Appreciating The Layers of My Life
November 30, 2008 by rtwsenior · Leave a Comment
I was reading through the journal entries for July, 2008, four months ago, when I was right in the middle of trying to publish my book and to start my two blogs. The next trip was only a vague idea in the earliest stages. Now, so much has been finished and I’m within a month of departure on a well-conceived new trip. Here’s what I had to say:
(07-21-08) Yesterday, I freed up my workload a little bit by popping the manuscript back to Lynn, my copyeditor. At four, I went to the beach for a very long walk, almost to the end of Caladesi, so that was good and needed for exercise. During that walk, I reviewed all of the gradual levels of the creation of these things that I’m bringing into the Realm of Tangibility. I began my thinking way back at the beginning of this project’s origins: my travels to the USSR in the 1990s, which stemmed from the job I had in 1989, twenty years ago, next year. That Soviet travel set the tone for my present love of ranging about in the lesser-known places and it too, had the quality of something tangible formed out of nothing . That was not my own inventive work. I was just in on it.
Then, around the year 2000, I took some shorter trips to Hungary, Romania, Croatia, and Central America, after having already done some exploring in Mexico and in New York City. But, if I hadn’t come up with the idea (and succeeded at it) of the latest Around-The-World journey, there would have been nothing to write a book about.
Without the book, being produced in this new and labor-intensive way, there would be nothing to blog about in my two new blogs. And, without my age being what it is and getting “ageier” all along, there would be no angle or curiosity about what I do, so no hook to distinguish this from all the other travel stories - and no Social Security to make it happen.
So, I was appreciating the Layers of Life, and how the foundations are formed for a permanent structure. Soon, this intense production period will be passed and a finished book will result. It will be a hard copy, a tangible evidence of something that didn’t exist until I performed it, wrote about it, and produced it. Then, as the present becomes the past and inevitably swallows up that accomplishment, the book will serve as a new foundation for future ventures, giving me more license and credibility than I had before.
These are the slow, deliberate steps of creation which living on a planet in the material plane requires. These are the slow, deliberate steps that making a baby requires. Then soon, there results a physical evidence - a book or a baby - to live on, and to which others can relate.
There is no reason, as long as I have my health and strength, that I can’t just keep on building upon this ever-strengthening foundation well into the future, becoming more and more unique as I age. All because I set about doing it a long time back. There is really no such thing as simply waking up one day and creating something full-blown without the foundation being laid.
Oh, probably people are thrust accidentally into the spotlight or they are suddenly “discovered,” but if they manage to stay there, it’s because they happen to have been prepared for it.
Shall I Perform Chiropractic On The South American Continent?
November 23, 2008 by rtwsenior · 1 Comment
I’ve had a glimmer of an idea about my approach to this exploration of the Continent of South America! Why didn’t I see this before? If ever there was a true spinal column among the landmasses of the world, this one continent stands out from all the rest. Take a look at any Physical/Topographical page in an Atlas and you will see long mountainous spines here and there. Many are small and run almost horizontally to the globe; some rise up from other elevated portions in a not-so-clear spinal statement. The North American spine is hugely thick: beginning in Alaska, culminating in the Rocky Mountains, and ending in a small squiggle at the Panama Canal.
But, oh my goodness, the Cordillera de Los Andes is the most human-looking, hunch-backed spine you will find on this planet. Well now…..how tempting is that? I shall start at the top in the soul box, (that little bump at the bottom of your neck and the top of your backbone,) which I figure is either Cartegena, Columbia, or Caracas, Venezuela, and I shall wander on down the Andes to the tip end of the spine, maybe as far down as Ushuaia, if I can get that far. Then, I will fly home from either Santiago, Chile, or Buenos Aires, Argentina, depending upon the advice of a ticketing agent I’m now working with.
When I reviewed my previous travels, with this cronky thought in mind, I learned that, again and again, I have unconsciously done this on so many world spinal columns, albeit the smaller, less obvious ones. I have started at the top and worked my way down. For instance, on my recent RTW, I started in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which marks the top of the Dinaric Alps, flowing down the Dalmation Coastline of Croatia to Athens, Greece; and I’ve gone from Mumbai, India, to Mysore along a spinal-looking ridge I hadn’t even noticed till just now. And why did I decide to go and live for two months in Fairbanks, Alaska, of all places and later in Aspen, Colorado for nine years? They are the soul box and waistline of North America, which I later finished by traveling to the tip end at the Panama Canal. See what I mean? Studying my Atlas today, I see that there are many other hidden spines, some of which I’ve also made my way along; never even thinking of the potential for critical adjustment that my feet might be missing the opportunity to make.
So now, when faced with the Mother of all Planetary Spines, how can I not tread those Spanish-speaking vertebrae in a deliberate fashion. In fact, in preparation, I shall obtain a chiropractic map of the spine and carefully grid my enormous new map, so that I know exactly which continental nerves run where and mean what. Then when I’m in the various cities, I shall stomp hard and deliberately on the sidewalks and roadways and dance barefoot on the shower stall floors, and maybe, even on the dance floors in high heels, all with the plan of making healing adjustments to a really big chunk of the world.
This sort of thinking is what adds an element of off-the-wall fun to an ordinary day of traveling…and which makes sobersided people look at me strangely. “Fiddlesticks!” is my reply to them! It sure can’t hurt and it helps me decide where to go within a collection of countries too large to cover them all in a mere four month’s time.
So now, let’s see if I can get air tickets that allow me to become the chiropractor to the world. This must be why I’ve been getting back alignments all year in order to prepare for this trip. Little did I know that it all had a deeper meaning. Little did I know that I was learning the Chiropractic Arts from the ground-side up!
