Restless Soul

Ty dubbed me Flight Risk (his explanation for not pursuing the romantic me). I have to admit it resonated as much as it stung because I’ve never lived in a place longer than four years. Never.

My dad did a 20-year stint in the military, and while he retired by the time I was 10, my family continued to move for a few years after. I guess after his nomadic life, settling down took some settling into. 

Up until the age of 18 I can blame transience on my parents but after that…after that it was all me. I spent four years in college, and I spent every summer in a different place. Those moves were temporary, like training wheels; after graduation I set my sights on much more distant lands and coasted on my own.

Enter South Africa.

A Peace Corps volunteer with no electricity my first year and a lot of time on my hands, I started making lists. Lists gave me things to ponder and things to work toward. 

It started with things I wanted to do while I was living in South Africa and quickly morphed. I don’t remember everything on that list but seeing the big five and going to Victoria Falls were both there. My list became a mélange of things to see, places to go, activities to experience. Never static, I added new points of interest and crossed achieved ones off. 

I can't think of any substantive lists for myself now without thinking of those early lists scratched out on reused paper by the light of a paraffin lamp in my village.

One of my besties used to make a habit of sending me birthday gifts early. A big box would arrive a week or so before the actual day and she’d call to ask me, joy in her voice, if I’d opened it yet. It took her a few years to realize that the waiting didn’t bother me. In fact, it didn't bother me at all but my not opening it bothered her. 

She struggled to understand that I relished the anticipation. Like the days before an international trip- it hasn’t happened yet- the world is full of infinite possibilities. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the actual traveling. I love the actual gift. But there is a beauty to the anticipation. My love of anticipation, however, does not extend to travel lists. I don't relish daydreaming about theoretical good times in lieu of actual good times. Although my temperament basks in the "could be" aspects of life, where country selection for travel is concerned, I'm a rip-the-wrapping-off-and-see-what's-inside kind of woman.

Turkey was on my "to visit" list, and Peru. Peru got crossed off last year and Turkey earlier this year. Ethiopia made tap danced on my desires and turned out to be so nice I had to visit twice. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are on my list at the moment, but all three of them are on my travel schedule for early next year. 

Cappadocia, Turkey last year.

I'd be lying if I said there are no lingering places that are growing dusty from lack of my attention. India pops up first. Time and resources never seem to align in a way that would allow me to experience India in the way I would like. When I moved back to the United States after living in Uganda for a year, that break appeared to be the perfect time to go, but I was looking for a job and unsure how soon that search might yield fruit and after stopping in a few other places (Ethiopia and Italy) it was close to Xmas and I missed my family.  More recently I’ve contemplated the trip, but with only three viable weeks of vacation in a year, it seems hardly feasible to work my way through even a single Indian state. 

Excuses excuses.

I don’t believe there will always be an opportunity to experience the things in life that I want to experience, so at some point in the near future I’ll have to suck it up and go, short stint in a single state or not. 

Another country that has been batting around in my head for years is Brazil, specifically, Bahia. The current deterrent is the Olympics, an event prone to upset Brazil's norms and increase the cost of pretty much everything…Brazil will have to wait until 2017. Then there’s Mali. The year I planned to go, just a few weeks out from what would have been my departure, there were a few kidnappings of Westerners. I often joke that no one would kidnap me but I’m not trying to test my theory. 

Random breakfast in Tokyo, Japan.

That list is only three places long, driven by food (India), fascination with the worldwide African diaspora (Brazil), and a feeling of mystery and uniqueness (Mali), is all I can conjure at the moment.  Of course there are a million places in the world I'd love to experience and would jump at the chance but those three are the ones that spring immediately to mind for reasons beyond, "why not?".

For all of the places that pique my interest there are others that I never think about. New Zealand is pristine and beautiful, it wasn’t remotely on my list of places to visit though. And while it isn’t my favorite country, I found friendship and love and an assortment of experiences there.

Guatemala snuck up on me as I wallowed in depression and desperation after evacuating and then doing recovery work in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. I met amazing people had one of the most exquisite meals I’ve ever had, and danced like a crazy person on its Caribbean coast.

Most recently that place I wasn’t interested in visiting was Japan.  Until I visited, I didn’t know how much I deeply adore Japanese food. I didn’t know how fascinating order (on trains, in lines, with food) could be. A friend invited me into his world in Japan and I was smitten.

Those were all places that never made it onto even the tail-end of my traveling lists and yet they were amazing for all of the reasons that visiting a new place and experiencing new things are amazing. I will never have a list of five places to visit. My curiosity and nomadic reality will continue to introduce me to places and, once visited and scratched off of whatever impermanent list I'm keeping, will be replaced with someplace new and probably unexpected.

Prompt courtesy of the Daily Post:The Wanderer.

Obsessed

I’m obsessed. 

I own it. 

I’m obsessed with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. 

Doing high school in Texas, I’ve always had an affinity for football because in Texas God may rule most days of the week  but on Friday nights prayers are for high school football.

That said, I’ve gone to sleep each night for some embarrassing number of nights, watching highlights and interviews of the Warriors. I find it cathartic. I find the hustle and flow of the game relaxing. I find the antics of the team humorous. I can watch it all over and over again. And I do. 

Steph and his family are endearing and relatable…not the insanely rich and famous part but definitely the closeness part. Listening to Steph’s father talk about his mother reminds me of my dad talking about my mom. I smile when I see his parents at his games, holding Riley and jumping up and down like the crazy fans parents should always be for their children. It reminds me of a more animated version of my dad, dressed in a three-piece suit, shoes off, sitting in the stands of my middle school basketball games cheering me on during a small break in his day before heading back to work. 

None of that has anything to do with how he plays the game but it is part of the reason I enjoy watching him so much. I don’t know Steph Curry, I only know his persona. But given how few people are able to cultivate and maintain a likeable persona in this age of 24/7 coverage on every medium possible, even if he and his family aren’t as endearing as they seem, they get kudos for putting on one hell of  a front. Truth be told though…I believe they are who they seem to be.

Steph being a nice guy is only a part of it. Steph is amazing because Steph gonna Steph…and he’s been Stephing all over this season so far. Only 20 games in, people are making incredible predictions about him and the Warriors squad, about what they will or should accomplish this year. As much as I enjoy contemplating the possibilities, what I love more is watching them. I love watching the whole team.

I like to watch Steph launch 3s from so far beyond the 3-point line that it seems insane, until he makes it, and then it seems like that was the only thing he could have done. I love watching Draymond Green fight for every ball as if the game depends on it; it makes it so natural for him when the game does depend on it (go to 8:50 if you want to see what I’m talking about). I love when Klay Thompson finds a rhythm and sets fire to the net with deep 3s (yes this is last season but WOW!). 

I love Andre Iguodala, Festus Ezeli, and Shaun Livingston stepping up always. I love that our bench is deep, that on any given day we have heroes emerge seemingly from nowhere…like Ian Clark and Brandon Rush.

Today a friend called me a bandwagon fan. She said I’m only into basketball right now because of Steph. The truth is that the Warriors have made basketball fun again. I remember feeling this way about basketball way back when Warriors Coach, Steve Kerr, played for the Bulls. Of course, then, like now, everyone was a fan of the Bulls. How could you not be? Their bench was deep their talent varied, their superstar subject to set the net on fire.

And no, I’m not trying to compare Steph to Michael Jordan. I don’t see the point in all of these comparisons and declarations about who is the best now or in all time. I only bring up Mike because like Steph, he didn’t shine at the expense of his team, they all shined the brighter. Everyone was the better.

 And they were fun.

The Warriors are fun. Presumed niceness aside, I am awed and wowed and giddy with joy when I watch these guys. I love the teamwork. I love the unselfish approach to the game. I love that even when they are flawed they can rally. I love Curry. I love them all. 

Bandwagoner or connoisseur of basketball joy, whatever my label call me Dub Nation!

Want Makes me Guilty

“Come back tomorrow.”

The woman who had been “supervising” my work that day followed me out of the office and into the hall. I’d just said goodbye and was headed home when she stopped me.

“There’s no need,” I assured her, “I finished the job today.”

“I know,” she said, “but I’ll find something for you, just come back here tomorrow.” She was insistent.

I shrugged but agreed reluctantly. I’d spent the day folding and stuffing envelopes. When I’d arrived they’d told me it was a three-day job but I completed it in one; intent on not returning to the tiny windowless room I was working out of and wondering why they thought it would take more time in the first place.

The next day that woman found something for me to do, and the day after that, and within a very short period of time I was holding the temporary place of some middle management position in the marketing department. The subject was boring but it was better than stuffing envelopes and so I stopped substitute teaching (my other hustle in the world of temp work) and dedicated five days a week to my office job. 

By the time my Peace Corps application finally landed me a placement in South Africa I was more than ready to leave. The folks I worked with were great people but I had my sights set on something different. 

The company had other ideas.

Once I gave my notice my boss offered me a permanent position. Fresh out of college, the amount he was offering was nothing to sneeze at; in fact, it was the same amount I made working for the government two years later with more experience.

My mother was ecstatic, as much about the compliment to my skills as to the idea that I might not go gallivanting halfway across the world; but I never even blinked. The money never tempted me; I was ready for something new and different. 

Looking back it is strange that I was so unmoved by the paycheck, growing up I’d had an affinity for money that translated into a thriving babysitting business flush enough with cash that my mother made me open a savings account in middle school. 

Babysitting magnate ways aside, Peace Corps was not a cush gig…in any way. Payment was a living stipend. Hell, I didn’t have electricity the first year I served and my water was pumped up from a borehole, coming up clear and cold for bathing. The work wasn’t lucrative but it was rich. 

A little more than two years in rural South Africa led to working for the government and then graduate school and I’ve been wed to non-profits ever since. On more than one occasion I have returned to my “living stipend” roots and shrugged at the idea that I should pay attention to paychecks. I shrugged, that is, until recently. 

In the last two years I have found myself preoccupied with how much money I make, how much I should be making, how much I need to retire, how much I have in my retirement fund at the moment. For the first time in my life I’m thinking at least as much about how much money I could be making as the contribution my work makes to the world.

And I feel guilty.

I feel guilty that I am distracted by such an inconsequential thing as money…but then, money isn’t exactly inconsequential. 

My logical brain understands that I am the only thing I can count on when I’m too old to work. Longevity runs in my family (my grandfather just turned 99) and I’ve long since let go of the dream of recouping anything from Social Security. That leaves just me. And these are my prime earning years so now is the time to be fixated. 

Still, it feels foreign to want money...daydreaming about work not for love of anything other than the paycheck attached.

I know the desire for a secure(ish) future isn’t criminal. Still, it is space that in my many decades of life, I have never occupied. Maybe if I had fixated on this earlier there would be no reason for it now. But, there is no looking back to undo only to lament and so I look forward. I am looking forward to a future with more money in it without the guilt that warranted or not, taps lightly on my shoulder.

Prompt courtesy of The Daily Post: The Guilt that Haunts Me

10-year-old certainty

I still greet my dad with, “hey, old man.” It started as a joke sometime around graduation from college. As a military family we are Southern by inclination if not always location and respect was an expectation in any interaction with someone older than you. Hell, I’m almost 40 and I still pepper my language with “ma’am” and “sir”. 

“Old man” isn’t respectful, but crossing into true adulthood, where I’d pay my own bills and go my own way, it was allowed. The moniker was taken as I intended, a term of endearment, and a gentle jab. I didn’t really think my dad was old but he was older than me so…old man ribbing it was. 

His response was always, “better than the alternative,” a nod to the idea that getting old was better than being dead. I have to agree with that perspective. Dad has lots of thoughts on aging. When I chastised my parents for their inability to remember when and how long they remained engaged they both told me to, “go ask your aunt Sunday.”  At that point they’d been married about 25 years (now its 45 years and they really don’t remember).

“How can you not remember?” I asked, incredulous. “Keep living and you’ll see,” my dad responded with a smile.

He was right. There are any number of things I don’t remember now. Things I was certain there was no need to write down because – who forgets important things. Apparently forgetting runs in my family or maybe it is my age bracket; either way, if you ask me now what 10-year-old me wanted to be when I grew up I’m at a loss. 

The military brat within has to first do calculations about where we were living so that I can at least picture my life. It sounds silly to anyone who hasn’t moved much, but in my family we always start with “where were we?” as grounding.  At 10 we had left Florida and were living in Texas.  That means the Hinkle house. 

If we were in the Hinkle house than I was hanging with the Dudettes – a group of friends that for some reason that was a cool way to identify ourselves (whatever…we were 10). But that’s where I draw a blank. I remember sleep-overs and walking home from school. I remember my Girl Scout Leader and cutting my finger while chopping cabbage, and nightmares about my fourth grade teacher Mr. Phiester.  I do not remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’m not sure I thought about being anything other than a 10-year-old. 

Fast-forward a few years to when I was 12 or so and I remember wanting to be everything…I concocted a way to design houses using rooms that fit together like puzzle pieces so people could decide what their homes looked like, I had an advertising sketchbook filled with imaginary products and the marketing plan for each one, I constructed a paper “movie projector” and sketched out “films”, I considered child psychology, I wrote plays for me and my twin cousin to act out with our Cabbage Patch Kids, and I wrote poetry: 

the sun and the moon go to war each day and the one that wins is the one that stays;but he doesn’t stay long ‘cuz the other comes along and its war all over again.

I don’t remember thinking I was going to “be” any of those things. Not really. In my mind, I was those things. In my mind I was revolutionizing architecture and selling amazing (if fictitious) products and writing moving poetry. 

In my 10-year-old brain, as far as I can remember it now in my 40-year-old one, there was no need to think too heavily about what might be in light of what already was.

That differs greatly from where I sit now. 

Now I know architecture has a lot of math and, because I was math-phobic in high school and college, it vanished from my “could be” horizon. Psychology, especially of the child persuasion, struck me as depressing, and writing took a more utilitarian turn – I majored in journalism and had a short stint as a journalist through college. All of those things I was somehow faded away.

The work I do now did not exist in my 10-year-old brain. I didn’t know about non-profits (although my 10-year-old self knew about profit…I once made $22 off a box $1.49 box of brownie mix selling slices door-to-door) or international aid/development work. International development was my job until just a few years ago. And what I’ve transitioned to, working stateside in violence prevention, did not register at all when I was 10 because I didn’t know anything of violence. Lucky me. 

More than what I’ve chosen to do professionally in my adult life, the greatest differences between me-way-back-when and me-inching-up-in-age-now, is certainty. 

My 10-year-old self was pretty confident. The things I fancied doing I was certain I did well. So certain, that in my early days of writing I would cry big raindrop tears when given any critique on what I’d produced. And while I’m glad I learned to take critique as a tool for improvement rather than an assault on my talent, I do miss the certainty that what I offer the world is something it needs and will be better for having. In the absence of that certainty I find myself asking now what I never asked then, what the heck am I going to be when I grow up?

Courtesy of the DailyPost writing prompt:Ballerina Fireman Astronaut Movie Star.