Beginning Anew

Chicago and Plane ride to Bangkok

For Henry David Thoreau, it was the Walden, for Buddhist monks it’s Tibet. Places of Asceticism, journey, solitude, reflection. Simplicity leading to a complexity of thought unattainable in the chaotic mess that was my home and my life. So, here, embarking on the journey of a lifetime, I have, in a materialistic sense, no life. Stripped to the bone. No house. No car. No job. Not even a cell phone (I will be freezing my account tomorrow). Thoreau wrote about simplicity setting us free. Buddhist ascetic nature – all these things are about stripping life to its most essential. Granted, in those philosophies, you don’t have a $400 Bose headphones, but then who said you couldn’t revise ancient thought (improve?).

My stuff and the life I knew shrunk into 3 crates, buried into deep storage, somewhere soon to be 12,000 miles away What’s left to my person, my existence is contained in a 52 pound bag and a carry on. Freedom. It took me many years to get here, and the journey never seems so long once you have arrived.

This whole travel thing began with a restlessness to get away. Each year over the last few, I would put off travel. After my business school graduation, when everybody and their brother took off to the deep Tibetan mountains or to climb Kilemanjaro, I pushed forward with my marketing start-up. It could have waited a few months. And when others took off 10 days or a week to go to Latin America for Carnivale, I stayed home or went on another Jewish Singles Odyssey. Wasted time, not exactly, especially the time in Marbella. However, not inspiring.

So, late last year I began seeing the beginning of the end at Woolbright. Like all visionary leaders, my previous boss was brilliant to watch, but sometimes difficult to work for. You weren’t working with him. He was working and you were mostly standing their as window dressing. OK for a while, because just being in the store is an honor, but later, you want to actually do something.

It turned out that Glenn had a similar wanderlust, and we decided that we would travel at least some of the way together – it wound up that we planned everything and most of it together. Now, I can’t say that we did this perfectly. Probably more flexibility and less places could have been another way to do it

My goal for the trip is happiness. Nothing more or less. To practice being happy, open minded, optimistic, patient. Applied correctly, these elements will allow me to create a fulfilling life when I get back.

I have no keys to lose. I realized this this morning, scrambling, looking for my camera (which turned up in my 2-year-old nieces truck), that everything we have can so easily be gone the next second, but I can’t lose keys now, since I don’t have any. No house, no car, no work swipe card, not even a bicycle lock. And I am happy. Without those things. Once again, freedom.

Spent tonight at Glenn’s packing and getting ready. Our Flight was at 7:37 tomorrow morning. We stopped in Chicago before taking off to Tokyo and eventually to Bangkok. Chicago was cold, but not frigid. White snow always reminds me of the fun I had as a kid on snow days. Those are memorable times. I also vividly remember the day, in 1996, when the blizzard hit New York. I had been relentlessly toiling for 6 months in my job at as an investment banker, skipping weekends, avoiding a social life, and the day came when it snowed too hard to even get to work (and I lived in Manhattan). Heidi Schnier, Igor Gonta and a few others walked the abandoned streets of the Village, up through central park. Throwing snowballs, savoring the numbness in our hands, the sweaty-scalp from the vigorous effort of trekking through waist-high snow drifts. Avoiding the windshield-wiper frenzied zombie cars mindlessly coasting the streets, drifting on errands, refusing to be thwarted by the endless snow. The beautiful, mountainess, endless snow. When I had returned to work, sitting next to Sandro, I was alive for the first time in months. Sandro Wolf went on to much success, before, tragically, he died in a skiing accident in Switzerland two years ago. All things will pass.

My sister is a miraculous woman and her kids are growing so quickly. Addie can exhaust even the most dedicated playmate, but she is so cute!

Part of this freedom is not having any responsibilities, except to myself and to self-growth. It is the first time and last time in my life this has and will happen.

…….The 22 hour journey to Bangkok was harmless and even invigorating. The stewardesses on our flight were completing their training and this was their first international flight (ORD to Tokyo). Everybody is beginning anew.