being because I am not afraid to
do the right thing. At the restaurant, someone is crying, and I have tables to clear. most
people do the job, out of fear of what will happen if they get caught not doing it. yet after
spending months toe to toe with an armed police force, them telling me to do (or not do)
something, and me refusing willfully and (with practice) confidently, then being fully
prepared to accept the consequences of my actions…this practice has taught me so much.
now in the restaurant, faced with a dilemma, I simply do the right thing. Unafraid.
Ready to willingly accept the consequences of my actions, being prepared to defend them
if necessary. To say, yes, I took stock of the situation, I decided that her tears were more
important than that table, to me, but also to you, to the restaurant, if we don’t take care of
ourselves and each other, then we are just a factory producing food, I will tell the people
waiting that they had to wait 5 minutes longer because I was consoling a girl who was
crying, I will happily accept whatever consequences you feel the need to impose, if there
are any. Yes. I am not afraid. (I recognize that I have learned how to think for myself
and how to do what I believe is right.)
I have my priorities SO in line – vs managers at restaurant, my priority is HUMANITY
over BUSINESS, ALWAYS
On community
A large part of the reason I stopped traveling was because I craved a sense of community
and a feeling of home. One major realization of Boulder was that it wasn’t my traveling
lifestyle that precluded community and home. This became clear when I did not
create home during the first ¾ of my time in Boulder. (This was a fascinating
experiment). So then WHY couldn’t I build those things? 1) It’s normal for people my
age to struggle with community. Cheryl pointed out that in Colorado, Leigh built it
(though it took nearly a year and multiple jobs and living situations), Joe built it (but it
took over a year of living in the hostel hovel and the other bad house), but Cheryl, Lauren
Shepherd, and I did not. I’m not alone in the struggle. 2) For the majority of my time in
Boulder, I systematically rejected community despite my longing for it. I consistently
turned down the opportunity to hang and bond with people from work, even people I
liked. I disappeared from other friends. I even fell off with electronic communication.
In this way, I began to isolate myself. The main reason for this was in deference to my
work. I chose to spend all “free” time writing instead of hanging, though much of my
“writing” at the time involved sitting at my desk and staring at the walls, or sitting in
cafes pointlessly scribbling angsty journal entries, instead of settling into the rhythms of
the people and place around me. I wrote at some point that what I craved was to belong
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
somewhere, to feel safe, to have a community, to create beautiful things, to make love.
Yet I refused to pursue any of those desires. This may in part illuminate the danger of
deciding how to use the 9 months before arriving. On all intentions lists, I tried to create
space for writing, reading, exercise, meditation, etc, but never for human contact. A
fascinating blind spot.
It’s also worth mentioning that, though I often chose my work over my friends, there was
a sort of deep and unconscious deferring to people when the time was right. When
Lauren and Leigh and Trevor and out of town friends were going to Boulder Café, I’d
remorselessly drop whatever I was doing. House parties were always so beautiful, so
wonderful to be around the people I loved. My presence was greatly appreciated and I
was moved by that. People were drawn to me at parties; they would line up to hug me
when I walked in the door! People were drawn to me at FATE as well (until my attitude
grew negative—more on this in the “people respond to my energy” section). Then there
were the early gatherings at our place before it became a spot: the night with Dana, Tim,
Essa, Terri, Luke Beckman, Leila, Aisling, Joe, Trevor, Jasmine…I remembered that I do
know how to create community when I wish to.
And then of course the last two months of Boulder, our house became the hub. Leila,
Aisling and I were the family, Kodiak as well, the upstairs people, everyone in the
neighborhood, travelers passing through and couch surfers and street people, we became
a hub of community and it was quite beautiful. And writing this whole section has been
strange, because this community-focused hub is now how I will remember Boulder.
I did an interesting study on feelings of community and loneliness in various situations
and realized that community is not dependent upon where I am or how I’m living.
On the road, Banff and Idaho Falls were places where community sprung up around me.
In Boulder, it sprung up in many ways. On the road there were many moments of
loneliness. In Boulder, there were many moments of loneliness as well. So if there were
moments of community and loneliness in both lifestyles, what was the determining factor
then? It seems as if the determining factor has been my willingness and ability to connect
with people. In Banff & IF, and at FATE, I was ready and willing to connect, and
connect I did. In other cities and other Boulder times, I was more in my shell, and I did
not connect. It wasn’t about my lifestyle but my readiness to be with people.
The road connections are an interesting thing, because often we feel as if there’s a major
difference between spending time with “friends” and “people we just met.” This is true
and not true. On the road I was able to develop extremely quick deep friendships.
(Examples? Loo. Ashley. Kathi. Nikki. Amber. Kate + Jessica. Pascal. Marcus +
Rob + Ronan. Rebecca. Chay. Randy + Deatt. Sandi. ETC ETC ETC) This is a
powerful skill and blessing that deserves other reflection, but suffice it to say I can do it
and it’s incredibly beautiful. There also is a deep value to spending time with old friends.
On the road I did this every month or so. And here’s something: based on the horrible
frequency of my communication with good friends in Boulder (Cheryl, Drea, Joe, etc.)
there is little difference between living in one place and seeing them periodically, and
traveling and seeing people who know me every so often.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
The important piece here: it wasn’t the traveling that prevented community. It was my
willingness and readiness to connect with people (and possibly my decision to leave
places too quickly). And the thing is, on the road there were certain moments where even
if I didn’t have what most people would consider community, my need for community
was fulfilled. I moved to Boulder because I wanted more of these moments, yet I did not
get them—I ran into all of the same problems. At 26, it’s normal to struggle with
community. But what I have in my favor is I do know I can create it.
If I were to revisit this question from complete scratch after the last two months in
Boulder, when my house was a beautiful candlelit community home mecca for travelers,
I may answer differently. (It’s always a give and take: that fulfilled the needs of known
faces, yet there I lacked consistently meeting as many new people). But I think the whole
point is that I know how to create that, I demonstrated my ability to do so, it took about 8
months to pull it off, and I feel confident that I can do it again whenever I choose to.
Knowledge of my ability to do it seems more important than endlessly living it. There’s
also something to be said for bringing that spirit of community and safe-space-building
out on the road as another layer to this experiment.
On the experience of home
Examining my highly positive experiences on the road in Banff and Idaho Falls, in
contrast with highly negative experience of that first summer in Boulder in 2011, I am
forced to ask why I felt so at home on the road in those places/times, and what my
experience of homelessness is really about. During the lonely moments in Boulder,
afraid of not becoming who I want to be, I felt lonely and homeless even while living
with Leila and Aisling. In IF and Banff, I was homeless, literally slept on the street in IF,
yet I felt so at home. I was writing, with good people, very tapped in and in harmony
with my environment and my heart.
People and loneliness is not dependent upon where I am or how I’m living, but how
willing and ready and able I am to connect. I base this on the connections of Banff, etc,
and the connections at FATE, and the loneliness of the road and the loneliness of
Boulder. It’s always based on where I am at.
And I think HOME is defined by how much I’m living in sync with who I am. When I’m
not living in harmony with who I am, I feel lost, lonely, and homeless. When I am living
in harmony with who I am, I feel like I am home.
On my fears and struggles (loneliness/homelessness)
When things are bad, that’s what I feel. It’s interesting that the root emotion or
sensation of any negative or sad feeling is HOMELESS. It’s not a fear of sleeping
outside, lacking roots or community, etc. I’m never actually LONELY, as I know deeply
how to connect with people. It’s that when I am outside my intentions, feeling like a
failure, I feel homeless. Maybe this is partly because when I’m on the road I look like a
bum. If I am creating, and full of purpose, I FEEL like a warrior. But if I’m doing
‘nothing’ I feel like a bum. How close the poles of existence, between warrior and bum
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
daily. No external foundation from which to derive a sense of identity. It’s all based on
what I alone do. Warrior or bum? Of course one interesting thing is that this DEEPEST
FEAR comes even when I have a place to live and two loving roommates and a job, the
feeling of homelessness. I know I can make powerful connections quickly here, too—it’s
partially about a lack of sense of BELONGING, maybe. Or maybe I’m just still deeply
affected by the loss of Miami. I miss home yet how can I build a new one at this point
knowing all that has been lost and all that is left to come? (This may be part of why I’ve
been obsessed with the idea of finding home in the world and in oneself)
How to work through my own pain and loneliness. In the dark moments, what about
turning to God for comfort? What about turning to other versions of myself, seeking
comfort in the Dave of more confident moments? Turning to God through prayer or
meditation. Solitude to be with myself and nature. Turning to art and poetry and the
people of the past. When I’m in that place, feeling down on myself for being a bad
roommate, friend, writer, employee, etc. Feeling that I haven’t done a good job using my
time well here. In every way, perceiving my loneliness and disappointment with myself,
for some strange and interesting reason, that fills me with a deep and visceral longing to
go home, even without knowing what the hell that means for me. Next time I’m in it, the
loneliness and homelessness, dissect it, examine it as a beginning to the task of how to
USE it, as an old professor suggested 4 years ago, that I am now finally beginning to
understand. use the loneliness. But: all loneliness manifests as homelessness, which is
intimately tied to a sense of purposelessness and quickly remedied by reinvigoration of
purpose.
Finer things in life education (beer, spirits, pipe smoking, dress style)—this may combat
feelings of future homelessness on road (instead of a ripped jeans dreadlocked bum: vest
+ tie + fedora + typewriter to busk, or dress fancy and occasional evenings of sampling
beer)
I know how to create space and build moments.
Roommate time night – candlelight with those 3 girls, it was safe, I have done it, I have
learned how to create moments, how to build them, powerful connections and safe
spaces, how to really show up – how to build an atmosphere, and how to BRING
MSELF. Yes. This is everything I came here for, I realized!!! That was IT. I needed to
be safe, to serve others, to share what I have, to build a foundation of home without
losing focus on my journey or internal locus, and in the important ways I have succeeded
totally. That moment that one night, everyone taking space to check in, as we passed
around the hookah, candles flickering, we could hear people at the door but not entering
because of our sign, then in a final circle to Bon Iver’s Beth/Rest in silence, I realized I
got exactly what I came here for, I have grown and deepened immensely, and I feel so
ready – THIS is what I plan to bring to the world. As a wanderer, I will let the universe
guide me to the people I need and who need me, and I will endlessly, relentlessly work to
become ever better at showing up to moments, creating safe spaces, and bringing myself.
I felt so confident, so strong, so full of love and faith, with so much to bring the world.
THIS TIME I DO NOT HIT THE ROAD IN SEARCH. THIS TIME I GO IN
SERVICE.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
I did do what I came here to do. In outlining intentions, the words “some” or “partial”
or “…steps…” are next to most of my goals, and I have naturally regarded that as a
failure. When I see the word “some” beside a specific goal for changes I wanted to bring
into my life in Boulder, I consider that a failure. What I have finally learned is that
changes take time to make. They must be brought about slowly, patiently, in small and
progressive steps. And for nearly everything I wanted to do here, I DID make some kind
of small step. Which is all I could ask for, and all that is really necessary right now. So,
I DID DO WHAT I SET OUT TO DO HERE. And I have learned how to do it better
as I continue on.
With Aisling on how to love (healthy romantic relationships)
Here are a few of the lessons we explored: not imposing limitations based on fear (it must
end when…); the relationship as a component of and context for the journey rather than a
distraction; examining how we each did things in the past and trying to do them the right
way, consciously this time; on doing things alone, yet together; how being loved can
remind you of your best qualities, and loving another lets you experience love in your
own heart; the willful inevitability of pain and hurting; seeking home within self or God
rather than each other
What I have to offer people is my presence. This is my way to serve. I am not offering
a lifestyle. And definitely not a dream or legend—this is directly counter to the way and
directly in service of nothing but my ego. If my life becomes an attempt to push
boundaries, to push myself to something slightly beyond myself, this is what I will share
with people. The point is not to hit the road; the point is to push yourself slightly beyond
where you’re at now. People respond not to my story but to my energy. I learned this
at FATE. People respond to my attitude, energy, and outlook on life—NOT MY
STORY. People there were initially drawn to me, but began to react less positively pretty
quickly when I became a force of negativity. Totally irrelevant that I had a good story.
When I was on the road, people were not drawn to me because of the way I was
living; they were drawn to me because I was alive.
What I long for is not the road but the kind of person I become when I’m out there
living that way. I miss being so connected and tapped in. I do not long for the new
scenery, the “freedom,” the sensation of movement even, not the lack of a job, not the
visiting of new places. What I long for is being in touch with the world around me, being
tapped in to the energy of life and the power of intuition, living within the cycle of
receiving and giving freely, of trust and generosity, of knowing how to tell when the rain
is coming based on how the air smells, of eating simple just to nourish my body and
being so grateful for the sustenance that I am sometimes moved to tears when it comes to
me. I miss all of that. I miss the mentality of the road: you spend time doing things for
their own sake. The freedom to live and act spontaneously. It’s not that I don’t want to
work—it’s just that I want to do the work that matters the most to me. It’s not that I think
freedom means having no commitments or obligations—it’s that I only want to take on
commitments and obligations that actually matter to me. I miss living in harmony with
life through migration and nomadicism: freedom to go anywhere, to seek environments
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
that match the seasons of the soul. I miss those moments of surprising frequency where
you sit back and realize that this moment is an answer to the question of WHO AM I, and
you realize that moment is the only way you ever want to live. I miss the form of service
I found living on the road. Every day I would hear people say “I wish I could do what
you’re doing.” Why would I live any other way? My identity as a traveler creates an in
for dialogue and a way to serve. I hit the road tired of making compromises. I learned
that you always make them. And I realized that while I was on the road, I compromised
comfort in order to live out what I believed in. Now, living within normal society, I
compromise what I believe in for a few basic comforts. I know what I need to do.
Living on the road is thus far the most pure and uncompromising way I’ve found to live.
I’m tired of the way they look at me when I scrape good food off a bussed plate into a togo box; why is that not ok, but scraping it into the trash is? I want to return to the road
for these reasons: to explore and acknowledge my deepest oldest longing; to grow,
workshop myself; to continue exploring who I am; to make the world my home
(reconcile home); in deference to my lust, longing, yearning, to wander; to test,
challenge, push myself; to be put in a position where I need to use everything I am
capable of using, where I need to become everything I am capable of being.
One cool thing about the road now. Before, it was something that took a lot of work, a
tough experiment, a full time job to survive, etc. Now it’s just a way of life. Or more
accurately, a place to live. Being on the road is different from travel. The answer to
“what are you doing” will not be “traveling.” What I’m doing is “being, loving, writing,
serving, working on myself, etc.” The road is just where I happen to be living while I do
those things. maybe learning how to live without money was something I spent two
years doing not just for its own sake; maybe I did that so that I’d have a place to always
return to, when my lease is up and I have work to do but don’t want to spend my life
slaving away to pay rent, just somewhere safe and simple I can go to spend some time
doing things I love. Yes: for me, the road has become a place to come home to.
How do I serve? The first way is conversation, especially with people hurting or
searching. Showing up fully to the space and being present with another. And now, in
conversation, my task is no longer to emphasize the wandering, which creates an
unrealistic storyline and set of expectations, but the pushing of oneself, the following of
dreams, the trusting of people and of life, the faith in the workings of the universe,
because THOSE are the important things. The point isn’t to travel but to take any step,
no matter how small, towards our dreams. My task now is not to push people towards
the travel they claim to desire but to identify where they are at and to push them
just a small step beyond that. (I think I am getting better at compassion when others
are seeking advice – regurgitating the wisest things I have read and heard,
SIMPLIFYING, rather than ranting about my own experiences and relatings. I also think
my suffering has helped me better be there for others.) A second way I can serve is the
same as how I can love: my duty, my way of most deeply loving the people who love me,
is to create myself, to make myself the greatest I can be, to sharpen myself and create
the most beautiful things I possibly can. In both of these, the point is to give people
exactly what I have to offer; to transmit wisdom and light through my being, to let myself
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
be guided to the people hungry for whatever it is I have to offer. Finally, I can show up
to spaces and build moments. I know how to build safe spaces and beautiful
moments.
One tangible idea for service: take kids out on the road for the first time. As I wander
through places, stop for a bit at a time to do it; let the universe guide me to people who
want to get out and live that way for a minute, and then take them out, pray each day that
I can keep them safe.
To briefly compare service on the road and in society: neither has been fully rewarding.
On the road, the obvious downfall is spending such a short amount of time with people.
The upside is the intensity of connection fueled by people being drawn to my lifestyle
and by my ability to connect quickly. Powerful moments of service on the road: Tel &
Tina (the runaway teenagers in the stolen car who I helped sort out their mess), Sandi (we
helped pack her car and keep her awake on the long drive), Cyndi (we saved her and her
children from her own exhaustion and inability to drive), David Harris (we cleaned his
house for him), Randy & Deaet, Loo & Logan kids, Idaho Falls Sbux crew. Especially IF
– Part of the reason I moved to Boulder was because I was disappointed I couldn’t do
more for them, but the way they greeted me when we walked back in…In society, the
upside is time. Yet is that good? 6 months at FATE and I hadn’t served anyone there as
much as, say, Sandi, or Tel. My greatest service there came from emotional support, but
that’s something I don’t need extended time for necessarily—time just builds a
relationship, which is important too, but distinct from service. The others I served in
Boulder? Leila and Aisling undoubtedly. Them more than anyone, and they are
examples of why extended time does matter. Kodiak, for showing up to spaces with her,
for the time we spent. Erik, for our conversations, and though my couch was the in to our
dialogue, that dialogue was about the road, so not sure what that means. Taking Leila
and Aisling out on the road was one of the deepest ways I served. Drea, by being there
for her that one time, that was something. Cheryl through our dialogue. There was the
deaf child Aisling and I rescued. That was in society but just a momentary interaction!
So…the hypothesis that on the road, service is brief and not lasting because it comes
in the form of short interactions that may be merely temporarily inspiring, and that
service in society can be much deeper because it can be built over an extended of period
of time—this hypothesis has not proved to be necessarily true in my experience. In
both environments there were opportunities for service that were unique to that
environment but one was not fundamentally deeper or more meaningful than the other.
When am I at my best?
Showing up to a moment with other humans, especially with those who are lost or
hurting. Sitting down to write in those moments of intense empowerment. Moments of
stillness with the immense beauty of the world, sunsets. What makes me feel the best is
being around good people, and doing the things I love. The road vs. home is irrelevant
here. No matter where I am or how I’m living, I thrive on meaningful human
connection, devotion to craft or cause, and my hunger for the world.
WHAT I NEED TO DO NOW:
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Learn how to “just live”
Idea for one month: “JUST LIVE.” Create the situation and means of survival (road, RV,
etc). Then just live. Let go of the search. Just be content and deeply present. See if my
activities change (if writing less, that would be bad). Or would I just feel less angst and
despair, and be equally or marginally more productive? What about a retreat? 40 days in
the desert? Or even just 10? What about a month of silence in the Boundary Waters?
Each day just for the sake of the day? Try having no outside purpose.
Just be
So if I know now that purpose is something we choose for ourselves to create (do I know
this now??) if so, then what if, for a single month, my deeper, deepest purpose, was
simply to BE? Could it be the best month of my life?
My task is not to become – it is to be.
Building practices – building my home
I need something to trust in. I need that so badly. What if I knew that I was living right
each day?? If I could trust in how I was living each day, then I could have absolute and
complete faith in my life…. WOW. Live in an RV, yes. And Each month, attempt a
new practice or experiment to make a significant change. Each week, try anything new.
Whatever works best, try for an entire month. Each thing would have to be a
fundamental change, something I am honestly interested in bringing into my life. (a
focus for each month: meditation, finally! Correspondence neglect. Diet. Already tried
disciplined writing.) Talk about working on oneself!!! I could spend a whole year (on
the road) with the purpose of deep personal transformation. This would quite possible be
one of the most life changing experiences I’ve ever had. There would be NO WORRY
WHATSOEVER of larger purpose or how my day to day life was leading me to who I
yearn to become. This would be in DIRECT HARMONY with all that matters most to
me. And of course, if I spent a year living this way, I could take A Course in Miracles.
This is what I mean when I say that I am going to be building my home.
My task is to build my home. that’s what all of this is – creating myself, building my
practices, learning how to love myself, revision of meaning of home.
Simplicity of lifestyle
Just go bring myself. Purpose and guidance and foundation within
I just want to live!!! I want to go open hearted with not much beyond openness,
willingness, readiness. I am so drawn to this, WHY? I can’t stand to answer people
about what I’m doing next, why can’t my answer just be, to get out there and bring
myself to whatever moments life throws my way, bring my heart to people life
introduces me to, etc etc etc? Can I not be just a vessel of life and light, and my task is
just to go forth and bring what I have to offer? Yet in that there must be purpose and
guidance and foundation. What if foundation is my practices? Guidance is my own
longing? Purpose is life itself, just BEING? Wow. Coupled with service through
presence and perhaps craft and practice? Maybe I should try living for a month as if God
had everything under control, and if this here was all there is.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
I feel really intense right now about what I am about to do. Hit the road – to be ON THE
ROAD again and fully release my life to the universe, fully devote myself to the
moment. This is important and serious. There is profound work to be done here. In
that realm, in creating personal change, in creative development, in continuing my
work with and exploration of the idea of home
My whole mission now is to GROW. Everything is my work. Everything is my journey,
my lessons, I am getting more serious, I know that my whole life depends on each
moment. I know how to bring changes into my life. I will be unstoppable on this
mission. This journey IS my home. I know what my work is: trust in my practices, #1
of which is my compulsion to distill meaning from experience; trust that I felt like
boulder was a crash and burn but how immensely I actually grew here; so no matter
how bad things get, remember I am growing. Keep writing. Fill life with the
moments that make you feel the best. FILL it with those moments. Simplicity,
sunsets, companionship, expression…I will be outside during the sunset, all the time. I
will be in cafes writing and seeking comfort and companionship whenever I need. And
above all, I have a PURPOSE – self dependency – I have a purpose: to build a home, and
to create beautiful things.
(there’s also self image. Perhaps more notes on this further into blue notebook, sigh I
have to check. But: dressing fly, typewriter busking, occasional work, gas jugging
lightheartedly, making crafts like sage and dream catchers and wire wraps.)
Do things my way: just spend my time doing the things that make me feel the best
It’s so damn simple. I have always had enough work to fill a lifetime with. This is why
I’m so resistant to joining an organization or whatever. Remember my notebook at the
end of Nepal, outlining my goals, priorities, and tasks for my final year of college, and
something like #8 on the list was “full academic course load.” I just need to let myself
craft my OWN life, finally really give myself permission to do it because if I don’t I will
always regret it, I will always resist the itinerary of the thing I am part of. I need to try,
for real, living MY way. And now I know finally what this means: just do the things I
KNOW I NEED TO DO. JUST DO THEM. That alone is purpose, belonging, etc.
That’s what it means to DO THINGS MY OWN WAY. I have never really done it.
I’ve always tried to fit my life into the context of what others expect of me. It is
time.
This is what it would look like:
I want to create a life
Where I spend my time
Doing the things
That make me feel the best.
I used to try to cut out all hypocrisies in my life
but I’ve learned that one always makes compromises.
Before I compromised comfort in order to live out what I believed in
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Now I have been compromising what I believe in, for comfort
I know what I need to do.
Of all those things I always know I need to do
I just need to do them
Create a life with each day filled with them
That is all I need to do.
It is time to work harder than ever before
I tried to explain this all to someone and they said, oh, so it’s time to hang out and have
fun because you’re young?
NO. It is time to WORK, harder than I ever have before. I’ve got writing to do, pieces of
artwork to create, practices to build, bad habits to break. It’s time. I want to get out
there, bring my all to the people that I meet, work my fucking ass off, and start doing
what I need to do to become the kind of person I want to be. And i want THAT to be my
full time job.
THIS TIME I DO NOT HIT THE ROAD IN SEARCH
THIS TIME I GO IN SERVICE
I think this is my whole mission:
To BE with people
To deepen my ability to create
To bring change to myself.
LET GO. KNOW NOTHING. TRUST HEART. DO MY BEST. BEGIN NOW.
Just live, build practices, keep writing, create moments.
I am finally going to truly allow myself to live my own way.
This time I do not go in search but in service.
I am going to be building my home.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Essential Lessons & Ideas to Carry with Me
(Most of what I’m doing next is NOT making plans, and I have prepared myself to arrive
at moments, I know how to craft plans for changes when I am ready to make them. BUT:
is there anything specific, tangible, that I should make sure I bring with me through
conscious discipline rather than unconscious habit?)
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The process I’ve developed for habit building
What helps me grow as a writer: writing. What keeps me from growing: not
writing. I need to solidify a daily writing practice in order to grow.
Spending time with good books always makes me feel so good.
I am happiest and feel the best when I spend time with good people and do the
things that I love.
Use discipline to create space in my life for specific things I love: (WRITING,
READING, ETC…).
Forget the big picture; it’s not up to me anyway. All of the greatest times of my
life have not been my responsibility to create—only to say yes. Just trust in the
path. How to engage the moment? Just do what I know I need to do NOW and
let things unfold.
Do things “NOW” rather than “LATER.” Put away dirty laundry. DO IT RIGHT
if I do something sloppy. Take 5 min to do something on my list instead of
making another list.
If I’m lonely, remember that it’s not because I’m on the road. Community is not
dependent upon where I am or how I’m living. In lonely times, just give your
work a break for a bit and go manifest deep human connection, go build some
moments with some people, because you know how to do that, or just meander to
any of the many cities where you’ve got people who know you.
HOME is defined by how much I’m living in sync with who I am. When I’m not
living in harmony with who I am, I feel lost, lonely, and homeless. When I am
living in harmony with who I am, I feel like I am home.
In the lonely moments: closely examine my experience of loneliness. Turn within
to myself. Take solitude to be with nature. Try turning to God for comfort
through prayer and meditation and see what it feels like. Turn to art and poetry
and the people of the past.
On relationships, jobs, etc—pay attention to my aversions because there is
probably an important opportunity and series of lessons therein.
“Some” progress should be considered a success rather than a failure.
People are drawn to me because of who I am and the energy I emanate.
I serve by becoming a better me, creating beautiful things. I serve by showing up
fully to moments and offering people what I can give. In conversation, my task is
not to push people towards their dream of travel but to identify where they’re at
and push them just a small step beyond that.
Living on the road makes me feel more connected, tapped in, and inside myself.
I’m at my best when engaged in meaningful human connection, devotion to craft
or cause, and celebrating my hunger for the world.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
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trust in my practices, #1 of which is my compulsion to distill meaning from
experience; I felt like Boulder was a crash and burn but notice how immensely I
actually grew there; so no matter how bad things get, remember I am growing.
It is time to WORK, harder than I ever have before. I’ve got writing to do, pieces
of artwork to create, practices to build, bad habits to break. It’s time. I want to
get out there, bring my all to the people that I meet, work my fucking ass off, and
start doing what I need to do to become the kind of person I want to be.
Just live. Build practices, keep writing, show up, create moments.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Key Elements of the Next Chapter
I am finally going to truly allow myself to live my own way.
This time I do not go in search but in service.
I am going to be building my home.
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Bring positive changes into my life
Continue to develop myself as an artist
Find ways to serve individuals and communities
Deepen my faith in the workings of the universe
Feel safe and at home in myself and the world
Learn how to “just live”
Create beautiful moments alone and with other humans
The road is a good place for things like this.
Immediately actionable tasks:
Daily writing practice
Daily reading practice
Take care of things NOW
Taking care of myself is the foundation for all work on myself and then upon the world
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
What Now: A Short Essay
What now, after two years on the road and nine months in Boulder? The journey
continues in a new form. I envision a blend of the two lifestyles, informed by the
successes and failures of each, simultaneously making use of the lessons and addressing
the unmet inner needs of both. I am preparing to launch into a new chapter of exploration
of self, humanity, and the world. I’m going to be living out of a cozy vehicle and I’m
going to be on the road, slowly traveling from place to place nomadically, meeting new
people and deeply connecting, supporting myself by playing music on the street or typing
poems or human generosity or doing occasional odd jobs, and just living as deeply as I
can.
Yes, I’m going to be on the road again. But things will be different this time. It’s not
about traveling anymore. Travel isn’t even what I want to do now—travel itself is not
what I crave. I do not long for the new scenery, the “freedom,” the sensation of
movement even, not the lack of a job, not the visiting of new places. What I long for is
being in touch with the world around me, being tapped in to the energy of life and the
power of intuition, living within the cycle of receiving and giving freely, of trust and
generosity, of knowing how to tell when the rain is coming based on how the air smells,
of eating simple just to nourish my body and being so grateful for the sustenance that I
am sometimes moved to tears when it comes to me. I miss all of that. I miss the
mentality of the road: spending time doing things for their own sake. The freedom to live
and act spontaneously. It’s not that I don’t want to work—it’s just that I want to do the
work that matters the most to me. It’s not that my idea of freedom involves having no
commitments or obligations—it’s that I only want to take on commitments and
obligations that are truly worth taking on. I miss living nomadically, in harmony with
life through migration: the ability to seek environments that match the seasons of the
soul. I miss those moments that come with surprising frequency in which you sit back
and realize that this moment is an answer to the question of WHO AM I, and you realize
that moment is the only way you ever want to live. I miss the form of service I found in
living on the road. Every day I would hear people say “I wish I could do what you’re
doing.” I hope I have been a source of inspiration, and I know that I’ve deeply touched
certain individuals to whom the universe guided me. I hit the road tired of making
compromises. I learned that one always makes compromises. Only, living in society
helped me realize that while I was on the road, I compromised comfort in order to live
out what I believed in. Then, living within society, I compromise what I believe in for a
few basic comforts. I know what I need to do. Yes: what I long for is not the road but
the kind of person I become when I’m out there living that way. The road is the best
place I’ve found to be put in a position where I need to use everything I am capable of
using, where I need to become everything I am capable of being. I want to spend my
time doing the things that matter to me, which means I don’t want to sell my time
anymore, and the road is the best way I’ve found to do that. What I will be doing is not
“traveling.” What I’m going to be doing is being, loving, writing, serving, working on
myself, etc. The road is just where I’ll happen to be living while I do those things.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
A year, let’s say. Maybe more, maybe less, but let’s just say that because that’s a simple
chunk of time. During this time I’m going to be working on myself through the process
I’ve developed over the three years of this journey. I’m going to be building a new
practice every month or so. Each month it’ll be a new thing I’ve wanted to bring into my
life. It could be meditation, or having a better diet, praying in the mornings and evenings,
transforming the “I’ll deal with it later” mindset that applies to the dirty laundry of my
life, consciously standing up straighter, drinking tea instead of coffee, anything that I’ve
been wanting to bring into my life, many things that I’ve tried and failed to build, but this
time, I’ll be addressing only one at a time instead of all at once in fits of manic discipline.
This will also be radical and different than ever before because though a few of these
things would take up time in my day, most of them are not about adding tasks to my daily
life—they’re about how I live my life. Of course, I would also be steadily writing through
all of this. And if I were able to begin publishing some of my work and establishing
myself as a writer, that could be the beginning of a professional foundation. Ultimately,
at the end of this time I could go back to school for writing, or for social work, political
science, anthropology. Or I could stumble upon a job somewhere doing good in the
world. I could take a long journey traveling internationally with all I’m working on. Or
this could be working really well and I could just keep doing it as long as it feels right.
But one day I’ll write books about it all, I’ll be a professor in an academic community
teaching writing or politics, I’ll have a family and a stable place to live and an established
form of service. Maybe at that point when I have a home and a career and children I’ll
even sever my dreadlocks. Or maybe I won’t do that. They’ll be down to my knees.
But for now, I’ll be living and growing on the road. As the journey unfolds, I tend to
think a lot about the idea of home being something that exists inside of us. And I think in
some ways, our home is just whoever we are; the person we return to each time we return
to awareness. The way I do everything, the way I live my life, is my home. So in
working on myself in the way I have begun to outline here, what I would really be doing
is building a home within myself. When I’m out there on the road, living and writing and
seeking and growing, and I meet those people who inevitably want a one sentence answer
to the what are you doing question, what I’ll say is that I’m building my home.
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
Unresolved Questions & Prospective Pitfalls
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Preparation and transitions take time. One way I set myself up for failure in
Boulder was that I envisioned a life of working, living somewhere, writing,
having community, etc, but in my ideation I left no space for the time and
resources it would take to get set up and create that reality. Am I doing the same
thing now as I prepare for the next chapter?
What will be the first practice I build with this method?
Even if I succeed at building a practice or series of them through unrelenting
discipline and repetition, how to ensure the practice(s) will endure?
I need more guidance for writing than simply “keep writing”
What about off days? What of those days when I am sapped of energy, how can I
push through to continue this work? On those days I envision myself dropping
everything and failing magnificently. How can I avoid that?
One large question: all the intentions I created for Boulder fell through and failed.
What makes me think this will be any different? Interestingly other people only
require the simplest explanation…what are you doing? Oh, moving to such and
such city and working at a café. Why is that an acceptable answer but me going
out onto the road with an open heart showing up to whatever moments life
presents is not acceptable?!?!
I can’t tell whether this outline is too vague or too specific. The danger of
vagueness is that it will not give me enough, I won’t go in consciously enough.
The danger of specificity is that I may not fulfill my own expectations. Boulder’s
plan was dangerously specific though, so I’m ok with this bordering on
vagueness, which is to say openness.
I still don’t know how to talk about any of this, how to share it with people in a
concise and comprehensible way, and without being able to talk about it, it’s
harder for me to understand it myself.
Am I deluded? Is it really ok for me to just build an entire life based on my own
instincts and intuitions? Is this an incredibly selfish and irresponsible thing to do,
and am I so focused on looking within that I’m actually seeing things too
narrowly? One day if I have something tangible to show for myself, if my work
speaks for itself, that will be evidence that though it may be unorthodox, I’m
doing something right, but right now I don’t have that and I could be doing
something very wrong.
An unspoken piece of this all is what I’m envisioning for myself long term. Here
are a couple elements: I need to write and publish a book one day. I will not rest
until I accomplish this task. Of course, now my task is not to write a book but to
become the kind of person who is a talented and connected enough writer to
achieve the feat. That’s how it is with everything I want to do. I am trying to
become the kind of person I’ll need to be in order to do all the work I yearn to do.
Other things: I want to work in conflict countries, still. I don’t know my field. I
will need to take an epic voyage around the planet still; that’s how this whole
thing will end, this I recognize on some level. Still don’t know when or how. But
I will have no choice but to do this or regret it forever. Just like writing about
Occupy. I will need to go back to school to seek an MFA or a PhD, though I do
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Reflections on 9 Months in Boulder: October 2012 to June 2013
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not yet know in which discipline. Finally, I will end my journey, build a semi
permanent community and home, start a family, become a professor, have two
children, sever my dreadlocks, write books, travel the world in service, be happy.
That’s my vision for my own life. I don’t know whether or not that is a necessary
piece of context for this entire document. But there it is. Right NOW, my work is
to continue plodding forwards, learning how to live and love and create, to
prepare myself for all that is to come for me.
Will any of this actually get me where I want to go, or am I just drifting aimlessly
masked by purpose I crave so desperately that I write 45 pages on this stuff to try
to find one?
What about activism, crisis work, volunteering, conflict travel, etc?
I may find that all my pretty words on community and home are meaningless once
I am lonely and homeless again.
There is a continued danger to living so much by my own will that I might miss
something essential about the world and society of which I am a part; I constantly
live on the knife edge between the two poles of homeless and warrior. If I
succeed (what does this mean—publish something beautiful, take an epic journey,
find and enter my field and professional work, fall in love and start a family,
become a professor?) the stakes are incredibly high, and the success could be
radical and justify everything I’ve suffered. If I fail (what does that mean—never
get anything published, give up writing before I become good enough, never find
a true place in a community again, never have a family, not find a way to serve?)
the disappointment would be crushing. That doesn’t seem possible though.
This whole thing is frightening but it continues and I have no choice but to give
everything I’ve got to this journey because I choose to believe in myself.
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