Blackout Curtains

Day one of working from our hotel. Lessons I learned:

Block out time to get out side or you will accidentally be stuck inside all day. (I suppose this probably applies to everyone. Do you get out side during the day? A little vitamin D will do ya good.)

Avoid eye contact with the breakfast muffin bar. Nope, not gonna go there. I know myself well enough to know that a muffin for breakfast one day is going to turn into a daily muffin for breakfast and that is going to turn into unhappy guts and shitty energy during the day.

Find dog friendly outdoor patios at restaurants/coffeeshops near by. I am on the hunt for a few good spots near by to start working from. This is weird because I used to live here. I have always worked from my deck and s now with the absence of sunny deck options at “home” I am certainly planning to find a new space to work from, read at, write at, and hang out at for the next two weeks. Also, even though this is my old stomping ground, its good for me to practice getting out and meeting people in the real world now before language barriers are also thrown into the mix as I head out of the country.

Keep it clean. Usually when i head to a hotel on vacation, by the end of the trip everything is everywhere. Clothes all over the place. Chargers, hats, ipads, books, whatever strewn about. However, the idea of trying to create an organized life inside of vacation chaos is not going to work from me. Instead I am thinking of this place as my home rather than as a vacation pass through. I have organized everything and found it a spot to live which definitely has me feel more settled.

Places with a balcony only. I will never, ever, ever, ever book a place that doesn’t have some kind of balcony or deck on it for me to sit outside. I am much too much of an outside, fresh air, sunshine person to be stuck inside with minimal airflow.

Blackout curtains throw of your sleep cycle. Or at least they threw of mine. I am used to waking up with the sun and this place its throwing me off 1. Through the crack in the curtains there are lights on in the parking lot all night. I keep waking up and seeing the crack of light and thinking it is morning. 2. I wake up in the morning and think the crack of light is still just from the parking lot when in fact it is just the sun.

So much of this is about knowing our rhythms. Understanding what our body needs and how to mentally feel grounded when we are floating out in the middle of the great, big, wide open space called the world. At home, we have routines and familiarity that give us enough of that false sense of control and safety that we can feel settled. I say FALSE SENSE of control because, the reality is, none of us are in control. The world is too random for any of us to actually be in control of the situation. There could be a massive earth quake, you could get run over by a car, you could have a massive heart attack or a plane could crash into your car on the freeway. In reality, there is no guarantee that you are going to make it home form work today, and somewhere in the world, someone will not. Now I say this not to be Debbie Downer. I point this unsettling fact out because many of us don’t take risks because we feel its safer at home. So many people have expressed worry about my safety during my travels and yet, when I was substitute teaching at Watts in South Central 10 years ago, no one was worried then because I was just going to my job. It should be noted that I quit that job the day that a student was shot out front during a drive by just a few minutes after I had walked through the very door he was sitting in front of. No one was worried before then because jobs are normal, jobs are routine. We mistake consistency for safety.

Many people fail to move out of routine and pursue their passion because it feels scary. What if I fail? What if I cant feed my family? What if I hate it? Well friend, you can always go back to what you were doing before. You can always figure it out the way you figured it out the first time. The number of people who have said they would give anything to do what I am doing is shocking. None of these people are doing anything to move towards that goal. If oyu want it, go for it. Work for it. Start small and it iwll feel less scary. Take it in baby steps and little bites.

THis biggest