I am not where I want to be, I need to get to where I want to be. This weekend was a huge step in the right direction.

I long for a little bit more nature

I look at the picture over my mantle and I think I want that. But what is that? It's a painted picture of the desert. I wouldn't call it idealic because the details are vague, it is slightly romanticiized because there is someone one a horse, but many of the details are unclear, except desert, colors, and sunset. But I don't very often feel that when I am here. Why am I so enchanted by flagstaff but upon returning here I have to hold back my urge to feel disgust? And it's because the desert has been overrun, it is a fragile beauty and we have all but destroyed. Human civilization has occurred overtime and made it's various marks, the strongest ones in most recent history, and level of strength that nature can co-exist varies. Here in the desert, it is almost all but obliterated.

Here in the desert, people treat it a like a moonscape and that is what it seems to be becoming. We have no patience for the heat, so we blast the air conditioner which leads to more heat. There is no patience for traversing in the heat so we cover the land with miles of asphalt. The desert is so fragile, it was never designed to have this many people. All things make sense, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I am so thankful to have taken the trip to flagstaff this weekend, it was beautiful and so refreshing, the evenings by the fire, the hike to Humphrey's peak. Being in nature. But upon my return, I realize we are suppose to live like that all the time. No wonder it's hard for me to come back to this. No wonder it's so easy to feel lost here and feel like it all is caving in, once more there is conformation that there is nowhere to escape to be in the state that we are suppose to be in.

Birthday!

What did I do for my Birthday? Well I grew a lot. I know what I want to do with life more than ever, and I'm determined more than ever to have focus to make it all work. The sky's the limit baby.

Life is so interesting

Life is so interesting! And my school has led me to see and understand so much more of this interest!

It is very interesting to look at photos from 2007-2008 and see my perspective of life then and understand my perspective of life now. So much more to contemplate and draw connections to and think of ideas in every single situation. And I have had a lot of experiences, they are rad, so glad I have had them.

Silence (sort of)

Last night the power went out at our house, and our block and all the houses behind us for about two miles, but not our neighbors across the street. At first it was an exciting atmosphere, we lit candles, the reverse osmosis was running in the kitchen giving a nice trickle of water. And it felt like we were getting back to nature. Stripped of modern day electricity there wasn't anything running in the house, the way it was back in the old days.... But the reality was it was still 100 outside (even though it was 9 at night) and you could feel the heat pressing on building trying to enter in and destroy our solitude. While power going out maybe a peaceful, here you feel like you are on a spaceship that has lost power and it is just a matter of time before you run out of oxygen and die. Which is actually true here, for some people no electricity would be an actual matter of life and death. WE LIVE ON THE MOON. or might as well be.

But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I decided to go swimming in our backyard. It was so peaceful, no pool pump, none of my neighbors air conditioners, the water had an intensity that normally isn't there. You could hear the traffic from McClintock though and the high school too. It was further away, but a game and people cheering and pep bands playing doesn't count anyways. Those sounds are all powered by humans alone and have a different energy to them, since they can't just run in perpetuity forever, and since they are telling a story rather than a hum, it is beautiful. It's interesting to think how much noise and light pollution comes from electricity and fossil fuels. A lot.

Then I began to think more about my time here in Arizona and how we are already here past halfway! Really past halfway if I go to Buenos Aires next fall. How it's been such an interesting different experience it has made life glow in so many ways and brought new understandings. And that it is actually all been completely worth it. Many of my perceptions, understandings , and ideas about life have grown in leaps and bounds. School has sucked me in and spit me back out so many times I have a world of material to think about and a world of material to go explore. And all under the context of this place. It's so fascinating but sometimes you only really begin to understand it's complexity when you begin to view it with other outsiders that already retain the same impression as you...Adventures with people in our house. I'd say we could arguably have had people here living with us over a third of the time that we are here. All these experiences because our house is a pilgrimage out to the desert for all of us. A certain isolation and mystery, even if this city is large, if you can tune it out (which sometimes is very hard) and tap into the desert, or better yet tap into this question mark of a city, it really is an enigma to be explored. And with the constant tumbling of grad school this city is an enigma that I felt I have barely explored. I'm hoping in the future this will be much easier to accomplish with Ryan on his own adventures.

Then a truck starts creeping down the alley slowly and finally comes to stop right behind our house. I get out and run inside and peak out from the door. Some sort of truck to deal with the power outage. Two square miles of no power, and somehow the solution is right behind our backyard. Of course. This place. A little later the entire sky lights up green and then the power really goes out including my neighbors across the street and the high school. But only for a moment for them and it pops back on. Then a few minutes later our power goes on, and every single air conditioner, our pool pump, and of course our neighbors air compressor comes on. The magic is gone.

Silence (sort of)

Last night the power went out at our house, and our block and all the houses behind us for about two miles, but not our neighbors across the street. At first it was an exciting atmosphere we lit candles, the reverse osmosis was running in the kitchen giving a nice trickle. And it felt like we were getting back to nature. Stripped of modern day electricity there wasn't any thing running in the house, the way it was back in the old days.... But the reality was it was still 100 outside (even though it was 9 at night) and you could feel the heat pressing on building trying to enter in and destroy our solitude. While power going out maybe a peaceful here you feel like you are on a spaceship that has lost power and it is just a matter of time before you run out of oxygen and die. Which is actually true here, for some people no electricity would be an actual matter of life and death. WE LIVE ON THE MOON. or might as well be.

But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I decided to go swimming in our backyard. It was so peaceful, no pool pump, none of my neighbors air conditioners the water had an intensity that normally isn't there. You could hear the traffic from McClintock though and the high school too. It was further away, but a game and people cheering and pep bands playing doesn't count anyways. Those sounds are all powered by humans alone and have a different energy to them, since they can't just run in perpetuity forever. It's interesting to think how much noise and light pollution comes from electricity and fossil fuels. A lot.

Then I began to think more about my time here in Arizona and how we are already here past halfway! Really past halfway if I go to Buenos Aires next fall. How it's been such an interesting different experience it has made life a glow in so many ways and brought new understandings. Adventures with people in our house. I'd say we could arguably have had people here living with us over a third of the time that we are here. All these experiences because our house is a pilgrimage out to the desert for all of us. A certain isolation and mystery, even if this city is large, if you can tune it out (which sometimes is very hard) and tap into the desert, or better yet tap into this question mark of a city, it really is an enigma to be explored. And with the constant tumbling of grad school this city is an enigma that I felt I have barely explored. I'm hoping in the future this will be much easier to accomplish with Ryan on his own adventures.

Then a truck starts creeping down the alley slowly, and finally comes to stop right behind our house. I get out and run inside and peak out from the door. Some sort of truck to deal with the power outage. Two square miles of no power, and somehow the solution is right behind our backyard. Of course. This place. A little later the entire sky lights up green and then the power really goes out including my neighbors across the street and the high school. But only for a moment for them they pop back on. Then a few minutes later our power goes on, and every single air conditioner, our pool pump, and of course our neighbors air compressor comes on. The magic is gone.

adventure: risky or unexpected undertaking

When you're seeking adventure it doesn't help that the last 500 miles of the West has become a routine. Of course interstates don't really count as adventures. Completely predictable people along with the Gas, Food, Lodging and Rest Areas that are beside them. The scenery that you zip by you can't really touch, because it's behind a fence and endangered is only a hint of what you're missing out on. But when you begin to remember particular rock formations and saguaros it takes on the sensation of driving to work.

But I was thinking about it, where is this adventure? I'm beginning to feel that not very much of it is left in the great wide open, guessing how many miles until the next Wal-mart is not a risky or unexpected undertaking. And with everyone having the same things, the same music, and the same Internet, what is going to be unique and unanticipated beyond the curve in the road? Which leads me to believe that the only real adventures left in the US are in the top major cities like LA and NY. Where all the people that are still seeking adventure flock to.