La Paz, Bolivia
December 28, 2001
Grabbing a hot spring dip at 12,000 feet in the 40 degree air of the Bolivian Altiplano.
It's been quite a year, this 2001. From the exhilaration of seeing man's technological triumph of a space shuttle launch; to the horror of man's cruelty in flying an airplane into a building.
Encapsulating this year for me will be difficult, but I am going to try briefly. I can't remember who said this, but: "forgive me, I do not have the time to be brief."
For me, 2001 really began to get interesting on 25 Jan, when both John Mack and I left Morgan Stanley on the 25th. I spent seven years working for the venerable firm and left friends, clients, and a large part of my identity - that of swashbuckling Wall Street dude and all the attendent caricatures - behind.
This hiatus gives me my first time away from an occupation of some type since 1988, when I finished college and went on active duty in the Marines.
Waking at 10am, 5 hours later than customary, I found New York to be a different place: people wandered all over the streets, Starbucks and Barnes & Noble were full of browsers...didn't these people have jobs to go to?! (Or maybe they are all former dot.commers!) I enjoyed meandering the city, delving back into my old hobby of black & white photography. I played computer games and surfed the net, I read books and the Times daily. I watched movies and just vegged around my flat. I went out and played a lot of golf! I think the life of luxury suits me.
Becoming a non-productive member of society took some getting used to. I shaved my head and grew a goatee, trying for some Bohemian look and lifestyle which Wall Street did not afford me. I stayed out past my work bedtime of 11pm, like a teenager breaking a curfew.
Rediscovering the depth of my non-work personality offered endless insights and humorous moments. I realized my anal-retentive nature (no doubt recognized by my work colleagues long ago), and penchant for (over)organizing things. It took a while before I felt less guilt lingering over a cinnamon roll and coffee and a book at a sidewalk cafe. My natural need to do or accomplish something kept whispering in my ear. Shaddup already!
In June, the road beckoned and I began a the mother of all roadtrips, across the continent. I traded in my Boxster for a more practical Pathfinder - which held my golf clubs and then some.
Armed with the Rand MacNally US road atlas, I proceeded to run up 15,000 miles and four months of road time - longer than the 6-8 weeks I anticipated. My opera and U2 CDs got the most playing time, though I grew to cherish silence, except for the wind and road noise. I pondered bits and pieces of my life, pictures and emotions plucked from the haze of memories long gone. Amazing how one can recall things in an enviroment of peace and quiet (and sheer boredom after 8 hours behind the wheel)!
My Pathfinder worked like a time machine, moving me back in time as I reunited with friends from long ago in my drive across the US. All those cities harboring folks from my past, which I never visited due to the ubiquitous "didn't have time" excuse which is the mantra of modern day life; became key destinations. I saw friends from high-school, the Marines, and Hong Kong in such far flung places as Nashville, Minneapolis, Charlottesville, and Jackson.
The chance encounters with fellow golfers as I played 30+ rounds across the nation provided some of the most interesting strange bedfellows. From Al, cigar chomping, swearing, former-Marine turned marshall on the RT Jones trail in Alabama to Dan, the senior circuit competitor at Dancing Rabbit, Missouri (also the strangest name for a course). The love of the game displayed by everyone I ended up playing with reflected my own deep fascination with golf as a metaphor for life.
Ultimately, as a friend likes to say, life's importance revolves around your personal relationships, friends and family. I could not agree more. Yet I have chosen to leave both behind in a search for...something. I tell people I travel to learn about myself, and this could not ring more true. As I slowly shrug off the compulsive, check-list focused travel, trying to see all the "must see sights," I find more time to just be.
Ranier Maria Rilke wrote: "What is necessary, after all, is only this: Solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no-one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain."
Overseas, I delighted in meeting and spending time with like minded travel folk. I don't fit the younger grunge backpacker set, those 20-somethings identified by dreadlocks, tattoos, tie-dye shirts and body piercings. Neither do I fit into the Yuppie Conde Nast group, on some Abercrombie and Fitch tour; though they probably are closer than I like to admit. Yet the thirst for adventure and hunger to explore the new and untried ties all of us together. The inimitable human spirit of growth.
Yet, I also relish my time alone, for reading, meditating and just pondering. Of course, sometimes I am soooo bored out of my skull that I search high and low for a hostal with cable TV, so I can get my fix of CNN, Seinfeld, and the Simpsons! One cannot keep one's head in the clouds all the time. Once in a while, I even succumb to my desperate need for the Big Mac #1 meal at Mickey D's...yes and SUPERSIZE that baby!
Just over seven months on the road thus far, three of those outside the US. My Central and South America legs raced by faster than I preferred, given some external time constraints, but I don't regret one moment. After all, you can't have everything...where would you put it?
I think that I visited about 40 countries thus far in my life, 9 in the last three months. I might cover about 70 when all is said and done...sometime in 2003...out of 180.
What have I learned? Hell, I don't know, and if I did, I don't know if I could quite put it into words. From moment to moment I may craft some interesting blurbs for these Travelogues, but the meaning of it all still eludes me. Yet, I continue to chase after something, that intangible Holy Grail, the meaning of life? How about I settle for just the meaning of MY life?!
I suppose my trip will end when I find it, or run out of money, or get bored and return home. Part of me knows that what I search for resides right here inside me, inside each one of us. You don't have to circle the globe, climb Everest, or meditate in a cave for ten years. I think life just implores us to be present, for every precious moment, as best we can. May you live in interesting times.
Best wishes for 2002 and I hope to see you somewhere out there.
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