Footprints

I left a lot of footprints in the last few months. Some were faint, the imperceptible rearrangement of the smallest particles on the hard surfaces of wooden floors, buses, or the ever-expanding concrete jungle. Others dug deeper, showing the contours of my feet in wet sand, fresh mud, or damp trails. Some footprints were made by the smooth arches of my bare feet and some the awkward flatness of a $1 pair of flip-flops bought in a big market in Thailand. Most, however, were crafted by the pressure of my trusty Salomon trekking shoes.

All these footprints are likely gone by now, washed away by the elements or the many that surely followed after me. Still, it’s amazing to think of where I left footprints this summer.

Before I left even one, I thought about why I travel, inspired by a letter I came across written by Kurt Vonnegut.

I landed in Peru and jumped right into the adventure, taking buses from Lima to Cusco, stopping along the way to sandboard in Huacachina and venture down one of the deepest canyons in the world outside of Arequipa. As soon as I made it to Cusco, I set off on a trek to Machu Picchu via the Salkantay Pass, approaching the journey as a pilgrimage and a chance for open meditation.

From Cusco, I made my way to La Paz. In the border town of Desaguadero, my bus left me, an omen of the trouble to come. After exploring La Paz, I hurled down the World’s Most Dangerous Road on a mountain bike and ran into some trouble on the bus during the return trip.

From La Paz I made my way to Sucre in the south of Bolivia, running into a miner’s blockade halfway. I ended up hitchhiking to Potosi and finding a connecting bus to Sucre, making an expected short journey into a much longer one.

From Sucre, I continued on to Uyuni, running into a car race that shut down traffic for six hours. In Uyuni, I saw the amazing salt flats and experienced the best star gazing of my life and then crossed the border to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile without any bus problems, shaking whatever curse had been following me in Bolivia.

In San Pedro, I checked out a few things and then hopped on a bus to Calama, a copper mining town. I kept moving, getting on a bus to Santiago. I ended up really loving the city for its emphasis on parks and cafes and had a powerful experience at a museum.

My girlfriend, Asha, met me in Santiago and we spent a quiet week in nearby Valparaiso, a city that reminded me a lot of San Francisco. After she returned home to the US, I kept on going to Argentina, making my way to Mendoza. There, I tried my first fabled Argentinian steak, paraglided, and visited some local wineries.

After Mendoza, I traveled to Buenos Aires and slowed down a bit, exploring the city at a leisurely pace, visiting antique markets and creepy cemeteries, seeing tango shows, and, naturally, eating lots of steak.

From Buenos Aires, I took my first flight in two months to Iguazu, where I saw the amazing Iguazu Falls. After taking in those incredible views, I continued on to the north of Colombia, where I trekked through the jungle to the Lost City.

After the tough trek, I landed in the quiet town of Salento in the heart of the coffee growing region of Colombia. There, I had the chance to do nothing and found myself writing and thinking a lot. I reflected on the importance of finding different ways to be mindful, the value in a blank page mentality, and the exponential importance of packing light. All that writing made me remember that I was doing most of it on an iPhone and the important thing wasn’t how you get it down, but that you do get it down.

Nearing the end of my trip, I skipped down to Quito, Ecuador, to meet my brother and his girlfriend, Sara. Arriving in Quito, I learned a lesson in intellectual humility through asking for directions. Josh, Sara, and I raced through Ecuador, visiting cloud forests, hacking through the Amazon, and surviving a rafting trip down a racing river.

Three months after I landed in Lima, I found myself back in San Francisco and started to reflect on the trip and begin writing some “gifts” to some close family and friends that I finished over a few weeks of easy relaxation and lots of good coffee.

It was an unforgettable trip. I had no idea what I was in for when I started thinking about traveling a year ago, but I wouldn’t change a single thing about the last few months. I learned a lot about myself through traveling alone and was able to meet so many incredible people and explore so many incredible places.

I have a sense that the itch to grab a small pack and hit the road will come again very soon. One thing I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is to take that energy and treat my own home as a new place. If there is one thing I know, it’s that there are orange skies to be discovered everywhere if you have an open mind and heart.

Until the next adventure.

"Gifts"

Minimalism has become a significant part of my identity. While an obvious illustration is my packing light, it also permeates into other aspects of my life. I don’t really have knick-knacks. (One small exception: a rubber ball I found in my grandfather’s workshop that I use as a thinking tool while writing or studying.) People are attached to these little things not because of what they are - wood carvings, trinkets, ticket stubs - but because what they represent: adventure, love, people. My solution has always been to take a picture of the knick-knack, write why it’s important to me, and then let it go.

These knick-knacks, though, are the staple gifts of travelers. They’re a way of saying, “Hey, I thought of you in this market.” They are tokens of affection. I think it’s incredibly important to show people that you care about them, but buying of trinkets clashes directly with my minimalism. I found a solution when I came back from my trip from Qatar, India, Thailand, Vietnam: I gave out some “gifts” in the form of stories to a few people.

I found that to be a great exercise in both giving and reflection. In the same spirit, here is another round of “gifts” to a few people from my travels through South America:

While I enjoyed the trip immensely, I couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to get back to the mission, something that my brother and family ingrained in me.

I made a new friend in Peru, Jo, that made me think of a special person back home - Asha - and the importance of the creative spirit in others.

As I ran down the mountain that leads to the gates of Machu Picchu, I felt connected with my mom, a tremendous distance runner.

That same mountain - and many others - led to a reflection of where my love of mountains began: among the wild landscape of West Virginia at my grandmother’s.

The experiences of learning how to deal with uncertainty along the way brought me back to learning an important lesson from my sister in Malawi so many years ago.

Meeting new people and working to find an authentic place of companionship made me appreciate having people like Sara in my life.

One of these new people, a Chilean named Antonia, reminded me of my brother, Garrett because of their shared ability to bring together dissonant views.

In Santiago, I saw parallels between my dad’s fight for tobacco regulation and the Chilean people’s struggle for freedom and the value of committing to the long haul.

The Art in Others

When people heard that I was planning to go on a three month trip through South America, I often got the same response: “You’re going alone?” I had never traveled solo before and as I hopped on to the plane to Lima, a little bit of fear sunk in. I thought maybe I couldn’t hack such a long stretch on my own.

How wrong I was.

It’s actually difficult to stay solo on a solo trip. You’re always meeting someone going your way and this makes for quick friends. I met a lot of friends along the way, but far and away my favorite was a Canadian named Jonathan.

I ran into Jo at the very beginning of my trip in Lima. We were on the bus going through Peru and we found that we had the same loose plans: head to Cusco, trek to Machu Picchu via the Salktantay Trail, and then continue on to La Paz in Bolivia.

We hit it off pretty quick, likely due to the fact that we both enjoy conversing in song lyrics. He has a deep reservoir of American songs on tap and is keen to use them to express how he’s feeling. I get along just fine with this style of communication.

For Jo, though, music is more than just a way to be a little silly. You see, Jo is the lead singer for a small French-Canadian band called Le Scone and has the heart of a performer (watch them jam out in an acoustic session here). I have a great memory of Jo at the front of the bus on the way to Arequipa playing a Backstreet Boys song on a borrowed ukelele into a terrible microphone. Swaying from side to side as he tried to play, sing, and balance on a moving bus, his energy was on fire with the whole bus singing along with him.

Jo and I traveled for a few weeks together and we found we had a lot in common. We both love the outdoors, have a willingness to be adventurous, and are linked by the sphere of law (his current area of work and my future one). Despite all these things in common, I think it’s the creative energy in Jo that I gravitate towards.

Creative work is hard. Admittedly, I’m no master with words, but I would still consider myself a writer, albeit one in a tiny, obscure place on the great wide web. I’m a shaper of words and I take pride in the things you can see on The Orange Sky and my personal site. The work takes thought and toil, but it’s incredibly rewarding.

It’s because I consider creativity a part of my identity that I gravitate towards others who I feel are fellow creatives. Jo is alive when he’s playing music and the vibrancy I saw in him reminded me of an important someone back home. I’ve been seeing Asha - someone I coincidentally got to know the last time I left the US - for close to a year and a half now and I think one of the most beautiful things about her is the creative energy she has.

Much like I’m a writer, Asha is a painter (although, I’d argue, she has a knack for the written word, too). She pours that creative energy into blank canvases in the form of shapes and colors. To hear her talk about art is to bear witness to a wonderful passion. The occasional glimpses of her work that she shyly allows me to see always leave me with a better understanding of the world inside her.

The expression of your inner creativity is a terrifying endeavor. To write, to sing, or to paint is to lay yourself bare before others. It takes bravery, a deep sense of self, and a mind open to the world around us. When I see others on the same journey of expression, I can’t help but be in awe of those qualities.

I don’t think those qualities only express themselves in just an artist’s creation, either. In Jo and Asha, I think those qualities are present beyond their art: it is simply part of who they are. It’s what makes one a good friend or valuable significant other. I, like Kurt Vonnegut, believe that to pursue the creation of art grows the soul.

Create something. Let it grow you into something beautiful. Others will recognize.

The Love of Mountains

I love the mountains. I love the long, slow burning story they tell. I love their offerings of challenge and reward. I love their immensity and their immediate ability to put things in perspective.

I think I love the mountains because of my grandparents. Growing up, they had a beautiful house in West Virginia. If you stuck your head out the window as you climbed their winding gravel driveway, tall, rich green trees said hello with the fresh smell of the woods. At the door, we would meet Nana and Pops with smiles and hugs as we crunched the gravel beneath our feet in excitement.

Inside were sure to be treats, conversation, laughter. The living room had one face with a series of sliding glass doors that lead to one of my favorite places in the world: a wooden porch looking into the mountains. Rocking chairs beckoned you to take a seat, relax, and take in the view. From this heavenly throne, you could see the mountains calling to us, begging to tell us their old secrets and wise observations.

It is one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever known, no doubt a feeling crafted by the love that my grandparents gave us. They encouraged us to chase our dreams with absolute confidence. As a result, mountains became a powerful symbol for me. In the background, mountains see the world made. They represent at once the peace of those rocking chairs and the vibrant conversations around the kitchen table about tomorrow.

Along the way in South America, I saw many mountains and they brought me great joy. I find myself calm and at home in their embrace. While Pops passed away years ago and Nana has since moved away from the mountains of West Virginia, I felt like I was visiting their house every time I took in the dominating presence of mountains all over the continent. I was on the porch again, listening carefully to the landscape.

Kindness in the Arena

Anyone that knows me well enough will say that I have a certain passion for argumentation. (I’m submitting that for Euphemism of the Year.) I like to picture myself as Maximus Decimus from Gladiator: confident, precise, and determined. Getting closer to the truth, if you put me in the arena, I can be a little rough around the edges.

One thing I’ve always admired about my brother Garett is his incredible tact; he can disagree without being disagreeable. (As semantical note, Garrett is technically my brother-in-law but my biological brother Josh and I have long agreed that this distinction hides more than it shows.) He has this way of pushing back, then pulling together two disparate view points in order to find some common ground. It’s something that I often struggle with in the heat of an argument and I’m always grateful when he’s around to help nudge me in the right direction.

I thought of him when I hung out for a few days with a Chilean journalism student named Antonia. We met on a bus across the Chilean-Bolivian border and she offered to show me around Santiago when I made my way there after visiting San Pedro de Atacama. She’s interested in international relations - the field of my undergraduate studies - and we talked a lot about the way the world is changing as we strolled around Santiago. What I noticed is that like Garrett, she has the same natural ability to not bite down too hard in a discussion and keep things moving and it led to some great conversations.

I’m grateful that I have an aggressive instinct when it comes to the debate of ideas. I think that with the right people, it can push the conversation to more useful and interesting places. With that said, I’m also aware that I don’t always need that killer instinct. Sometimes, it’s much better to connect ideas and to bridge gaps. It’s from random connections like Antonia and close people in my life like Garrett that I hope to learn how to do just that.

The Long Haul

My brother and sister love to tell the story of the day Dad came home and told them, “We killed Joe Camel.” My dad worked at the FDA at the time and was engaged in an all out war to regulate the tobacco industry. I was too young to really have a memory of this story, but I do know that it didn’t end there. He had committed to something much larger than himself, something that might not bear fruit until years later. He was right. The fight over tobacco regulation continued long after he left the FDA until President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law in 2009.

Recently, I came across a powerful statistic published in a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

between 1964 and 2012, eight million premature deaths were avoided as a result of tobacco control.

History is a messy and complicated affair. Occasionally, however, you are able to step back a little and see the arc of smaller stories. With the aforementioned retrospective, the tobacco fight is one of these little arcs that I feel I can actually grasp and I think I’ve learned a lot about the long haul from being able to see the story happen in my own lifetime. It gave me a sense that committing yourself to the big things isn’t an act of naiveté. It’s an act of courage.

I was able to get a sense of another smaller arc when I visited the museum in Santiago. After walking through the second floor, a floor of dark corridors filled with the shadows of abuse and terror of the Pinochet regime, you reach the open and light space of the third floor. The third floor represents the resistance, the fight, the overcoming of the Chilean people.

In 1988, there was a national plebiscite to determine whether Pinochet should continue his rule. YES meant more Pinochet; NO meant elections for a new government. The campaigns from the opposing sides became the stuff of legends. The NO movement won out, capturing almost 56% of the vote. Pinochet’s time as the leader of Chile had come to a close. The NO movement is perhaps best represented by their cheery jingle: “Chile, la alegría ya viene” (Chile, joy is on its way).

The song felt like the fruition of a movement, the closing of a narrative. It was powerful. In that moment, I thought of my dad and his unrelenting commitment to the long haul. These commitments matter. As we sum up these arcs, we start to bend the bigger story. It’s often worth it to take a step back and wonder what arcs we are engaged in.

Enabling Authenticity

At home, there’s always a sense of being a known entity. You’ve met your neighbors. You’ve shared coffee and beers with your friends. Your parents and community have watched you grow up and learn. Your identity has been slow-cooked through the years, occasionally altered by the random spice of life.

Travel, on the other hand, lacks this fixedness. It puts you into contact with lots of new people. Every bus and hostel is a chance to reinvent yourself. They don’t know where you came from, what you do, or what you are like.

You can approach these moments of self-creation with terror or excitement. I choose the latter. There is a danger in this creation, though: you might enter an inauthentic space of self. You might present a charade to your new companions and, in the process, chip away at who you really are.

I’ve found the key to authenticity in these moments of self-creation has two key components. First, you must bring everything you are to the table. Second, you have to encourage others to do the same. When I do these two things, I can skip past the formalities and get to the good stuff: a space to be honest. It’s there that chance encounters feel like fate and quiet moments extend into eternity.

I think the first component is easy when you have a little bit of confidence. I have plenty (probably too much). The second, however, can be tricky. How can you enable another person to be authentic? It requires you to be non-judgmental and appreciative of everyone’s little quirks. I can’t think of someone better at this than Sara.

Everyone in my family has this strange mix of incredible seriousness and outrageous goofiness. My brother is no exception and I think it’s why he and Sara get along so well. She has the rare gift of giving people around her the green light to be themselves. No one feels the need to tone down their eccentricities. To feel comfortable in your own skin around others is no small thing.

When I was traveling, I tried my best to encourage new people I met to come along with me to that interesting space of companionship, but I know that I can always do better. I’m very thankful that I have people in my life who can help me continue to learn.

Down the Mountain

Everyone has a “thing”. Some people like to fix up old cars, pursue the perfectly brewed cup of coffee (ahem), or watch documentaries. My mom likes to trail run. She’s completed an untold number of 50Ks, a sizable amount of 50 milers, and a handful of 100 milers. I don’t know how it became her “thing”. Years ago she, like Forrest Gump, started running and just kept on going.

In 2012, she roped the whole family into doing a 50 miler in the Headlands of California. By the whole family, I mean my mom, dad, brother, sister, brother-in-law, brother-in-law’s twin brother, and me. It took us 12 hours, 34 minutes, and 56 seconds, but we did it. It was one of the most memorable moments of my entire life.

After completing a marathon, a 50k, and then a 50 miler, I decided to retire at the top of my game. There could be some more big runs in my future, but I think I’ll stick to hiking for the near future. It’s a bit more speed. That doesn’t mean I don’t run occasionally, though. When I do, I feel like my mom is with me.

One such moment was the last part of my trek to Machu Picchu. After five days of walking (about 50 miles in total), we had made it to the entrance. I spent the day exploring the site, soaking it all in. On the way down, my legs started moving a bit faster and I found myself running down the mountain that I had labored up hours before. I fell into a smooth rhythm, leaping from stair to stair, rock to rock. After five days of trekking, the change in pace felt good.

My mom was with me in that moment, moving carefully right next to me. Together, we closed out the magnificent five days by gliding down that mountain. During the descent, I found myself in a state of immense bliss and peace. As I crossed a bridge and waited for a friend to catch up, I could only smile. Distance really does feel like an illusion sometimes.

Back to the Mission

I’m incredibly grateful to have been able to travel free from commitments and worry for three months through a dynamic place like South America. Amidst this gratitude, though, there is a little pang of guilt. As I traveled through these places, I was reminded that this type of movement is simply not an option for most of the world. For many, seeing a new place is not some chance to explore, it is migration in the search of safety and a better life. This realization sits quietly and powerfully in the background.

I think I’m so aware of this contrast because of the way my family has come into contact with the world outside our home. Ever since my sister and mom went to work at St. Gabriel’s in Malawi years ago, seeing the world has always been framed by the context of being part of it. This especially applies my brother, Josh. His work at Medic Mobile takes him to some interesting places all over the world but he always gets on a plane with a mission in hand. I think calling him well-traveled would miss something. Josh went to Colombia to work in areas affected by land mines with the military; I came to Colombia to stay on a coffee farm.

Coincidentally, the first cup of coffee I ever tried came from beans Josh brought back from that very trip. I took it black, not really knowing that there are all sorts of crap you can add in. That framed my entire experience with coffee. It’s meant to be black. Likewise, my first experiences in other countries came about through the chance to do something. Seeing the world is meant to be paired with engaging with it. Sometimes, the absence of this framing during my travels through South America felt indescribably off. I can’t shake that feeling. I’m not sure I ever want to shake it.

Josh and his girlfriend, Sara (who, not surprisingly, runs in the same circles as Josh), came to Ecuador to travel with me for a week. It was the first vacation that either of them had taken and it was great to see two hardworking people treat themselves. Despite it being their vacation, I could still see the wheels turning as they explored Ecuador. I suppose once you open your eyes, it’s hard to train them to shut. Even though they enjoyed their adventures in Ecuador, I could tell that they would be excited to get back to work.

Travel can offer unforgettable experiences. I don’t regret the adventure I had in South America one bit. But, by the end, I was itching to get back to the mission. Back to being part of a community. Back to shaping the edges of a brighter tomorrow, today. My brother - and my family - have ingrained that in me.

I suppose that is travel’s true power for me: I go somewhere else to feel the pull of home even harder.

Well, now I’m home. And I’m ready to build something.

Applause for Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a common companion for a traveler and people can react to this companion in different ways. I’d consider myself to be a somewhat easygoing traveler. I’m by no means the zen master of travel but I’d say that I scored high marks in a few advanced courses during my trip through South America. When I got back, I started to think about why I had this approach to the curveballs that travel throws at you. My mind kept drifting back to the very first time I left the United States, to the orange skies of Malawi.

Malawi was a cornerstone experience for me. I was young and eager to expand my understanding of the world. I don’t think it was some grand, clichéd moment of enlightenment, though. For years, everyone in my family had told stories about the many ways in which we can choose to engage with the world. The stories were what enlightened me, but they also gave me a great hunger for more understanding.

Malawi fed that hunger. It was my first contact with something so different yet so the same to what I knew. Throughout the process, my mom and sister were my guides for sorting through my experience. I was close with my mom that summer, working at her side to help educate the hospital staff in physical therapy, but I was even closer with my sister. We spent a lot of time together in high school and even though it had been a few years since we had been around each other for a long stretch of time, we fell back into the unique rhythm only a brother and sister can have.

We worked side by side on projects. We played soccer with the kids until the darkness sent us home. We stayed up late watching bootleg DVDs and drinking hot chocolate. We decided together to become “tea people” when our stash of hot chocolate powder ran out.

Most of all, I think Elizabeth taught me how to react to uncertainty. Malawi is a friendly, beautiful place, but a place of funny uncertainty. You have to be okay with all sorts of twists and turns. When things did veer away from the expected, I would look to my sister to see how to react and what I saw was serenity and joy. What I learned from her in Malawi I took with me as I continued to travel in the years to come.

As William Carlos Williams said, ‘The proper response to life is applause.“ So, instead of shouts of anger and frustration at the unpredictability, I learned that the right response to uncertainty is to applaud, to embrace it and treat it like music. The world is always playing some sort of improvised jazz. Go ahead, clap. Then, play along.