Oh! I Have News.

Hello My Loves!

I said the above to Rooms last night, and she responded by telling me that she starts having heart palpitations every time that I say those words. But this isn’t scary, I promise! (And I’m going to sprinkle pictures of the redwoods throughout the post because…it’s my blog and I want to share them.)

On Monday, D and I are leaving our apartment to go camping for the next month, right near Santa Cruz. We’ll still be working here in September, just living outside at the campground. Then, at the end of September, we will be moving to Northern California to work on our friend’s farm for a couple of months. [We could’ve stayed in the apartment for September, but we’ve really wanted to camp at some of the local spots, and now seems like a perfect time. Plus, we’ve been craving some privacy, and some extended camping, AND we are hoping to go to LA at the end of the month to visit family and PHISH before heading up north. So, that’s why we’re doing the camping thing. I’m pretty excited.]

Why are we leaving Santa Cruz? This decision was not made lightly (though, I imagine it may seem that way to some, as we’ve only been here six months). There are a lot of things I love about living here: the stunning beauty, the progressivism, the active lifestyle, the charm, the small city feeling, Trader Joe’s(!), the coastline, the mountains, the hiking, the surrounding cities, the bookstore. The list goes on. There are a lot of reasons to stay, and only a few to go. But those few matter.

The reality is, IF I was going to live in this metro area long-term, it wouldn’t be in Santa Cruz, it’d be in one of the surrounding cities. Maybe Watsonville, or Pescadero, or Boulder Creek. I want to live close to a city, but I don’t want to live IN a city. Those cities also have the advantage of being more diverse and affordable than Santa Cruz, which are also important factors, especially IF I were to ever have kids.

And also? I/we am/are just not totally convinced that this is where we want to settle down. Northern California has always held a lot of appeal, as has New Mexico, and I want to weigh all my options before I invest too much in any one place. And, if I’m being honest, I’m simply not ready to ‘settle down’ anywhere yet, period.

SO, when B offered us an opportunity to come work and learn at his farm in the mountains in Northern California, I was intrigued. D voiced some concerns regarding how much I like my job – and I *do* – but, really, I can find a part-time social work job that I’ll like almost anywhere, and if I am ever really dying to come back to this one, I’m sure they’d have me back. In this case, liking my job is simply not enough to tie me here. And honestly, I want to farm more than I want to assess the suicidality of teenagers; this opportunity gets me closer to my long-term goals than working part-time to pay my exorbitant rent does.

Plus, it’s not only us who will be there. Several of B’s friends are coming to the farm to work, so there will be a whole community of hippies working and living together. (Awwwww!) I’m looking forward to being in a ‘counterculture’ community, doing the whole cooperative/communal living thing. AND seeing NoCal. Wins all around!

So, that’s that. After the farm, the plan is to either stay in NoCal a bit longer to further explore/evaluate that area, OR head to NM to check out the scene there. OR, something else entirely. We’ll see.

In other news… I finished The Patrick Melrose Novels, which were so well-written! I’m excited to start the fifth one, which my mom was kind enough to send me this week. Right now, I’m reading Krishnamurti’s Inward Revolution: Bringing About Radical Change in Society. I picked it up at the library because he’s one of D’s faves and the title spoke to me.

…D is finally watching Mad Men, which is awesome for me, as I’ll take any excuse to rewatch it.

…We went on a 3-day sugar fast ten days ago. It’s had some surprising effects – like, we are waking up at 530/6AM, filled with energy, and both my cravings for any food and our general appetites have decreased – and we both love the way that we feel. (D also gave up soda. I did too, but I rarely drank it so much less significant for me.)

…To wean ourselves off of sugar, we started eating fruit. We’ve probably consumed something like 40 pounds of fruit in the last ten days. Each.

I’ll stop there for today. Hope y’all are having a wonderful week and looking forward to a lovely long weekend! 🙂

LOVE. ❤

Back to Basics.

Hello Loves!

After ridiculously over-committing myself to different things last week, I’ve been especially enjoying this week’s slower pace, including plenty of the basics: walking, writing reading, cooking, and, of course, talking.

The Walk. 

I went hiking by myself on Friday, all around the Pogonip Park, which is a popular hike in Santa Cruz. Do you know what is really, really good for your emotional health? Turning off your phone and being alone in nature for a couple of hours. Seriously. We all overthink these things so much: we need Xanax, and mindless television, and fad exercise regimes, and spa days. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with these things, but we don’t *need* any of them for good emotional (or physical!) health. The most basic things are the most essential: be active, be outside, walk, meditate, breath, stretch. These things are all exceedingly simple, can all be done *right now* for five minutes, and will all help your emotional health.

ANYway, when I wasn’t enjoying the silence or silencing the narrative voice / endless chatter in my head, I snapped a few pictures. Actually, I took like 87, but I’m only going to share a few, mainly to highlight how much the scenery changed in just a few short miles.

That’s the ocean, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in the back, and the meadow that I walked through before entering the forest.

Entering the forest.

Pretty path.

View from the “top.” That’s Santa Cruz, from the mountains to the ocean.

More Santa Cruz.

More forest.

All in all, a lovely walk. D and I have also spent the past two mornings in Henry Cowell Redwood State Park. So as not to completely inundate you with pictures, I’ll save those for another post. Suffice to say, the pictures will not even begin to do justice to the beauty that is the Santa Cruz redwood forests.

The Reads. 

After trying to convince myself that I had to finally read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and not allowing myself to read anything else for several weeks, I started reading The Patrick Melrose Novels, which are totally captivating and super gritty. The book is actually four smaller novels all woven into one, and the second follows Patrick Melrose through the dark rabbit hole that is IV drug abuse. Holy hell. It’s phenomenal though.

I also picked up Inward Revolution: Bringing About Radical Change in the World at the libary, after a pointed conversation with D about my frustration with the country, while exhibiting no real action to evoke change. When I searched “Krishnamurti” and saw the title, I knew that I’d need to check it out.

I’ve also been enjoying various links from around the Interwebs, but I’ll reserve those for another day.

The Talk.

I have become embarrassingly captivated by my own mind. In a lot of ways, it’s good. In others, it’s good that I’m going hiking and meditating and quieting my mind sometimes as well.

One of the big topics on both mine and D’s minds lately is, ‘What’s next?’ At this point, we’ve soaked up a lot of Santa Cruz and we know exactly what we like and don’t like about living here, and – while there are a lot of things that I/we really love – we’re not entirely convinced that this is where we want to set up a permanent camp for the next few years. There have also been a lot of interesting opportunities presenting themselves as of late, so… Stay tuned! 😉

I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about my life’s purpose. Like every (rapidly approaching thirty) twenty-something, existential questions have flitted around my mind from time to time. (Or, incessantly.) What am I doing with my life? What do I want to do with my life? What is the purpose of life? After reading this piece by Leo last week, I’m realizing that the answer(s) to these questions are – surprise! – not as complex as one might think. I’ve been trying to apply the idea of ‘making everyone’s day a little brighter’ and ‘recognizing that everyone is struggling’ to my everyday life with remarkable results. I highly encourage everyone to give that essay a browsing.

One of my favorite topics lately is carrying capacity (which I had been mislabeling “critical mass” until a quick Google/wiki search proved me wrong). Basically, “carrying capacity” is that maximum number of a population – for example, humans – that an environment – for example, Earth – can support indefinitely. And I’m pretty sure that we’ve crossed that threshold, and the next decade of five will be the fallout of surpassing this critical point. That’s just my prediction. There’s nothing to really do about it – outside of gently encouraging everyone to WAKE UP – so it’s really just idle speculation coupled with some curious amusement about how this will all unfold.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, that’s enough for today, I think. Hope you all are having a lovely week. ❤

Happy Wednesday! 🙂

Much LOVE.

 

Good Shabbos.

I’ve had a somewhat profound week, which I will elaborate on more at a later date. Rooms sent me this article and it very much resonated with me. (Please note: I am in no way afraid of turning 30, or 60, or looking older. You know what the alternative to growing old is? Dying young. Be grateful for the opportunity to go grey.) I feel like I am in a state of nearly constant emotional growth. Every freaking day there’s a new realization about myself and Life. I’m reading about Buddhism and minimalism. I’m practicing yoga and meditating. I’m the most mindful that I’ve ever been in my life. It’s both exhilarating and exhausting. It’s weird.

I also worked a ridiculous amount this week. D went to visit his fam and, in my standard fashion, I overextended myself. (This was Realization Number One, when I found myself near tears after getting called in for the third night in a row after working, like, 12 hours each day at other gigs. I need to learn to be by myself without literally filling ALL of my time with distractions. And, yes, work counts as a distraction.) Fortunately, I actually like all the work that I’m doing right now, so it wasn’t so bad; I just really enjoyed (some might say ‘needed’) the glorious 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep I got last night.

[I had a dream in which I had this huge wooden desk, in a house in the country with the mountains in the background. (So, basically, Watsonville, the town twenty minutes south of here.) And I kept wanting to go sit at it and write, but I kept getting distracted by other people and stresses. I call this one ‘Life: Before.’]

So, I scheduled myself a day off when most of the rest of the world would still be working. I’m powering off my phone for a few hours and going hiking. I’m pumped.

But that’s not what I pulled over on the side of the road and sat here for 45 minutes typing to tell you about. This is:

As I was leaving the house, I was thinking about how much better my arms feel. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that the pain in my neck and shoulders was being caused by using my fucking phone too much. Seriously. I don’t have a laptop or an ipad anymore, so when I’m home, all of my computer stuff is done through my phone. And I do a lot of computer stuff. (Getting my laptop fixed is now a priority.)

Anyway, that’s absolutely ridiculous, right? Like, I injured myself from using my phone too much. RIDICULOUS. So I cut wayyyyyy back, started going to the library to use the computer – and I receive daily massages from Boyfriend – and my arms are pretty much better. Ridiculous.

So, I’m leaving the house today and thinking about that, and thinking about how much time I spend distracted by technology, (and work, for that matter). I think about how long it’s been since we’ve camped and how much I enjoyed the forced disconnect from the grid and my phone. (We’re actually going camping in two weeks, and I can’t wait!) And I think about proposing a No Technology day every week to D. (And then I think, ‘Eh, I don’t need D to do it, I’ll do it myself.’ Because I’m independent like that.) And I realize that I’d have to not work that day either, because I almost always need technology for work. So really, all I’d be able to do is read, write, walk, talk, and think, and that’d be pretty much it. That sounded kind of lovely.

And then I realized that I was basically describing the Sabbath.

Good Shabbos, Loves! ❤

The Parents on the Pacific.

**This post is long and picture-heavy. You’ve been warned.

So, my parents came to visit last week! I love when they do that for two reasons: First, I not only love my parents, I really like them. We have a lot in common and they’re very cool, interesting people, and we always have a really great time together. I’m very lucky in the parental department. Second, it’s basically a vacation for me too! I get to visit all of my favorite places AND go out to eat at all the good restaurants. (AND they buy my souvenirs. See ‘My New Chucks’ below.) Wins all around. 😉

Highlights:

-A trip to ‘The Cliff’:

No surfers, but lots of sailboats for some reason.

-Wine and cheese hour at the Babbling Brook Inn. Their bed and breakfast was lovely, and we all really enjoyed happy hour each night.

-We took advantage of a trip to Cupertino to add me to their rental car to check out Apple. Honestly? It’s a really nice office building. And these onesies were cute:

-Sightseeing in Santa Cruz, which consisted of lunch on the pier with views of paddle boarders, seeing the otters (below), and me pointing to the boardwalk and all three of us agreeing that we could appreciate it just fine from a distance.

Parents on the Pacific!

The otters, like I’ve never seen them before! Apparently, if you just walk down a set of stairs on the pier, you end up in their safe place. So cool!:

Yawning!

-Sunset in SC.

-Gilroy Garlic Festival. It was…not what we expected. More like a garlic-themed festival than a celebration of garlic. We did a walk-through of the craft booths, then moved on to the garlic-flavored food. We sampled the garlic edamame, the garlic sausage (all me, as the ‘rents are vegetarians), the garlic calamari, and the garlic ice cream. All delicious. Even garlic-flavored food brings people together; it was packed!

-After the festival, my parents’ chauffeur took them on a guided driving tour of Mount Madonna in Watsonville, complete with breathtaking views of the mountains and countryside.

-We stopped by the Buddhist yoga retreat at the top of Mt. Madonna, as well as the Buddhist temple down the road with the biggest fattest Buddha statue ever.

The deer clearly know it’s a safe environment.

-Downtown walking and shopping for new turquoise Chucks for me! Thank you, Mom and Dad! 🙂 I love them a lot!

-A drive up the Pacific Coast Highway/PCH/the 1, on Papa Joe’s 61st birthday. I’m pretty sure they thoroughly enjoyed it; this drive always results in me saying, ‘I just love this part of California.’ Repeatedly.

The following two pictures are taken from the exact same spot on the exact same day. The first, I’m facing south; the second, north.

When I snapped this pic, my dad said, ‘I’m 61! Hell yeah!’

There were also so many memorable conversations and stories, and countless reminders of exactly why I am so lucky to call them my parents. Seriously. I’m ridiculously grateful. ❤ I thought that 3.5 days would last so much longer, but it never seems like enough time. Love you two so much!

ANYway, hope that everyone is having a lovely and peaceful Monday. We’ve got a productive week ahead of us in this corner of the country, and I’ve been in a better mood than, like, ever, since I started reading Zen Habits (but, more about that later…).

All my love. 🙂