The Goal.

“I haven’t taken an international trip in over three years. And every time I think about booking one, I get exhausted by the thought of planning.”

A friend from university, who I had done film projects with for our coursework, had asked me how much time I take off each year. I’d told them I only took about a week’s worth of time off in 202o. In 2021, I took two weeks off from one job to the next… But only traveled for one of those weeks. And in 2022, I’ve take about a week and a half truly off…

But I stayed home.

And tried not to log into work email. I was largely unsuccessful.

(I agree. This 1000% has to change. Otherwise I might as well suck it up and go into business truly for myself. Because even though it’s not expected that I log into work, I do. And working this hard for someone else… It’s kind of anyone to do that. But it has to stop. Anyway…)

I chose to staycation at home because I just am not mentally ready to get on a plane and go someplace international. At all.

And when I thought about going to another city, it just didn’t interest me.

And when a friend asked me, “Why don’t you rent an Airbnb outside of Tucson and just relax in a different space with cool stuff.”

And I did research that.

And I found lots of really cool places… That had swimming pools… And gyms… And saunas…

That cost about $300 a night.

And I realized my home was nicer than all of those places.

I have a swimming pool. And a full gym. And a sauna.

And it’s free here.

So… Why would I stay someplace else unless it was better than my own reality?

At some point, I will travel again. Far. Maybe even for another whole year.

But for now I am enjoying existing in my space. And I like not being bothered much.

I enjoy my own company most of all. I’ve been like this my whole life.

I think back about four years ago, when I was on the Vision Quest in Utah. What was supposed to be three days in isolation with no food or water, only a jar of peyote juice… Ended up being 20 hours.

The spot that had been chosen for me to stay in isolation was a floor of leaves under a roof of tree branches. I couldn’t see much of the sky. And there were spiders and ants… and probably wild animals… hiding in the forrest space.

And all I had was my sleeping bag, my journal, and my jar of gently psychoactive water.

But after 20 hours (having made it through a night or sleeping looking directly at that leaf roof), I was chased out of my space by a relatively small bright-green tree snake. One who had taken liberties with not respecting the boundary around me.

When I got back to camp the middle of the afternoon the day after being dropped off, Gentle Eagle (the Native American guide who had helped drop me into the space to do my three day retreat) hugged me and whispered into my ear, “Your mission is to figure out what that snake meant.”

It’s over 1200 days later… And I still don’t know what that snake represents.

Most people who leave their spot at the retreat do so because the isolation gets to them.

I would have loved that. I didn’t have that.

What I’d had was a ton of energies in my space. And having to accommodate them.

The snake was the worst of all.

Snakes represent transformation. Rebirth. Change.

Communicating, but saying little.