On a year of adulting

Posted on 12/21/2018 by Lesli W.

Does a Year in Review post belong here in my travel blog, or in the more serious collection of essays and other writings I post on Medium?

I dunno. So, here is an excerpt of my year-in-review post: On a Year of Adulting.

>>>>Adulting: I’m not sure when it happens; I mean, when it happens for real, that point at which you accept the Fates and appear for duty. Adulting, for sure, is a process… an incremental accretion of roles and responsibilities and experiences and been-there-done-thats, landing us at what…Our 15th anniversary of the 35th lap around the sun?

Truth be told, I don’t feel exponentially different than I did at 35. Sure, the joints are creakier and I’ve turned into quite the pumpkin by midnight on any given day. My tolerance for time-wasters has dwindled to next to nothing (tho maybe that’s not a new phenomena). And to those pesky little indications that biology is, in fact, in control: my inner idiot tells me you are immune to all of it, the graying, the wrinkling, the weakening, the widening (respectively: unkind, unprovoked, unimpressed, uninterested). Yet the calendar reminds us that it’s coming, and that we have accumulated these learnings and experiences; we’ve absorbed these bits of wisdom to carry with us to the next page on the calendar (or fling into the sea, if that better suits).

So, what of this year in review business? 2018 remained a continuation of 2017 and its inconceivable surreality. #MeToo left me battling some of my own demons, summoning parts of my past long-shovelled over; dragons I thought I’d long ago slain. I wrote this.<<<

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY: Goals and regrets, adventures and achievements and travels and near misses…

Tropical quickie.

Posted on 05/25/2018 by Lesli W.

Tropical ramblings on a Friday before a long weekend…

I woke up early this morn, half-dreaming of a place with palm trees and teeming reefs, half-real, half-fading in my morning haze.

I walked by the water a little later, the sea a bit less ultramarine here, contemplating the green-ness of late May, seeming late this year; I listened to the mockingbirds and blue jays and the distant knocking of woodpeckers. I made tea from ingredients I’ve collected from faraway spice markets.

I’m working from home today, listening to Zulu music between meetings while my dog’s snoring keeps time with the beat.

It’s a weird and wonderful world out there, all these places whispering their invitations to go exploring. Today, I’m collecting that feeling and brewing it, like a magic tea of sorts, to glean inspiration and motivation.

#HappyFriday

[more on the Seychelles] [more on Medium]

On wings and sunlight, harbingers of spring

Posted on 03/14/2018 by Lesli W.

I’ll parrot an Instagram post I made today…

After a blizzardy day, the sun decided to make itself known again. This photo says something aspirational to me. Maybe it’s the light, tap-dancing on the storm’s receding waves. Maybe it’s the idea of flight; the allure of escaping, by wing, to warmer climes. The touch of warm sun on cool earth, like spring’s teasing foreplay, as dormant life finds new purchase and scrabbles for its footing amidst a slippery, snow-covered terra (not-so) firma. Or it’s just seagulls, doing what they do.

These cold days, as winter winds down and attempts its last hurrah, I’m drawn to the sea and to watching the birds: the real harbingers of springtime; nests built in a race against the seasonal clock, their spirits (and their birdsong) warming the skies with the slowly-warming days. Today I named seagull moods (despite a dear friend’s observation that maybe this hibernating mermaid needs more hooman interaction):

Hangry

Pensive

Curious

Sultry

Righteous

A blizzard this week, and who knows what the rest of March will bring (of late, it seems to come in like a lion and go out like a pissed-off yeti rather than lamb), it will be weeks before we feel true warmth here in New England. Until then, I’ll watch and wait, planning the next tropical adventure, a continuation of Year of Africa and a land-locked mermaid’s dream; my own spirits warming with the increasing daylight.

Year of Africa: On wrapping up the year, elephants, and what comes next.

Posted on 12/14/2017 by Lesli W.

Towards the end of 2016 I sat, dumbfounded, unable to cobble together thoughts that weren’t alternately angry and helpless, or weren’t internal pleas for relief from who-knows-where. A certain level of resigned what-the-f*ck-ness filled and somehow glued me to my spot, writing blocked, spirit dampened.

In December, hoping to move some energy, release some creative something…hoping to get my body out of a place where my mind sat traumatized, I planned two trips to Africa. If there were any hopes of surviving the next 6-12 months (let alone the next 4 years) in this new version of the land I call home, this year would require open spaces, breathtaking nature, empathy, awe, wonder and adventure…

But first, we marched. We marched, some wearing pink hats and some carrying rainbow flags; some hoisting signs and balloons and banners… I didn’t want to go; because a Women’s March seemed exclusionary to me (little did I know what was to come in the following months), but a small-yet-persuasive band of male friends, gay and straight, helped change my mind. I was marching for freedom of speech and body; for the rights of my friends near and far; for equal pay and equal respect and equal human-ness, regardless of colour, accent, sexual preference… I marched because in some ways I felt guilty to be among the privileged whose marriage or healthcare or way of life wasn’t immediately threatened by the disease now infecting the White House. I marched in solidarity. I marched to say f*ck you to the orange disaster.

And for a few weeks, it felt good to be outspoken about politics. And it felt okay to write some things and get some of the crushing inertia off my chest. And, slowly, like an ice floe might creep up on you to encase your ankles in its bone-chilling grasp, it became horrifying to read the news. Because Russia and misogyny and pee tapes and climate deniers and North Korea and Access Hollywood and lies and propaganda and golf outings in lieu of job responsibilities and resignations and firings and more lies…Look! Squirrel!

I lament that we’re in a time where one must be a carefully-crafted brand to get noticed; when quantity (of likes) wins over quality (of most everything); how the president of my country governs rules in 140-word gibberish, his sycophants eating up the doublespeak and rhetoric.

So, when January came and went, then February, and planning was in full gear for Africa trip #1 and Turkish Airlines changed my return flight to include a 2-day layover in Istanbul, I considered it a bonus. More-so in hindsight, now that my passport is worthless there. For the record, Turkey is gorgeous.

Blue Mosque

Despite the political climate, I was determined to squeeze the most from this year. 2016’s angst would not become 2017’s tumour, if I had anything to do with it. And so 2017 was dubbed Year of Africa (tho only 2-1/2 weeks were spent there in total) …a series of adventures designed to escape a weirdening world and celebrate a half-century on it.

Milestones: I visited 7 countries, stepped foot on 3 foreign continents, experienced myriad cultures; I saw wild elephants, lions, zebras, ostriches, warthogs and more birds than I can name; I restocked my spice cabinet with Zanzibari cardamom (fantastic) and Turkish tea (not so much), cumin from Qatar, cloves from Pemba Island. I spent my 50^th birthday in Paris with a favourite human. I named a spirit animal. There’s always an elephant.

A couple of years ago, a friend asked me what I thought my spirit animal was. I didn’t have a good answer. Turtle, I wondered. I feel most free when diving. Turtles are remarkable creatures; humble and curious, diligent and persistent. Eagle? I am mesmerised by birds of prey, bald eagles most profoundly. Eagles represent freedom and power and keenness and precision. But the elephant has been a guiding light throughout my life and a recurring theme these last several years. Ganesha, my Hindu patron saint, represents the light of new beginnings; he’s the remover of obstacles. In other cultures, the elephant stands for power and strength; empathy, loyalty, wisdom… I had not seen one in the wild until this summer, yet only recently have I begun to notice the overriding ele theme in my flat. My last day in Botswana burned into my heart an experience I won’t soon forget. And so it’s now more than ever that I am humbled by the magic of elephants.

The doing part of this year was good. My hard work has paid off, duly rewarded with more work. Tho procrastination has paid off as well, rewarded with inner frustration and a book yet-to-be discovered (anyone know a good literary agent…or someone famous?). I gave my Nikon D80 to my niece and I’m excited that she’s got the camera bug too. I put more of my photography out in the world. Some of it, I’d even venture to consider decent. I feel more like a writer and a photographer than I have in ages, and with that comes responsibility: to have integrity, to resist publishing crap for popularity’s sake, to learn the difference between constructive criticism and trolling (and how to respond to each), to find my niche…

I’m ending this year feeling more vulnerable than I started. Like I’ve opened doors I need to walk through or be forever disgusted with my own inability to follow-through on something that has a 50/50 chance to end in disaster. Mind churns: What if I’m wrong? …But what if I’m right?

I’m ending this year feeling conflicted. I’m afraid that the future of intimacy might be at stake. I wonder whether all the good men are walking on eggshells each day, not knowing what to say (or what to do with their hands), lest they be branded a predator. I wonder if we’re overreacting, and in the same breath or thought, I wonder if we’re not reacting loudly enough. Yes, #metoo. And, yes, many of the most fantastic people in my world are men. Yet there are so many assholes in power who still think the rules don’t apply to them, it’s unfathomable. It’s not really all that hard, is it? No means no. Permission must be granted. Call me daft, but most women still don’t like unsolicited dick pix or catcalls or when you talk to our boobs or grab our ass on the subway or use your power to make us feel like we haven’t got any. The men I’ve got in my world already subscribe to this, yet I fear they’re the ones who will pay for #metoo exposing pervasive asshat behaviour.

And I’m ending this year more dedicated than ever to bring what I learn on the mat, off it. To think and feel and do in equal measure; balancing the head and the heart and the body to stay sane in a time where each day’s news bulletins are more absurd and frightening than the previous. To not let equanimity cancel out passion, and let iccha guide the fork-in-the-road decisions: What feels right, usually is. Right isn’t always easy. Easy isn’t always the most fun. The most fun isn’t always the right path. The right path will make itself known if you allow it. Then the journey becomes brighter…

Who’s with me in calling for peace and love and compassion and empathy and fairness and kindness and humility and integrity to be the prevailing tendencies in 2018?

Countering my own Earth Day rant

Posted on 04/22/2017 by Lesli W.

It’s Earth Day, 2017. This morning, I felt like writing a rant about the things we’ve done to fuck up this beloved planet of ours, and to complain about the egomaniacal, thing-filled greed that fuels the raping and pillaging of Planet Earth and the butchering of its wild animals, the slow execution of our reef systems, and the rampant willful ignorance that paralyses a government from acting to save ourselves from ourselves.

This will continue for as long as corporations keep the heroin needle of constant consumption in our arms, necessitating individually wrapped everything; ubiquitous use of convenient, single-use plastic bottles and wrappers and bags and cups; easy, convenient, processed consumables, disguised as food, laced with deforesting palm oil; absurdly low gas prices, “disposable” electronics, a government-subsidized diabetes epidemic, funded in part by a corn syrup industry and a PAC-funded government denial of the merits of real food. Corporate pockets will get deeper in direct correlation with the width of our waistlines; they will grow richer in inverse proportion to the level of natural resources remaining; they will get more resolute and change their doublespeak as our majestic wildlife, our tropical fauna, dwindles and fades into mere memory… paradise paved to put up a parking lot (or office park or housing tract), as it were; they will point fingers as coral reefs bleach, then die, and watch as the base of our planet’s ecosystem fails in an ignorant dismissal of science at all costs.

I wanted to rant about all this, but then got sidetracked by a quest for beauty this afternoon. A self-posed question of what I love about Planet Earth. What have I seen that has taken my breath away? If the only will or want I can control is my own: what can I share that might change someone else’s?

So on this Earth Day, I share some photos of the things on Planet Earth I’ve seen in my near half-century, as ocean temperatures rise and carbon levels increase and sugar-induced disease becomes endemic; these are the things that give me pause every day to stop and appreciate the Wonder that is inherent in this magnificent ball of rock that we inhabit, for as long as she will have us.

Happy Earth Day 2017.