Ineffable

Inefffable: (adj) Too great to be expressed in words. late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin ineffabilis, from in- ‘not’ + effabilis

beautiful lines to rest yourself in – Venezuela

Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. ~~ Douglas Adams

I attempt to surround myself with ineffable individuals.  I put them on a pedestal, not so much to elevate them, more in an endeavor to hoist myself to their awesomeness.  I seek to balance myself next to them and with my utmost energy work on becoming equal to them.

“Surround yourself with those who won’t compete but will revel in your success and see your ascent as a reflection of their own possibilities.”  ~~T.D. Jakes

When you surround yourself with negativity and ugly, I think you become that.  I have been scolded by many for appearing to run away from problems.  I have tried to explain that I am not running away from anything, just trying to run towards solutions, happiness, and the amazing light that I find when moving away from the dark.

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”  ~~ A. A. Milne

I seek the company of dreamers and achievers, those with strength, dignity, ethics, and humor.  My best companions, friends, and mentors are those that strive for the best, even when surrounded by the worst and build me up, helping me to build up others.

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“Surround yourself with those who see greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself!”  ~~Zig Ziglar

Ofelia; Rob; Ben; Tvisha; Ktrammel; Janeen; Abvr; Tim; Carole; Mark: Hamish

Novaturient

Novaturient (adjective) Origin: German | nO·va·’tUr·E·ent  A desire to alter your life; The feeling that pushes you to travel

“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

By deciding to alter my life and travel, I have been exposed to so many wonderful people, places, experiences, foods, drinks, ideas, visions, smells, sensations, and a never-ending supply of learning opportunities.  Each of these experiences have increased my desire to alter my life and travel more.  Some of my favorite or most memorable experiences:

1.  Living and teaching in Seoul, South Korea. It was hard for me to limit it to just these photos. In three years, I must have lived through 50 life times.  I went there in 2007 with my youngest daughter.  She stayed a year then moved back to the U.S. at which time my oldest daughter came to visit me and ended up staying a year.  Between traveling through Korea, volunteering at orphanages and soup kitchens, participating in theater, stand up, movie making, reiki, tea ceremonies, and on the list goes.  The most memorable experience of my life.  One day I will go back.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your Balance you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

“Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Festival Seoul Korea

Festival Seoul Korea

Festival Seoul Korea

Korea

Korea

Dongdemun market kOrea

Festival Seoul Korea

Dongdemun market kOrea

Seoul, South Korea

The white balloon symbolized peace and freedom and often these balloons were let loose into the air with candles inside so the white would glow bright and high into the sky.

Yes, another hike in Korea. The hikes were amazing and such vistas.

Korean palace wall

Rain on a hike – Korea

Obviously there was something very unsettling with the small, Korean bananas in my daughter’s left hand. Now I knew there was nothing wrong. but even to me it did not seem right.

Korean Traditional Festival

Fake smiling in Korea

Volleyball game in Korea with daughters

Sport Chumps smile for the fundraiser.

Korean subway, met Elvis’s doppleganger.. though not wrong.. didn’t feel right..

Wow.. another favorite smiler in Korea

Smiles or fishlips in Korea – favorite smiler

Smiling in Korea.. another favorite smiler

One of my favorite Korean smile pictures

Korean smiles

DMZ – woot woot – Korea

Evolution of Madison – Korea

Good-bye lunch – Korea

Mask Festival – Andong – Korea

Low water rafting in South Korea. water was so low we had to pirate-ize ourselves and tip the other boats to get wet.

Rugby match viewing in Itaewon, South Korea with friends.

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

South Korea

Seoul, Korea

Who are you fighting? Seoul, Korea

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

2.  Venezuela. 2010 – 2012. friends, food, festivities, hikes, rafting, paragliding, sky-diving, animal safaris.  My oldest daughter, her husband and my grand-daughter lived with me for about 8 months.  This was another of my favorite locations and times.  I can’t describe how sad I was to leave Venezuela.  I am fortunate to be in contact with so many of my colleagues and friends from this time period.  One day, I dream we will meet again.

Guamanchi animal safari in Los llanos – anaconda capture

Venezuela, Marine Ball with son-in-law and friend

Los Llanos, Venezuela

sister time, Venezuela

The job and the net

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike – Coco Frio

More of the liquid city. Catatumbo, Venezuela

delta orinoco, Venezueal

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

Turgua, Venezuela, Charity toy drive for local community in Venezuela with very dear friend

Barinas, Venezuela farmland

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

Venezuela

Canyoning in Merida with Guamanchi Tours

coffee in Venezuela

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

Venezuela

Skydiving in Higuerote, Venezuela with Skydive Venezuela

coffee in venezuela

The Avila in Venezuela

Venezuela Los Nevades to Barinas Hike

Paragliding with Guamanchi in Merida, Venezuela

3.  Cambodia – 2009 – This trip will also stay forever in my heart. It was my first solo trip. No kids, no friends, no knowledge of what I would get myself into.  I ate fried frogs, dried out grasshoppers, visited temples, made folks smile, folks made me smile.  I randomly ran into a couple of friends that I had known from Korea but also made so many more friends.  Visited a floating village and heard the stories of children who were the only source of income for their families.  An incredible place.  I have been back two times since 2009, more as a typical tourist doing more typical touristy things.  Nothing will ever compare to that first time.  It was a magical place.

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”  – Anita Desai

Face in Cambodia

Cambodia friends and random travelers

Floating Vietnamese village in Cambodia

beautiful happy children in Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia

Eating bugs in Cambodia

Cambodia

Zoom in on the face of a little boy begging in Cambodia

Cambodian Cooking Class

Street gaming – Cambodia

Peaceful walk – Cambodia

Snakes and smiles.. nervous smiles

Flat tire repair.. showering in yard – Cambodia

Free living in Cambodia made me smile a lot

Cambodia boat cruise night time

Flowers blooming in the City in Cambodia

moto taxi – Cambodia

Drying fish – Cambodia

Colors – Cambodia

Vietnamese floating village tour guide – Cambodia

Everything is for sale – Cambodia

They know how to do dinner – Cambodia

Great foto ops in Cambodia

6 weeks hiking solo in Cambodia.. but never really alone with road found friends.

Cambodia

Cambodia

4.  Nepal – 2013-2015 – This was a uniquely different time of travel.  Kathmandu was amazing and wonderful and full of temples, and crowded and dirty.  I went on hikes and hashes weekly.  The food was ok, my colleagues were great.  I had friends from all over come and visit me. The most outstanding experience though was going through an actual earthquake.  I think what I learned most in Nepal was how resilient the Nepalese people were.  Not a single colleague missed a day of work after the earthquake.  Despite their homes being destroyed.  Despite their families living in tents outside of their home.  I will never forget that experience.  I think I also learned a little more how resilient I was.  How being in a situation that has devastated an entire country can change your life.  Seems like an obvious thing to say, but sometimes I will go back and look at photos or watch a CCTV clip from that time and just be in awe.  I also learned that it is unlikely i will ever again ride an elephant.

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

White nosed Elephant in CHitwan Nepal

Child in Pink, Nepal

Leaving the tourist area

Nepal

Edge of decency, Chitwan Nepal

Nepal

Bananas on the edge of a field Chitwan Nepal

Electric candle with Kathmandu in background

Nepal

bamboo swings set up all over Kathmandu.

Nepal

Water’s edge Chitwan Nepal

Tikka in Nepal

Nepali Dictionary.. duh

A random hill with random kids yelling random happy Nepali phrases at us.

Tika Colors in Nepal

Nepal

Nepali whiskey

Nepal

Back edge of an elephant – Chitwan

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

Obviously I have been in many more places and have thousands upon thousands of examples of the things I have done and what I have learned and how I have grown.  All I know is that this adventure I have been living will likely never end.  I may retire from my work/travel life.  But travel will be something that I will never retire from.  it’s something that is in my blood and in my soul.  It is actually this journaling began.. and it is likely how this journal will end.

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

“Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin

Traveling souls: Sheree; Coreen; wanderingcanadians; tempranillo; albatz; dewetswild; woollymuses; carol; stephen; awara; Leane

Snickersnee

Snickersnee. While this word sounds like something funny or possibly cute, it is actually referring to a long, dangerous knife. It was first used in reference to cut-and-thrust fighting in the 1700s and is still occasionally used when referencing the knife, though it is becoming more and more obsolete.

\SNIK-er-snee\

noun
1. a knife, especially one used as a weapon.
Quotes
The commander of the sloop was hurrying about and giving a world of orders, which were not very strictly attended to, one man being busy in lighting his pipe, and another in sharpening his snicker-snee.
— Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall, 1882
Origin
Snickersnee came to English in the late 1600s from the Dutch steken meaning “to stick” and snijden meaning “to cut.”

The only photo I can find that even remotely matches this word is from Nepal.  The women in Nepal were really the toughest I have seen around the world. You meet a Nepali woman on a hike and their look alone is compelling.

You pass them and realize what they are holding behind their back.

“blessed be
she
who is
both
furious
and
magnificent”
― Taylor Rhodes

No way we could pass without a closeup.  Though it is not long.. it is as dangerous as it looks and as you can imagine.

I seized him by his little pig-tail,
And on his knees fell he,
As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee!

W. S. Gilbert

dangerous: words; brave; bohotea; ron; ennenbach; Lorne; lotte

Nemophilist

Nemophilist (n.) – Origin: Greek – Definition: A haunter of the woods; one who loves the forest and its beauty and solitude.

So many forests in so many countries with so many people with so little time. Park forests, mountain forests, island forests, animal forests.  I cannot say all of this better than the people I am quoting below.

“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

– John Muir

“Gold is a luxury. Trees are necessities. Man can live and thrive without gold, but we cannot survive without trees.”

– Paul Bamikole

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“I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.”

– Mary Davis

“In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.”

– John Fowles

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Herman Hesse

forest: roth; michele; mark; sustainabilitea; becky; Mason; Eddie; paula; phillip; Ingrid; cherie; cepcarol; sandy; paul; sue; rebecca

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia (noun) Origin: Greek | U·de·‘mOn·E·a  The contented happy state you feel when you travel.

“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
― Dale Carnegie

When I travel, I am able to stop thinking about myself. I am able to remove myself from the daily grind.  All thoughts of work, stress, anxiety, irritations, etc. fly out the window.

I feel happy walking anonymously through cities and the countryside.  Watching people, talking to strangers, viewing normal folks doing normal things. 

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” –Mark Twain

I love imagining what they are thinking and how they got to where they are.  I love even more the realization that no matter where I am, I am no different than the people I meet are in regards to the basics of life.  

My to-do list for today:
– Count my blessings
– Practice kindness
– Let go of what I can’t control
– Listen to my heart
– Be productive yet calm
– Just breathe

These things make me happy.  These things put everything in my world back into perspective and help me balance myself. I let go of my expectations on others, but even more importantly, I let go of the expectations I have put upon myself.  Traveling is how I learn to breathe again.

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

contented travelers: tgeriatrix; salwa; aletta; sustainabilitea; sue; chris; rarasaur; nancy; woollymuses; david; coreen; cauldrons