abstract behavior

End of semester ruminations, meditations, cogitations, abstractions (these have always been the most gratifying). Filling with vital wellness, the war zones from the semester start to dissipate: my body instinctively melts back into suppleness. Super successful semester and learned a lot as an educator, a colleague, serial-expat, Homo sapien. You get the picture here? I'm going deep today people.

Keeping up with the news these days is stressful, yet highly anticipatory. Maybe it simply resulted from a challenging semester? At any rate, as I trotted back home daily, I treated myself to the news back home in America, and podcasts, and knitting. Season of the Knit y'all. Deep Space #1

So much has happened. Here's the summary: Seth Abramson on twitter; Robert Muller; Chris Hayes news show, Preet Bhahara's *Stay Tuned With Preet, Fashion Hags podcast, *Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill podcast, *You Might Remember This (specifically the Charles Manson series) podcast. As always I continue my semi- fascination with: *My Favorite Murder podcast,  various How-to knitting YouTube snippets (the nails... all their nails are, generally, so polished as they casually explain how to get out of some knitting snafu. I'm totally getting into those, and critiquing them. Yes, must be all those narrative essays I've been reading the last 1/3 of this semester...

Anyhow, yes, peeling off the layers of the semester. I fucking dig this feeling. I cultivate this essence. I deserve it. I gave somebody a massage last week and man it felt good to get back into traditional arts. To use my hands so creatively, to heal another fellow human being, and no computer on, sitting over a screen, talking to an audience that demands your attention (in such a good way this semester!), etc. Haha, this is more difficult, the shedding of the semester's shenanigans!

But I digress... So yes, incense, sweet almond oil, Tiger Balm, Tibetan Monks chanting with singing bowls (YouTube saves the evening- again), and listening to breaths, following networks of stress balls that you can feel bursting as you attack them. That feeling when you dissolve some area of stress and your massage table victim is nearly asleep. Good to heal people. Gratifying.

Scene: 6 am lying in bed drinking a Frangelico coffee... after an evening out with some fellow lovelies to one of our favorite haunts.  They make the best 'latinos' (totally stupid name for a large draft beer with a shot of tequilla inside, lime juice and salted rim (with crusted pomegranate). Anyway... yes, this exists here- in case you're wondering. I feel like I could be at Charley's, in Paia, Hawaii, or Omar's (Ashland, Oregon), or Teddy Beer (Istanbul, Turkey), or the Italian Arms (Tunis, Tunisia), or Rik's (Manama, Bahrain), or Zelda's (Capitola, Califiornia), or just any cozy neighborhood bar/restaurant with a scenic view.  This scene just so happens to span the horizon with a 240º view maybe, looking at the foothills towards Iran, etc.

The conversation spanned across broad and narrow disciplines; dream-time journeys, fashion, art, politics, fabric, food, literature, poetry, school (occasionally), surfing, vision quests, ceremony, travel...

Wanderlust. Under a 2-week countdown watch currently. Man I DIG this feeling, too. That pre-travel 'feeling'. Super sweet vibes here folks. Pure ecstasy. 

All week the big-wave surfing events were occurring- with the majority being held in Hawaii. I tuned into the Jaws Challenge, the 2nd leg of the big wave series. The first being Nazare, Portugal (which is a seriously sweet spot on this planet and have been contemplating this area on my slowly growing list of where to purchase a property), then Maui, and then off to Maverick's, just north of Santa Cruz. Yea, another sweet spot that had much significance in my life and formation of myself as an individual entity, Santa Cruz.

So Jaws swooped down and took me outta reality all this past week. So fun getting home, cooking some dinner, settling on the couch and getting cozy (yes it's getting chilly here now y'all), grabbing my current knitting project. Setting up the laptop on a big pillow and watching all the heats and seeing Maui and the surf, and the coastline, and the landscape... So much love for the planet.

So, this has been my mind frame as of late. I woke up at 5 am somehow (after falling asleep during the semi-finals 2nd heat) and put on coffee. Why not stay up and listen to eARTh rhythms while Suli sleeps peacefully. This city I call home. It works. But the village... The village where I plan to rest my head for many moons... This name I not know, yet. I'm plotting though. Portugal, Italy. That's the short-list. I have to say though, France (thank you Marseilles for being super awesome and grabbing my attention, unexpectedly yet in retrospect expected with serendipitous flair), could be a distant third.

When I have the time to indulge, I have been researching overseas properties. Another feeling full of abundance that makes my insides shine. Thinking about this time next year stokes me out even more! I'm slowly amassing a question bank for this task so I can make a logical choice. My logic concerns closeness to the ocean first/foremost. Next is locating a village fairly close to a medium-sized city. 

So, early this morning I'm back in bed, Frangelico coffee in hand (weekend, folks), laptop open positioned on lap (makes sense, right?), twitter-tweeting. First up, Chris Hayes (one of my fav, fun, geeky newspersons) is up with a photo of a sunset on Mars.  What ensued is pure internet relevance; robot-memes waving their hands back at the landing craft, with the original sunset photo behind some dark, threatening-looking Martin foothills- or mountain ranges, I guess it depends on perspective.

Current research projects coming up, along with my American sojourn are as follows, researching Italian immigration via grandparents, as well as looking into legalities of owning property in Portugal and Italy.

Kitties! It has been 11 months since I saw the Kitts. It's definitely tough being apart. I see how content they are, roaming around indoors/outdoors, and I know it's all good. What a life they have been having. From scrappy street kittens tasting death, Starr rescued them and it all unfolded from there. Bahraini kitties, sigh. 

Time to slink into the day here. It's 7:30 am and I have at the top of my list of one thing to do today- nothingness. Slink into nothingness. Ahhh. Running, yoga, meditation,  food, incense, da kine. Nothingness is awesome. I covet nothingness. I am natural nothingness.



So yea, here I be y'all. Hope it all made sense