True story!

I had to change the homepages of my browsers to something less controversial. All winter long, I'd began each day with electric jolts of agony as the news sites that I had them set to bleated the bleakest news about the state of the world I lived in.

Millions of jobs lost across all sectors of the economy!!!

Trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars lost - evaporated! - or stolen - or devalued

freefalling!

with no end in sight

at least for several years!


I don't want to get into the specifics but the term hemmorhaging money paints the picture and psychically I felt like I was dying. Especially when I had these news items burned onto my retinas first thing in the morning before I even had time to eat a banana. A case of writers block developed as I focused all my writing energy into pitching myself to jobs that I never heard back from. I became a creative letter writer, and for the most part nothing worked from every angle.

Almost 40 days ago now things began to change with the season. Today is Good Friday, and I just realized the whole timing factor. It was at the end of Ash Wednesday that I quit smoking tobacco and boarded a plane bound for San Juan with my roommate after staying up all night. One of my best friends was getting married, and Ranee and I were meeting up with about six of our girlfriends down in the Caribbean to help properly usher in this fantastic new development in her life.

I packed a blunt as we packed our bags, intending to get the two of us healthily mind froze as we took a 3AM train to the airport but she rightly thought it would be a terribly dumb idea before checking into the airport, so I had to smoke the whole thing myself. I put my hood and sunglasses on and tried to be inconspicuous and when we made it through to our gate I passed out with my headphones on. The guy checking tickets called me out from my bleary looking eyes and told me to check out the dinosaurs in the airport. Leaving Chicago I was just completely numb, pale and zombied.

What can I say- it had been a long terrible winter.

After my time in Puerto Rico, standing up for one of my closest friends as a tribute to beautiful people to undying love, my outlook on life changed. I spent my first day there getting thrashed by the ocean. That island has some sick waves! Just standing up was hard - the water was so powerful and I was so small against it. Every time I stood up I got knocked on my ass. Two minutes after wading knee deep into the water I found myself face smashed against the sand, my sunglasses gone forever. Every time I get into the ocean she always takes something from me. Once it was my shorts, another time it was my shoes, two t-shirts a different time, my bracelets... I'm not counting though, because the ocean always gives me so much more back.

As I found myself getting thrashed by the sea in Condado, San Juan I was moved to tears with joy. What a strange situation for my life to have gotten into - there in the water I felt a familiar feeling of having been compelled to the shores of a beach, getting bathed in the salt water of the ocean sea. Water I could effortlessly float in with the sun melting onto my skin.

As a transplanted tropical person, being 100% islander biologically and born and raised in the most inland city you could get in N. American, it rouses the deepest primal instincts to be on the beach and in the water. My hair suddenly gets curly from being bone straight, my skin gets soft and loses the dry unbalanced texture it gets in the winter and springs to life like a fish changing colors in the humid air. I feel like my most natural self, and that the ocean likes for me to be playing in her and occasionally summons be through strange trips. It was not the first time I found myself deliriously frolicking in the water for hours, wondering how I even got there.


I had read a Kurt Vonnegut quote a few weeks before I got there: "Strange travel suggestions are like dancing lessons from God." I giggled over this as I floated on my back and felt the anxiety that had stopped my mental gears from turning float away like rust getting rinsed by a powerful solvent as the waves sent me tumbling and I had to keep getting back up.

We were staying at a resort that was also being visited by some famous NFL football players who were all set up in a huge posse at the side of the beach. They gawked at me diving headfirst into waves and letting them carry me super fast up the shore, as they tentatively toed the sand ankle deep, I observed from far away. They never got further in than that because the force of the water was banging.



The night before I left the island, I found myself strolling a street called the Paseo De La Princesas with my beautiful new friend Lana, as she explained the law of attraction to me. We laughed about how I had visioned some bogus things that wound up coming true prior to the trip, and I was convinced I should start thinking about the kinds of ways I use my mental energy. I was even more convinced when several people that were unconnected to each other also mentioned the same arcane principles in the course of the next few days - including a cop from Jersey who sat next to me on the airplane home. Spooky!


We walked along a wall that was built to protect the city of San Juan from the pirates and freebooters from marauding the town, because they were a major problem for the city. They must have raided it pretty hard, because that wall was solid and fitted with some serious looking cannons. You can tell how strong the offense must have been by the size of the defense. As a local pervert frustratedly escorted Lana and I through the city gates as an increasingly sullen tour guide as it became clear that we weren't going to take up his offer of letting us stay at his house, I breezed through the streets and felt the weight of the remnants of those times and wondered why I have always been drawn to the territory of these pirates - like the time I found myself swimming in the precariously jagged caves of the Baths in Virgin Gorda, where their single masted sloops hid as they scouted for booty. One day will it all make sense? I pictured Old San Juan lit by torchlights, shot at by cannons on square rigger ships, the gates finally bashed in by those relentless motherfuckers.

Isla de Encanta, indeed.

Bahai Bike Pilgrimage

I woke up feeling like a tighly coiled rope, my muscles stiff and uncomfortable beneath my skin. It had been a night of restless energy and angst filled sleep. I dreamed of gravity and pressure, of forces pressing in on me like the weight of being under a hundred meters of ocean water. I walked over to my neighborhood coffee shop to start my day as I usually do but with a long stone cold stricken expression, the kind of look that makes people avert their eyes when they see you. My phone rang. It was my bicycle friend.

"How do you feel about riding up to the Bahai Temple? I'm thinking about going up there today. Need some spiritual healing."

"I'm down," I answered immediately, didn't have to think twice. "I think that's just what I need on a day like today. We'll be bike pilgrims." I had been there before, rode the 16 miles during a late night trip with a group of midnight riders about 2 years ago this month. When I walked through its winding gardens under a glowing full moon, I knew I had to one day return to see the grounds on a sunny day. How strange to be compelled back during this moment, and how absolutely necessary too.

After taking care of some business I set myself to cleaning off the drive train on my bike, tuning it and filling it's tires with air. I packed my backpack with my lock, water jug, a dress and a towel, then stepped into my flip flops once again and rolled over to meet my friend.

The ride up to Wilmette began during the hottest part of the day, but once we started heading north on Halsted the cool breeze of the lake kept the sun from being too exhausting. Riding in the busy streets of a highly trafficked city requires absolute, intense concentration so it seemed like most of the time was passed focusing on just surviving in the bike lane. As the miles slipped by in quick succession, I began to feel the exhilaration of my bicycle's movement. It was like I was shedding the hard exoskeleton of despondency. Compressed into the low crouch of the pursuit position, I focused on the rhythm of my breathing. Before long we reached stretches of smooth road, and a song burst forth from my lungs. It was Sam Cooke's "It's Been a Long Time Coming".

At the end of Lake Shore Drive we got kind of lost in a winding path. Our route was influenced by avoiding certain high traffic intersections, detours past streets under construction. When I found myself cycling on a narrow sidewalk lined on both sides with construction fencing, with several large patches strewn together with plywood I started to worry that we were on the wrong path. I felt myself becoming more agitated, especially when I found myself pedaling on top of random piles of sand and puddles on what was becoming increasingly bombed out streets.

"Don't worry, look up!" said my friend, and just when I was about to start looking for a way off of that path, I saw the top of the dome of the temple.


My skin was covered in sweat and felt something like the outside of an airplane after a transcontinental journey. I soaked my towel in water and wiped the salt off of my face and cooled off until my heart stopped racing, before putting on a dress so I wouldn't be striding into this holy building looking like I had just stepped out of the gym.

This is the threshold of this temple. It holds to many of the forms of ancient temple building, including making the journey towards the inside of the sacred space through several spatial stages with its winding gardens.

Here is the view from the top of the stairs:

* * *

Inside, I breathed in the beauty of the architecture and watched the light filter through the windows. I read some of the mystic writings of the founder of the Bahai faith, who was said to have been a divine messenger. This religion is founded upon the principle of the oneness of humankind, espouses equality between men and women, harmony between science and religion, the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty, and a focus on universal acceptance.

Here is the most famous of the Bahai faith's sacred texts:
The Seven Valley and the Four Valleys

* * *

One of the things I prayed about was the guidance to find the right path, which makes the entire return trip kind of ironic in retrospect. After a long contemplative walk around the gardens, I was ready to leave. I was not thrilled about going down the same dangerous path that took me to the temple, and felt compelled to stay close to the lakefront. First we crossed this river, and Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers To Cross" went through my head.


My traveling companion did not exactly share this decision, and wanted to bike through the city in the interest of getting home quickly. We parted ways unintentionally within the first few miles when we got separated, so the rest of the way home I rode alone. It was just as well, as I was becoming fatigued and the rest of the trip was a focused sprint that took the rest of the energy I had. By now my lungs felt wrung ragged, and about to burst which replaced the dreadful hollow feeling that had been in my chest all week plaguing me. As my muscles burned mile after mile, my chest felt strangely enough as though there was an owl getting ready to explode out of it and take flight. I day dreamed about how nice it would feel to shower and put on some comfortable pants as I kept moving forward. Here is the view of the city from the beginning of the bike path and the last place I saw my bike friend:


It was beautiful, but the view just spoke of how far I had to go. I put my head down and pedalled.

My mind went on auto pilot and I quickly regretted not having any energy bars on hand. I did this whole 35 mile trip fueled with one banana and a quarter of a mango. I have been fasting since the weekend, and this made the journey that much more surreal. The only sounds I registered were the industrial vibrations of machines and the sounds of birds. Voices, traffic and all other sounds were drowned out as I kept my pace. I was becoming more and more lightheaded and focused all of my mental energy on keeping an eye on my path and staying safe.

I rolled in and felt completely wiped out. As though I had rode all those miles on top all of the muscles in the front and back of my torso. I earned my sleep tonight and look forward to having better dreams.

Wearing a Sundress Was a Bad Idea

The blister on the inside of my right calf was the size of a small chicken egg when it first puffed up. All the skin around it was red and angry looking, and when I poked the sac-like pillowy protuberence it squished firmly, full of clear blister fluid. "That's not good," I thought, the proceeded to deal with it the way I deal with most of the cutaneous injuries that I regularly incur as a skateboarder and cyclist - I rolled down my jeans and went on my merry way. Being a child of a doctor and nurse makes you laugh at pain and non-life threatening injuries. Besides, I've found that most of my sports injuries like strained muscles, sprained joints, cuts and scrapes - the ones that aren't deep anyways - benefit most from just a few basic things: epsom salt baths, lots of sleep and being left alone. I also take care to eat better when I am healing up.

A couple of days later I noticed a screaming pain when I woke up, and a wet spot on the sheets. Are you grossed yet? This wet spot wasn't of the ordinary variety of bodily fluids you might encounter on a bed sheet, but even worse because it was from the blister on my leg which had by then swollen even more. Fearing an impending scarrage that would render future skirt wearing or shorts wearing unsightly - and make those activities an actual disservice to the world around me - I decided to finally treat my wound like the third degree burn that it was.

I had always wanted to try the moist burn pads that are in the pharmacy next to the band aids anyways. I ran to get some bacitracin and said burn pads, as well as a bunch of adhesive gauze that would let the wound breathe and not stick to it.

A few years ago I used to get injured like this all the time, mostly on my elbows and knees, the sides of my ankles and even my hips. I took a lot of thrashing in the skatebowls before I could ride them, and before I learned how to fall. Now I use my whole body to slide down the side of the wall and go limp. Or if I am not on a transition and on flat ground, I run out of the fall.

Once, an 11 year old kid collided with me going pretty fast at the skatepark and I saved us from certain doom by grabbing him under the ribs, picking him up, and running some paces until our momentum was spent. He was devastated, but I didn't feel bad that he looked like a baby in front of his friends because I had to do what I had to do.

So I carefully cleaned the blister with soapy warm water and betadine. I could kind of see under the top skin of the blister where it was slightly torn and could tell that it was a pretty bad wound. Yowza! That motorcycle exhaust pipe is probably hundreds of degrees hot. Wearing a sundress had been a bad idea. "Just think," I thought, "just beyond that are all the nerve endings and fatty tissue of my calf!" I wonder where the muscle starts?

By now my whole calf was throbbing and so I put a second skin blister pad on top of the whole mess and called it a day. For the past 10 days I've been monitoring its progess. The blister pad worked pretty well at keeping it hydrated during the crucial first few days when the white blood cells are trying to patch up the open.