Chapter One: Of Tutus and Wi-Fi.
We're having a super blogging marathon today to go along with our super driving marathon yesterday and our super hiking marathon the day before. (So far consumed: 2 breakfast sandwiches, 2 cups of coffee, lots of water, 1 mango smoothie, 1 BLT sandwich, 1 minestrone soup.) Bringing laptops on a road trip (esp. one whose primary destinations were nature and loved ones) seemed counter-productive, and taking time away from those loved ones and natural wonders to spend online... definitely weird. Yet, Mieka and I kept commenting on how good it felt to continually process our trip.
We both keep journals on trips. This helps us stop us from forgetting the literal events of a trip, but also lets us have some sort of personal debrief. Journaling lets me see situations more objectively and give myself feedback, and it lets me air all sorts of emotions. It lets me move on from each day without having to spend a lot of energy remembering things I should do or change or figure out.
This was both Mieka and my first foray into the blogosphere (ahhhh!). Journaling feels like a chore sometimes, and inevitably my journal entries at the end of a trip will be reduced to bullet points. Blogging (tee hee... I still can't get over how silly that looks) has been SO ENTERTAINING!
We get to process our world in such creative ways, putting way more effort into things like cartoons and costumes than we ever would were nobody to see the results.
Our trip had a random, somewhat contrived tutu theme, and computers and internet were an alien presence. My trips into the outdoors usually include a dear-god-get-me-away-from-my-cell-phone mentality. But as a result of these iffy trip partners, we made some very real connections and, at the crux of it, had way more fun.
On one of our hikes, Evan, Mieka, and I talked about the pragmatic importance of silliness. I think Evan pointed out that being goofy promotes connection. The act of bonding with other people, (whether that be friends you've had since kindergarten or strangers on a trail) is one of the very most valued human experiences. We need connection like we need food.
If Mieka and I were just walking along a trail, sans silly, a male passers-by in his forties might feel all sorts of barriers about making a connection. What if they think I'm a creep? What would we talk about? Why would I want to know them anyways? But Mieka and Heather in tutus are inviting. We're already saying "Hey, we're pretty dorky. We are not going to judge you. We are giving you an easy conversation point. We are at least a little interesting." Moreover, being dressed in a tutu says "Play with me." Adults receive far too few opportunities to play.
So with tutus, we made friends with the Thriller ladies, the videographer man, a photographer in Craters of the Moon, and exchanged genuine smiles and short conversations with many others. Having a blog was an easy way for us to build community around us, and a low-commitment and fun way for new acquaintances to follow up. The artifice of costume and technology helped us achieve some of the juiciest bits of our journey.
Chapter Two: All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.
Travel can be a great reminder of people's underlying goodness. Evan's roommates didn't know us, yet did a very good job of at least seeming excited about us taking over their living room for the better part of a week. Here's a thank you comic we made them. (The cheerios box and detail were on their counter and are provided as background information. I'm all for making things easy to apply, but something about the weird phrasing and essential concept of "non-challenge", especially to people about to trudge up a mountain for fun, was just so bizarre.)
Not only were they not grumpy about the stinky gear and people laying about, they were SO COOL.
As an example, here's Bland. He makes art with recycled materials for an organization called, get this, the Center for Wonder. Um, yes! Here, he's making rope out of sequin scrap, the material usually thrown away after making sequins.
Drill + Vegetable peeler + industrial trash + tired hosts + loud guests is not always the recipe for creativity and joy. (Actually, looking back on those ingredients, I could imagine some pretty gnarly outcomes...)
Yet, each of these people were SO PASSIONATE AND FUN. And they showed that to us while sharing their space.
The Tutu sisters extend a huge THANK YOU to Evan, Allison, Bland, and Josh, as well as Thom and Christina, Douj and Antje, and Rogene and Kim.
Chapter Three: Through the Gateway
Heather:
For both Mieka and I, this trip was a way to connect past with future, to celebrate the end of a chapter and usher in a new one. We met in Kindergarten, were best friends traipsing around the woods of Lane County as wee little ones, and have had a wonderful reconnection as friends and roommates in our mid twenties.
Part of this trip was experiencing amazing things with an amazing person. We know each other well, and can get when things have significance, I think, and that has added to our experiences.
For me, also, I wanted something to serve as a ritual for this imminent transition: In this month, I'm leaving the city I grew up in and have left two jobs that have shaped me as much as anything else in my life. Part of my time online this trip has been spent figuring out where I'm going to live, when I'm going to move, and what I'll be doing when I arrive on campus as a student on Monday. (Woah.) Portland is close to Eugene, but it's going to be a new life.
To help make that transition seem more real, I wanted to see the place I started life and to get out into the mountains. Everybody has their favorite method of becoming whole again, of experiencing flow (look up Csikszentmihalyi on Wikipedia or TED.com), of scraping away emotional debris and remembering what life is. Getting outside has always been mine.
Here's how I described it in a postcard/storybook to a friend:
So far on our trip... We made friends in Missoula while drinking beer in the park by the river, (thus the coaster [the storybook is glued onto a coaster]), I saw the tiny clinic where I was born, we sat in hotsprings in Yellowstone during thunder and lightning...
I just finished two jobs that I've been a part of for six years. I feel like I can be just me, without having to be responsible for others.
The funny thing about spending hours upon hours driving desert roads - It gives you time to introspect. I feel ready to enter a new community and rediscover who I am. The people on this trip were nothing short of inspiring. Descending the canyon underneath the Tetons felt like walking down an aisle between ancient sentinels, giving a blessing with their sheer beauty and power.
Mieka:
This trip marks a turning point in my life, as well. I mailed my application to the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina in Havana, Cuba, just hours before leaving on the Adventure of the Traveling Tutus. Applying to medical school marked the culmination of my recent 14 month stint as a post-bacc premedical science student at the U of O, where I originally majored in fine arts but always planned to come back. In short, I just finally finished a six year stretch of undergraduate work and it feels huge. This life-long journey I'm on to becoming a doctor has been at times certain and impassioned, and at other times full of doubt and uncertainty. I'm motivated by connection, by empathy, and by beauty, and feel clearly called to medicine. Yet I struggle with the colder aspects of the premedical rat-race. In Cuba I found a program that emphasizes service and educates doctors from around the world, and the idea of studying this way moves me on a soul level. I feel that mailing that application has unleashed my ball of intention out in to the universe, and now I'm just waiting to see what happens next...
In the meantime, I have a year to do absolutely whatever I want. Before I embark on the grand adventure of medical school, there are other parts of myself I'd like to nurture. My main intention this year, as best as I can articulate, is to be present with the flow of the world. I am aware of how hippy-dippy that sounds but bear with me because I can explain - so, what do I mean by flow? I mean those moments of serendipity and coincidence, when everything seems to fall into place. Some times I more easily experience this flow are when making creative work, when connecting with people, and when traveling, among other things. When Heather announced her plans for this trip, I asked if I could hop on board. What more perfect time to go adventuring with one of my favorite people in the world? Plus, I wanted to visit Thom and Evan, too! It was the perfect time to catapult out of my comfortable Eugene life in preparation for a year of exploration, and reconnect with some of the people I hold most dear. An explosive brainstorm over breakfast just days before our departure birthed the tutu blog concept, and voila this awesome creative endeavor began. The tutu premise served as the catalyst for boundless creative expression while we were on the road. As children, Heather and I made up whole worlds together, and our dynamic as a creative team has been such fun to ressurrect in this context. We made time for potent processing with good feedback as well as egged each other on with brainstorms, some of which were acted/drawn out/written about in this blog.
So now we wrap up this chapter, en route to Marty's cabin on elk lake for the night. Tomorrow, we return home to Eugene and Heather will begin her PhD program at PSU on Monday. As for me, I plan to put most of my things in storage, pack my car with art supplies, fiddle, and camping gear, and continue this adventure for the next half a year. I'm trusting that the crucial elements, like money, will all work out as I try this route. I'm excited and in wonder of what will transpire in this next year of life...it's a grand adventure - thanks for coming along.
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