drewd The Adventures of Carlos d'Avis

Am I allowed to say it? Alternately, when will I stop saying it? These weeks have been busy: the events in question are now nearly a fortnight gone.

Goals

I rarely set goals for myself, whether qualifiable or quantifiable. I suppose I am not so wired? Or I don't find goals useful? I had a year or two when I set modest savings goals; I committed to running a marathon in 2006. What else? Not much.

Do you set goals? Do you write them down or at all publicize them? Are you far more logical and deliberate than I am?

When I think about the future, I do so emotionally. Does that even make sense? I construct a story—a dream?—about what the future will be, about who I will be. I do not say, by the end of 2012 I will have taken a trip to Alaska with a woman I hope to marry. Rather, an image of the future shifts and dances: I hope to be happy.

That Being Said

I set two goals for myself in 2011:

1. Get a dog
2. Run a mile in less than five minutes by my 30th birthday

Here were two hopes, one qualifiable and one quantifiable, that were nearly always a part of my story for the future. I decided 2011 was the year to set these concrete goals.

Chuquisaca Mona d'Avis

As you are well aware, I brought a darling and ridiculous little dog into my life in February: Chuqui. Goal, check!

Her initial hopes were uncomplicated: please don't let this heat grating turn off please don't let this heat grating turn off. Chuqui became more accustomed to this new world; she gained weight, confidence and character. She responded to training and grew to love our family (as far as I can anthropomorphize her reactions).

One hurdle persisted: Chuqui would not climb the stairs in our house from the first floor to the second. She would climb stairs in the park and everywhere else; she would go down the stairs in our house. But every time, no matter coaxing, commanding or treats, she would refuse that trip up wooden steps to our room, her bed and haven.

I carried Chuqui, every time. In July, I decided I was smarter (duh). When I would take Chuqui upstairs, I would carry her nearly all the way but place her down, paws ready to scamper, one stair shy of the top. The next day, I would place her another stair lower. And on and on. Eventually, I was placing her front paws on the first step and Chuqui would climb the rest.

Yes! So close!

Milestones

As you are likely aware, I put together a group of friends to run monthly mile races with me. I clocked a 5:08 mile in June and a 5:07 mile in July. We ran a gut-busting stair workout in July; I hit the gym and I hit the track. I bought fast new shoes, so flexible and light and bright.

I felt like August could be the month. I felt like August 10th could be the day. I had run a blazing track workout the week previous, culminating with a set of four 400-meter laps at 76, 74, 71, and 67 seconds. I felt strong and fast.

I showed up to the track—Sarah accompanying to watch the clock—to find Andy Lin warming up laps with a bit of good fortune: high school runners. Andy had befriended a 17-year-old miler. I watched the kid run blistering 1200 meter intervals.

"So you're actually fast, right?" I asked him. "What do you run, 4:20?"

"4:25." His name was Brian, and he was willing to pace me. Let's do this!

The young man, all helpfulness and humility, let me lead the first lap: 76 seconds. He gave me the inner lane on the curve then slipped easily in front of me so I could draft on the straights. We ran another 76 second lap, then another. I pushed hard on that third lap, as it was always my slowest. 3:48, and the goal was in reach!

I don't remember exactly what Brian said to me at the start of the 4th lap but it was something like "Well, we need to run this one fast." I pushed hard through the first 200 meters and couldn't even focus to check my time with the last 200 to go. As we entered the final curve, Brian told me, "Just 10 hard steps!"

I was thinking I needed a bunch more than just 10 steps but figured this was indication to kick. I kicked. I felt more tired in this final 200 meters than I ever had before at this point in the mile. But I kicked. I powered out of the turn and into the straight and pushed with my arms and finished hard through the end.

Sarah was all smiles. 4:57! And then I lay down on the ground.

Puppy Steps

That same week, indeed the next night, I was out having tea when Chuqui wanted to go to bed. Sarah and Charlie led her to the stairs and she trotted right up without any aid. My little wigglebutt was growing up, and she hasn't looked back yet.

What's Next?

I have no idea.

Every day is a return to start. Every day is the turning of another circle, so long or just so arced. The Earth spins each day and skips onward about the Sun, as we all—from Sun to maligned Pluto—inscribe some path so far indeterminate in shape through the stars.

You shared this song with me (and he with you?) and now I shared this song with her and here we are another year later or some twenty-five days later. Who will be listening to this melody in another year? Will the notes describe any lines between any hearts, however tangled, yours or mine or hers? Better that I abandon this song entirely, and go searching for a new song to sing into a new heart?

How long along this arc of life will I have memory of you and fennel? The corner never comes until I have stopped awaiting it. Carrots, dirt, wine, a café, a tree on a block in our neighborhood: all these (however ephemeral) materialities grow and root in my connections and memories with you and with you and you and you. I refuse to cast aside cherry pits but I would love to forget the smell behind your ear, evening air and mischief.

Would that I could see myself unfolding and changing along this arc of life, forward and backward. Would that I could fully grasp who I am and was and will be and so trust in the utility of these memories, lovely and painful, given and taken. I must hope and trust and keep singing along to life.

Unplanned but fortuitous: I dined and reunited this evening with Team Grupo Do-It. This Seattle gathering was comprised of the majority of the 2010 Costa Rica crew, so named for a mammoth hardware & construction store we passed on a weekend outing. Yes, the store was called “Grupo Do-It.” How could we not be inspired?

One year ago today I landed in Seattle after 160 days traveling Latin America and 173 days away from Seattle. Happy Returniversary, Carlos. Thanks, Drew.

Good then, appropriate, that I saw Grupo Do-It. (I am endlessly drawn into the circular and cyclical.) Our fearless leader, Eric, was not in attendance tonight: he moved to Palo Alto with Carla last week. I settled in Seattle, eventually, and Eric and Carla left. Who'd have guessed?

One year ago today I had just finished a funny week in Ecuador with Eric. Funny in that the weather and surf were poor and in that Montañita was a weird and unhealthy little beach town. One week was sufficient—I wanted to be done traveling. I wrote End of the Line in Montañita, just prior to my return. Still, I had no idea, then, that I would I stay in Seattle. What did I expect? What did I want?

My personal journal entries from June 13th, 2010 reveal much, but not all. I tried to predict how I would feel in my return, how people would view me, how I would adjust. I reiterated some bit of philosophy constructed in the course of travel:

The world is larger and more complex and wondrous than I can ever hope to understand or experience fully, but I can find love and beauty and connection anywhere, all the same.

I always repeat words in my head; I construct fantastical conversations and act out improbable situations. A phrase can become an ephemeral mantra, unforgettable in some period but then lost completely if not inscribed. So was my consideration of complexity and wonder and so attached to the process and result of my tattoo in Chile. Sometimes I cannot lose a lyric. (Every day I see my dream.)

Lately I twist no philosophy but write poems about carrots, the original never sent to its inspiration but instead lost and deconstructed. Once, “earthbound dreaming ... of the fully bounty of summer.” Now, “chop chop chop chop, fuck you.” Oh, silly me.

For the first time, in this very moment, I realized that I know I will be in Seattle one year from today. Yes, yes, no one ever truly knows anything. And maybe I'll be out of town at a wedding or Taiwanese dog convention. But I want to be living in Seattle in a year, no matter the status of any carrots or the sunshine in Costa Rica. My dog likes it here. I like it here.

Team Grupo Do-It asked me, over our delicious Ethiopian cuisine, whether I preferred these last twelves months or those prior. I didn't pause too long in consideration. No matter the lack of grand adventure and passport stamps, I preferred the last year. I have been happier; I have had less emotional upheaval. I believe—I hope—that my life bends toward a more peaceful and tenable happiness. I could find happiness anywhere, perhaps, but I would like to build happiness here.

Welcome home, Carlos. Many happy returns, Drew.

I finished this weekend Selected Stories by Alice Munro. I dare say Munro wrote better and better over time: the collection ranges from 1968 to 1993. Her stories are poignant and so true, no matter my total lack of experience with 19th- and early 20th-century Canada. I am experienced with emotion, with the complications of the heart and the confusions of adulthood. Alice has that shit down.

From “The Albanian Virgin”

And I did not think then, What nonsense it is to suppose one man so different from another when all that life really boils down to is getting a decent cup of coffee and room to stretch out in?

From “Differently”

At times the store was empty, and she felt an abundant calm. It was not even the books that mattered then. She sat on the stool and watched the street—patient, expectant, by herself, in a finely balanced and suspended state.

She thinks about sitting in the store in the evenings. The light in the street, the complicated reflections in the windows. The accidental clarity.

I'm still looking for my bookstore.

I am drinking an Americano, homemade, in a mug adorned with blue stars and sashes, a golden-winged eagle, and the following inscription:

Lord, grant me
PATIENCE
But I want it
RIGHT NOW!

The mug came with the house. The puppy on my lap did not.

I moved into Sarah & Charlie's new home on February 22nd and, on that very same day, drove nervously to the Seattle-Tacoma airport to receive most precious cargo from Taipei.

Chuquisaca Mona d'Avis, my dear puppy and love and new life focus. Shitbreath. Trauma Runt Rat Deer. Mushmouth. On May 3rd, 2010, I wrote in On Flying:

I never wanted to be a god. I never dreamed of this but instead a warm home, a place that smelled like forever, and a dog to follow my shadow and a partner in whose arms I could soar to the heavens and return to earth every day, every moment.

Written one year ago: where have I landed? I'm not sure about smelling “like forever”—Chuqui exudes a multitude of stinks that do not particularly evoke the wonder and grace of infinity—but I am home here with Charlie, Sarah, and Little Wigglebutt. Every day I live is with the certainty that I am responsible for another being. Every day I live is with the certainty that I have a place—not of my own but, even better, with my immediate household and larger Seattle family. Every day I live is with the certainty that, even if I become a total jerk, I will still see my friends by virtue of Chuqui's cuteness.

Indeed, I offered the goal of dog ownership some three months ago, in A New and Honest and Awesome Beginning. Own a dog before the age of thirty? Check, done, huzzah. But how are my other goals proceeding? Am I fucking awesome yet?

May Reboot

For some years, the web design community has flagged May 1st for launching new versions of (personal) websites. Celebrate Spring! Celebrate our work and creativity! I would not say the movement is still in vogue and I cannot, unfortunately, offer a new design of drewd today. I do find myself again in a time of transition and with a renewed desire to invest in creation and creativity. How will my energies be spent? On what topics will I attempt to write here?

May marks my return to consulting. I have finished my employment at Cloops. deCielo will become Decielo, and I will enter a legal, rather than de facto, partnership with Brooke. So we hope for success and more good to come!

Chuqui and I will travel to Massachusetts this weekend to reunite with my family: parents, sister, brother-in-law, and niece all. Sunday marks Nicole's first Mother's Day; I have not seen my niece, Clarabelle, since before the new year.

Sarah and Charlie will be married in eleven days, in Maine. I will be officiating their wedding. Joy! And! A little bit scary! (Me officiating, not you two getting hitched.)

I have set the goal of running a sub-5-minute mile by my 30th birthday, December 9th and a group of Seattle friends have joined me in this pursuit with monthly mile races. My fastest so far was 5:20 in March, a significant gain from the initial 5:42 in January. I am training consistently and intensely at a local gym, Seattle Strength & Performance; I feel strong and fast already.

I have more websites to design and build, or redesign and rebuild, than I care to list here. Of particular priority are Decielo, Whit Scott, and POPE FACT.

And I want to journal more and draw more and I want to keep roasting chickens and install a picture rail in my bedroom. I want to finish the half a dozen different books I am currently reading. Patience then, but perseverance as well. I invite you, earnestly, to check up on me, via email or phone or Twitter or whatever. May I, please, continue?

My new year has not yet begun, not really. I think my new year might begin tomorrow. Tomorrow, I think? I hope.

January 31, 2010

I believe too easily in cycles, in somewhat arbitrary (but still astrologically significant?) measures of times. One year ago today I was alone in Costa Rica, alone for the first time and feeling acutely so. I was soon to be heading out on “real travel” away from all friends and North American attachment.

I was not in a great place. Although I was shortly thereafter in the warm hospitality of family in Bolivia, my heart was lost, my head was confused. I spent the next four and a half months traveling about and trying to find myself again.

Wasn’t that the whole point? Wasn’t I having a grand adventure and figuring out my life?

January 31, 2011

One year later I am in Seattle and living in my favorite neighborhood and sitting in my favorite café. I worked through the tangle of emotions motivating me to move back to Massachusetts and I accepted that Seattle is my home. For the first time in years, I have no specific plans for leaving the state, much less the country. Okay, maybe I'm going to Charlie & Sarah’s wedding in May, but I don't have plane tickets for that yet!

If February 1st, 2010 marked the beginning of my true travel, then so today and tomorrow mark the beginning of my real settling in Seattle, settling as in nesting and building and not as in accepting mediocrity. Indeed, 2011 is the final year of My Twenties and I feel some pressure to excise completely any mediocrity from my life. Whit discussed similarly this transition from twenties to thirties.

How to Be Fucking Awesome?

I earnestly present the preceding as a question. I have been reading and rereading Julien Smith’s Short and Sweet Guide to Being Fucking Awesome since Avery sent me the story. (I’m not kidding.) This morning I spent an hour or more catching up on coverage of the unrest and protest in Egypt and found myself afterward unable to care about work. I discovered and delighted in a project to produce a 71-minute dance music video to Girl Talk’s All Day.

Despite total preoccupation last week, I managed to ignore all weekend consideration of my future, but I find myself now soul-searching. What important and good and fucking awesome am I doing with my life?

If I am to be honest with myself, as Julien Smith demands, I am not being as awesome as I could be. Do I give enough of myself to the world? I think I could give more. I want to give more. Am I always an artist, am I always creating with passion, conviction, and joy? No, I admit that am not, that I do not: not always. Have I run a sub-5-minute mile yet? Do I have a dog yet? No, and I’m nearly 30 years old! Time is running out!

These times of transition frighten me—these obvious opportunities to take a risk and make a change—but I am heartened by my track record. I moved to Seattle without any employment and built a career as a freelance developer & designer. I left a comfortable job to contract full-time again when I realized my heart was no longer in that position. I left Seattle and threw it all into the wind.

And, no matter my past, I am supported. My family loves and believes in me. My friends tease out my true feelings and remind me of the shape of my heart. Brooke challenges me to believe in and develop my true professional value. Everyone in this glorious Seattle community—Dave, Sarah, Charlie, Charlie, Liz, Jack, Faye, Nick, Eric, Carla, Alex et al—sticks with me as I talk though and try to puzzle out my life. They offer invaluable perspective. Whit sends me the sweetest fucking emails ever:

I was proud of her (Claire). I was excited about the leap of faith she made and her courage to do what she felt she needed to do.

And I told her that every single day.

It's important to me to let you know that people are doing the same for you. Everyone is. Claire and I talk about your constant leaps of faith. Your ability to leave a job, work for yourself, travel for a long period of time, move from place to place—but we also know that it’s exhausting … we’re all cheering you on, the problem is we’re not next to you in bed before you fall asleep. We don’t kiss you goodbye in the morning and give you good luck in your search for the next step in your life. We’re here, we’re just not there.

… we all talk about you more than you could know. When we talk about you we’re excited, we’re proud...

Wow.

So?

I thought I had a plan for 2011, for making the shift I needed in my life. Plans changed, plans change, and now I am not so sure. Still, opportunity exists, there is strength in my heart, and fire and ice and electricity all dancing around in my head. Why not make a plan today? Why not start a new life now and tomorrow and on and on and on?

For some reason or another, I was searching my email for ‘sushi’ and found an email I had written to myself some weeks past. Do you do this? I send emails to myself when I want to remember or record some information but don't have a particular place for that information. In this case, I was saving a conversation I had with Faye, of Faye & Nick, my most gracious hosts and housemates.

Faye and I were chatting, indeed, about their beautiful home, Matilda. I love this house, and conversation turned to Matilda—its colors, decor, style, et cetera—and to my own forays into home ownership back in Claremont with Brian.

“Your house is so beautiful. We [Brian and I] didn't know what we were doing with our house. We didn't have any taste. Well, I guess I was 22 years old.”

Faye defended me, sort of, “You were 22. That’s insane.”

She was right, of course. I owned a house when I was 22 years old. Insane. Maybe, just a little bit, there was some poor structure in the 2004 home & mortgage industry that allowed Brian and me to take a loan for close to half a million dollars straight out of college.

I was 22 years old. What was I thinking? When I was 22, my favorite restaurant was in a building shaped like a boat. A boat. There should have been a question on home loan applications, “Is your favorite restaurant in a building shaped like a boat? Yes/No”

“Is all-you-can-eat sushi for $25 a losing proposition for the aforementioned restaurant in a building shaped like a boat? Yes/No ”

Oh, the appetite and folly of youth. I do miss those days of 22, when I thought I had figured out my life. I am pulling at this tangle of memory, looking for a little gnarl of wisdom. Take more risks? Have better taste? Eat more sushi?