On My Own to a Music Festival

To begin again is the hardest part.

I was going so good for a while, inspired by the changing scenery and my emotion, as long as it stayed vivid and mostly positive. It was about a year ago that I made my last post, “Thamel to Pahar Ganj, Enough is Enough,” and if you read it you would have sensed my hesitance to continue writing when I was so unsure about my future. A lot has changed, and I think it will be good to keep a diary over this summer of what’s going on in my head, to remind me of what’s important to me, what I care about, and remind me of the most important and powerful words to live by for the next month at least, one can only control their own behavior.

Unlike my other posts I’ll probably abstain from inserting photography, at least to start. I am committed to providing the most accurate account of what has been up in my life since I returned to the United States. There have been other planes, other travels, but everything has been revolving around Love this time. I’m going to show that although I was actually against marriage a few years ago, the travels changed my opinion. You're going to see how that happened, why I’m so sure that this decision is what’s for me, and how becoming a parent is now a main ingredient in satisfying my adventurous spirit.

Statistics:
I've visited 26 countries during my 5 years with Dorothy.

I've worked at 3 TV stations,

and I've been laid off from 2 of them.

Last year I slept in 60 beds...

...and flew 36 times.

That’s just a brief re-cap, I’ve had those numbers on my journal to remind me of where I’ve been, its nice to finally put them down.

I started to resent my travels, (I’ll get into that in Chapter 2) and remembering what I did in 2009 has helped tremendously, it keeps me motivated, and helps me truly appreciate life. It’s easy to get down after a journey like that, everything is so new, so exotic, so exciting, that once you’re back on home turf “normal” isn’t as satisfying, and recognizing a different path to happiness can be a difficult transition... the memories keep me focused, it wasn't just a selfish mission, it had a purpose.

So the question for myself, “Do I really want to remember the summer of 2009 so much that I write about it?" The answer is easy, yes, re-hashing the past (however depressing) will show how I’ve learned, and help me towards understanding why I am where I am, and why I’m feeling the way I feel.

So picking up where we left off, once I recovered from my illness, Dorothy let me know she still wasn’t sure about us. She wasn’t happy, she felt extremely lonely while I was gone in May and had found solace in another mans arms while seeing a moe. concert in San Francisco. Boo! I wasn't surprised, for some reason I was ready for that type of devastation... just a few days prior I was standing as close to the roof of the world as one can be without special gear, higher on life than I had ever been up to this point, why wouldn't the universe kick me where it counts? I was willing to deal with her infidelity since I hadn’t been around as her companion for the past seven months, remembering I’d made my own mistakes during the early years of our relationship... but it wasn't that simple.

The experience opened her eyes to a future she had never predicted, and after so much time alone, apparently she was open to new ideas. So she went home to New Jersey for some “family time,” this was her reasoning for leaving me after trashing our summer plans for the Mexican Riviera. After being back in New Jersey a few days she realized she still wanted me as her guest for the Outer Banks vacation with her best friend Meghan, this was going down in mid-July.

How to continue telling this story… well I’m unemployed, living in our house by myself, still riding high up in the travel clouds while coping with an uncertain romantic future.

What’s next?

I start to remember something I’d been avoiding for years since I’d acquired my passport, music and festivals! I’d been avoiding them since starting on the rampage of filling up my little travel book with entry & departure stamps, and I started to wonder why.

I think it was simply that I had done that enough. Since starting college I've seen a LOT of concerts, bands like Widespread Panic, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Blues Traveler, the Beastie Boys, Galactic, the Allman Bros, String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Ween & the big winner... Phish, I've witnessed over 85 of their performances.

I have no idea exactly how many shows total because in 1996 my apartment in Mansfield (where I attended University) burnt down wiping out every picture I'd ever kept as a memory, and every ticket stub I'd saved. Perhaps I'll get into this story some other time, but for now I'll just say that fire is bad, and neglected candles don't mix with kittens.

The lifestyle became so addicting to me that one show at a time was never enough, so festivals became my drug of choice. From the uppermost reaches of Maine for the Great Went, west to High Sierra & Vegoose, South to Bonnaroo & Jazzfest, eventually leaving the country for moe. in the Caribbean & Japan. In between when I couldn't afford a ticket I rocked my press hookups for admission into the most world renowned clubs & theatres from New York to San Francisco, even when the shows were sold out :)

Music was my life when I met Dorothy, but I had started to look further even before we got together. I've met so many good people around music, but it was never conducive to healthy relationships, and if I was ever gonna "settle down" I needed to see the world first. Dots open-ness to world travel and her European upbringing became the catalyst for my adventures starting with Costa Rica in 2005.

But we've done that, I was just explaining why I was coming back...

When you're left alone you start to look backwards to what made you happy before you had that special someone... Finding that familiar feeling helped motivate me towards an annual event that always happens over the 4th of July. Jablow was also interested in a NorCal adventure and after throwing the idea up as my status on Facebook, Zach also just needed some mild temptation and the three of us planned our trip to the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California.

We were meeting up with friends that had already planned on being there, Pat, Rain, the Floors, to name just a few. Jabs & I flew to Reno, got picked up by Zach and after a night at his sweet house in the Tahoe foothills we took off for the festy ready for an easy setup since our boy in Reno had outfitted the truck with everything we’d need. Pat was working as a masseuse for Galactic at the fest and therefore driving, so we outfitted him with plenty of supplies to keep our party going the entire weekend and he staked a claim on some sweet spots before anyone was allowed onto the grounds. It was exactly what the doctor ordered!

I caught up with old friends, danced my ass off and stayed up late waiting for the sunrise kickball game that has become a High Sierra staple over the past few years. Good times, at the end of the weekend it was sad parting ways, everything seemed so simple and I was not ready for reality to set in. ...maybe it wouldn't be so hard to start over with a new girl, of course I'm probably now looking at being 40 when I father my first child... those thoughts were fleeting, I knew Dorothy was the one, I just needed her to figure it out.

We made it back to San Diego after a great weekend and I spent some time with my family before hopping onto another plane bound for Newark, New Jersey.

I'll continue that story in Chapter 2, thanks for reading.