redheaded dreams

heavy foot in front of the other
little redheads are always mermaids
five with a world on your shoulders
and sirens sing lullabies to a watery grave

i tasted salt on the shells my nana gave me
i tasted salt on my skin in new york city
in shadows of towers
that are neither earth
nor sky
learned young not to jump
because girls can not fly
so windows were paintings
and my brushes were dry
slept dreams where the oceans
and forests collide

and i of the city
full of irrational dreams
believed not in a land where the woods kissed the sea
or in climbing red caves with my hands and barefeet

i quieted my heart and fell for years into sleep
where epics are tall tales
on a blank screen for dreams

a mermaid loses the salty lustre of her skin
after she has forgotten the ocean
and the dream of returning to the currents

the seagulls dont recognize her
the siren songs fade
shells grind themselves into sand

singing bird in an open cage

i am home

oceans separate continents
people say good bye
people die
we are made of glass

been so long

and if my country no longer loves me
ill come back to you

im leaving the continent of europe in a day and a half. what surreal adventures. so many things. such love. such a loving way to live.

but i have come to realize that traveling constantly is not a way to live for a long period of time. for the meanwhile i will be rooted. adventures always, but roots are important. the only way i could ever justify this again would be
a. another pilgrimage (can i call this a pilgrimage? yes i think)

b. traveling for music or whatever it is that i can bring

it has been so beautiful and so necessary. i am so sad to leave em but i feel so good about this next little phase. i will be in amherst next weekend too. shocking. going straight for the woods. this might be my last european post.

nothing climactic

just open arms and full heart

ps double

i keep forgetting things

we just saw a man in the center of portici holding a basket on a string from his second floor balcony, and lowering to a guy on the street who put a thing of bread in it. i stopped to watch and giggle and they got very excited by this.

I LOVE ITALY

maybe i should just accidentally miss my flight?
NO SARUH! there is time!

herculaneum

now called ercolano. if you are poor you can only look at the ruins, you can't hang out in them, which is fine by me i guess. hot damn

lots of buildings that you can no longer sleep in. lots of shit that is no longer shit. is this a good detailed account?

im in love with italy tho, and quite pleased that i will one day inherit an italian villa quite close by. the italian people are a mixture of absolute friendly openness and brute force honesty. luigi, the man we are staying with is 58 and so specific with the way he lives his life so sometimes we do things opposite to the way he wants and he gets his panties in a twist. but in a funny italian way that my nana does so it is ok.

we walked around the crazy streets of napoli. napoli is about five times more intense than time square. easily. no traffic lights and people driving crazily in and out of pedestrians, quite fast i might add. people talking, buying christmas items on the street. in and out in and out. all over the place. i feel like the best way to describe napolitians is filthy elegance. always

coming home in 5 days. gabby died last year today. and no matter how rainy italy is, we are still eating FABULOUS homecooked food with luigi, lounging on his grande terrace with the view of the mediterranean, and laughing. always.

no words to describe this happiness.
maybe just the song GOING TO CALIFORNIA. thats an accurate account of this feeling.

is anyone alive? is anyone still reading this? is anyone out there?

i was just kidding about the volcano

ps. we hitch hiked western europe

oh also

happy december

farewell dear world

there are thousands of birds that fly over napoli's central station EVERYDAY. they do a beautiful dance. big birds small birds. faraway close up
shit on my hand
on luigi's head
umbrellas without rain

luigi is in his fifties or sixties and he lives alone in a house that is a mixture between a mad scientist, an artist, and a pharmacist. his living room doors open up to a gigantic terrace that looks out over the mediterranean sea, the entirety of napoli, and mount vesuvius

if we dont die from the pot that we cooked our lunch out of that is poisonous, we will probably die of the volcano errupting

i would like to take this time to say my farewells.

thank you for being such an avid fan base. don't worry, if there is anyway for me to die, it is by volcano in italy on the mediterranean. besides, i hear that in pompei and ecolano, people were frozen in place because the lava got to them so fast and now there are rocks shaped like them. dogs too. if you miss me, all you have to do is come to italy. i will be doing a secret hand signal but you will definitely recognize it. also, i'll probably be holding teddo...easily recognizable.

this may be my last post before the volcano

tell my parents i love them and thank you for the support despite all the angst over the years.

to my friends, i appreciate you listening to my endless processes...or me singing the littlest birds over and over again

and lastly, to my dogs...

i hereby sign everything i own over to muldoon and tutti for the purpose of cuddling and chewing. enjoy

if there is anything that anybody wants that is mine, you will have to take it up with them


alright...if you dont hear from me again, know that i loved you.

sugar daddy

gots ourselves a sugar daddy in rome.

couchsurfed three weeks ago to stay with this guy in rome for two days and confirmed that we would stay with him. we sent him another message the other day to let him know when exactly we would be arriving to which he responded that he had invited another person over but that perhaps it could work out. he told us to call him when we arrived in rome.

big trip day. hostel. alright, we are going to meet R (that's what we will call him here) at the bologna post office. alright we are waiting. alright, he is half an hour late. alright i thought the umbrella guy was him. alright...it isn't and thats a little racist, saruh.

he finally shows up and the sun came out! but that is not necessarily indicative of his presence which is strange and somewhat unfriendly. we walk toward his house since we spent ALL OF OUR MONEY ON A HOSTEL due to him ditching us last minute. halfway there he tells us that his university dorm mates dont know about his couchsurfing account, so we should tell them that we are friends. then he says that we will be sharing a room. but on his profile it explicitly says that guests will have their own room. so it started feeling a little shady. lil bit

he said to me 'you didnt read the page completely?' to which i replied that YES, YES i did, and it said that we would have our own space.

he asked how much our hostel had cost and then offered to pay for us to sleep another night there. long story short, and one shady interaction later, we are accepting 30 euros from this guy getting out of a bank.

and now we are leaving for napoli tomorrow after a beautiful night walk through rome to the coloseum and fontane trevi. che bella.

in the words of emilie 'we saw a lot of shit that used to be shit but now isnt shit'

and the hostel guy told me that he wanted to bite me and wanted to pick the spot on my body where he could bite me.

alright

we aren't homeless
and we dont need to sleep in a church, thank you evan

italia

all i want to do here is sit on the street and listen to people speak italian all day long

in fact, if they want to whisper it into my ear personally, that's fine too. if they overcharge me for pizza, that's also fine, as long as they do it in italian

we had a disastrous trip to rome

went to the wrong bus stop to catch our midnight bus, worried that the next one wouldnt get us to barcelona on time for our flight. hauled ass to the other bus station, made it in time for the 1 oclock. tried to sleep for seven hours on the most uncomfortable seats. my stomach had stopped hurting earlier that day so there was no discomfort or anything. then we made it to barcelona where emilie tried to take out cash from her card and realized they had changed her pin number. the only money she has is on that card. and i have nothing left either. so...broke...we are broke.

we went to cool down in the hour before the busride to the airport, and ate some breakfast. two sleepless nights make two sleepless grrls kind of crazy and kind of dead. some south african guys tried to talk to us but we couldnt quite reciprocate the enthusiasm so they thought we were pushovers.

thirty minutes to catch the bus we check the internet to find out about our couchsurfer and lo and behold he invited another person to stay since he hadnt heard from us again even though we said we were definitely coming. thinks it can probably work out tho...ten minutes to catch the bus we try to work em's card once more and CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM credit cards taste good for atm machines. no more card for emilie and no help from the information desk woman who says that someone comes once a month to collect the eaten cards. THANK YOU CUSTOMER SERVICE. miss the bus by a minute. get the next one in fifteen minutes after calming a panicked emilie. get to the airport, throw away my spray paint...remove the harmful things from my carryon as somehow i always end up beeping for inappropriate luggage items. em calls her mom to work money out. HAPPY THANKSGIVING HAPPY THANKSGIVING WE ARE BROKE IN ITALY. but at least we are in italy

the place descends over a paradise. bathed in sunlight, mountains, swiss alps, beautiful green farm land. the farmland looks like giant landscape flowers. cant describe it other than that. the most beautiful place. i am FROM italy. this is where my ancestors are from and now i get to play here.

get into the city center with no energy and feeling a little sick. the subway is covered with awesome grafiti. the entirety of every train is COVERED on this one particular subway line. two actually. beautiful. get off at piazza bologna, our couchsurfer isnt picking up the phone, so we go eat AMAZING PIZZA where beautiful italians serve it to us with big smiles and then GELATTO. not going to describe it...too good.

walked around being homeless in rome with only 25 euro in our pockets. thank god for the internet cafe and the 12 euro hostel. almost broke now, but we werent homeless. collapsed asleep in my top bunk. text messages in the night and a crying grandma who misses me.

all i want to do is sleep in a bed



im going to miss emilie when i go. 11 more days if you count today and not the day that i leave. but...i am really excited to have my own bed. i dont think i even know where im going to live, but i am going to have my own SPACE. MY OWN SPACE. after three months of no saruh space, i think i will arrive, and not leave for three days

mmmmmmmmm italian

and if my country no longer loves me i´ll come back to you

spent the last few days in madrid lounging around making art

roses lemon verbeena kief mint powder music sound drums voice sing dance bang on things with impromptu drum sticks heartbreak heart resurrection beer beer beer wine laughter cookies for breakfast stomach still fucked

little bird that cant fly sitting on my head for an hour

saw nothing of the city but the inside of my head, the velvet underground box set photos, a girl who looks just like moira, and mc escher prints

oh AND...it seems that men in southern europe and north africa have made a hobby of telling me that they are going to travel to nyc and marry me. this happens so often that my dreams are infected with marriage proposals and even marriage threats that i can not escape.

in other news i have a new band. me emilie and gemma = dont touch my car, my car is red but dont touch my car

half a year

half a year has gone by since i turned 21
big transformation that happened may 23rd 2008 right into the 24th.

in 6 months i have traveled the states, western europe, colorado and wyoming, love all through my body and heart, fucked shit up quite noticeably, stopped running away

now i am in madrid feeling like maybe i am not me anymore but more me than before because everything you do comes from inside of you. the seeds are all there. so how do i weed the garden of the plants i dont like?
is it ok that they existed and popped up?

substances hit me hard like bricks falling from the 17th floor of my apartment. i put all of the bricks on the windowsill though. and i took the elevator way down way way way down to the ground floor. should have stayed inside.

integrity is a funny thing. you can live in your integrity for years and then in one moment you step outside for a drink, you lose your breath and out of your hands it falls. you drop it. and then are you a person of integrity anymore? do things work that way? no

you live in your integrity as much as you can and when you slip you reflect and you learn from it. but sometimes the lesson is that you cant let yourself slip in certain ways. that isnt being hard on yourself, that is being fair.

its not ok to hurt the people around you with your actions. but is it forgivable? when do you make exceptions for people?

wheel of fortune

i am riding the wheel of fortune. one minute rich, sleeping on the top bunk of a turkish trucker´s bed, with emilie in the truck of his friend, happy that everything is working out, despite one of our rides leaving without us. i set the alarm because we are supposed to travel to granada to see josh in granada, and a truck driver said that he would take us. we shook on it and everything. but where is he when i wake up at 5 am naturally, even though i didnt sleep at all the day before save for on the two hour bus ride
he is nowhere to be found
and we are still here. we bought a bus ticket even though i am broker than bear stearns.

its hard this gypsy life. we both feel really comfortable in it though. i am starting to feel like it is so natural for me to live this way. ive been realizing that this life of movement and fortune is really natural to me. it is completely natural that i am always looking for a ride or a place to stay. and i am getting good at living in a place too. good at talking to people and meeting people. sort of. a little better than before at least. i am understanding how i want to live in a place. interact with people, be interested. met an old wise man who i feel is my friend.

but it is hard. i have been writing a lot of songs and i want to play them for everyone here. want to roam with my music. college. music or nursing or education or science
dreams become really clear when your life becomes emptier.

so i am tired, have the shits, my period, emilie is getting the shits, we are not in granada yet, my flight to italy is in 8 days and then i come home. long time short time

drank tea with the turkish truck drivers and then they fed us. two rides left us. still here in algeciras spain
we sat on their little stools and everything
watched movies in turkish with them

good things
but i am sitting here crying in this internet cafe because i am tired and dehydrated and malnourished from three days of not holding anything down and being afraid to drink the water.

ill be in granada in five hours.

hammam

walked into the hammam with bloody thighs.

hammam is similar to turkish bath. public bath with massage and sauna.

i was the only white person and they overcharged me a great deal but i considered the fact that i am a white person walking into an arabic establishment and asking them to wash my body, so i accepted the 90 diram price with a smile. it only ammounted to five extra dollars anyway.

took off all my clothes save for bloody underwear. i only brought one lunapad on this trip. i think i lost my blood bandana somewhere in germany or france. i hope no one tries to wear that. i manage just fine though. i did bleed on ni's sheets in paris somehow. my blood defied gravity and got on the blanket covering me. unclear. period tangent

so i took off all my clothes minus the underwear and walked into a dimly lit chamber with a fountain splashing hot water, where a girl was filling buckets with it and giving it to the other naked women in the bath. some young, some old, all sitting on the marble floor washing themselves. i had no idea what to expect other than i was getting a wash and a massage. she started pouring the hot water on me and then rubbing this jelly like soap all over my body. first coat. then i rinsed it off for a while and relaxed until she came back with shampoo and then added another coat of the soap to my body. i got to lay down on my back while she rubbed my skin rather ferociously with her little scrubber. i tensed up a lot when she started washing my heart and throat. that area of my body is so sensitive to people touching it. then on my stomache and more rubbing layers and layers of skin off of my body.

shampoo, more soap, spread legs, stretch and backrub, underwear turned thong. it was very strange to have someone washing my body. they called it a massage, but it was a vacant mother scraping away all the old from me. how fitting a ritual when i embrace the changing nature of things.

when it was over another woman dried my hair and when she heard me singing she started singing along with me. we mimicked each other for a little while and when i left i thanked her in arabic and she got so excited by it that she threw up her hands and yelled SHOOKRAN BAZEF

went back to the hostel and found emilie and MC talking to our old friend who sits on the steps right outside of where we live sewing his bags and teaching the local kids. we hung out with him for a bit talking and playing with haja. haja is fifteen and her mother divorced her father for a new man who doesnt want her and her sister to live with them, so she lives with her aunt right next door to mohammad, our friend. she is sweet sweet, with a big smile and kind heart and is sharp. she cleans all day for her aunt. she hangs out with mohammad in between chores and radiates joy for being alive. we hugged a lot and mohammad told us the story of his life along with his vision of the world. he told us to teach our children about nature, about the beauty of being alive, and to love everyone; no matter what country.

morocco is a peaceful place.

we climbed one of the mountains at night with a young boy; also named mohammad, and i saw two shooting stars - one that looked like a meteor. it was such a sight to behold. so quiet watching the city and the mountains sleep. communication slips with mohammad while talking about politics. trying to say that i believe that people love obama and want changed; but in spanish not knowing the words. when trying to help me find them he said I LOVE YOU. he meant to say that many people love obama.

my musician friends invited mc and i to a wedding today but they stood us up. yesterday i thought he asked me to marry him, but it turns out he was inviting me to a different wedding.

an old man in tanger told me that when he earns a million dollars he is going to come to new york and pick me up

tomorrow we leave for spain. for real this time. emilie and i will take the bus back to tanger; and MC will go on to casablanca to pick up her sister. a sad parting; but we are making plans to travel once a month back and forth between montreal and new york city. after the ferry, em and i will hitch hike to granada where we will hang out with JOSH KORR for a day or two. really exciting/ i havent seen him since circus. im psyched.

after that, hitch to madrid, spend a few days with emilie's friend from honduras and then head over to barcelna for a day or two, fly to rome, spend two days there, hitch to amalfi, and then isernia, hitch to rome, and fly home to nyc on the 9TH

strange this is almost over. hard to believe it has been so much time in foreign countries. hard to believe i speak spanish.

hard to believe i grew so much

its still very much the present tho. it wont be ALMOST OVER until i am in nyc.

i think when i return to america it will be a great relief to be around people speaking the same language as me and have more thean a couple established relationships with. strange.

something you take for granted when everyone speaks your language, is how much we bullshit and smalltalk. here you speak with gestures, speak from your heart, and think long and hard about the essence of what you are saying.

when i speak in spanish i think things through so fully

my last post from morocco. i will miss it.

where are you

few more pikshers from what feels like SEVEN YEARS AGO

i never got to put up more pikshers. my dad wants to be my facebook friend. also, my friend josh is living in granada and i get to SEE HIM!

on demand

james, you asshole, here is how i got to morocco

emilie and i were in spain, homeless - a sacrifice for being able to get to andalusia in one day from barcelona - a good 1000 km distance. we talked about the possibility of taking the ferry to morocco and decided maybe not because it would be expensive and we didnt have enough time. three days later in malaga we discovered it is actually quite cheap, and both of us thinking the other one wanted to go, became enthusiastic at the prospect of going and pushed for it.

so we ended up staying with zakaria - a beautiful 27 year old percussionist who leads his local traditional music collective, and is studying for his masters in sociology. he lives with his family and when we arrived, he had another couchsurfer from quebec named MC who we became friends with and are now traveling with.

we were only going to stay in tanger for a few days
but we decided to go east on the coast into the mountains to chefchouan with MC. yesterday, MC was robbed of 300 dirhams (30 euros, 43 dollars) because of a shady hash deal, and we were stopped by a salesman who was very friendly and wanted to teach us about medicinal herbs. we spent an hour in his shop sitting in a row, with him WIRED as hell telling us how much he loved us . our bodies are perfect, I smell FANTASTIC (despite a week without showering) and he took to sniffing me in my hair and neck. i cant describe him other than, every two seconds he would try to kiss one of us on the hands or the cheek. he loved my belly and would kiss it and rub it and all we could do was laugh hysterically. after about 30 minutes it became uncomfortable, but he gave us free herbs and ended up being harmless. just uncomfortable.

you have to empty yourself constantly here or you go crazy from sensory overload.

made friends with a traveler at the hostel who i had seen on the street and we had very intense intimate conversations and then played music together. 46 years old from england, history of family abuse, real sweet guy. we became good friends and when he invited me to his space because it was cold on the roof, he was very polite and told me he didnt have any intentions. fabulous.

for awhile i was upset because i felt like i wasnt meeting anyone important to me, but it turns out that i have made relations in every city. funny how your brain tricks you.

im going to climb one of the mountains today.

we go back to spain on the 16th and hitch up to madrid for a few days, then barcelona; then fly to rome where we stay for two nights, and then hitch to isernia where there is a villa that is in my lineage. after one night there, we travel to sorrento and amalfi and hang out on the beach until the 7th when we split ways and i begin the hitch back to rome for my flight on the 9th to carry me home to the US.

so soon.

i dont know if anyone reads this anymore
if you're reading this, say something.

james,

did this make you happy
is this enough information for you
are you going to tell me what your life is or are you going to demand it of me with nothing in return
ha

i love your body i love your smell

well, one whole day in chefchouan and collectively, emilie, mc (our new travel companion) and i have managed to get heckled to death, robbed, and essentially molested by a wonderful man who only wants us to be happy in truth.

then on our way home i was offered some jiggy jiggy by a man who i told my name was clementine to.

zakaria's father, who is the spitting image of a 60 year old evan, called me his daughter when we left and we have had such beautiful love and luck.

we are staying in morocco for more time. when we decided to go to ,orocco, both e, and i thought that the other one really wanted to go but werent very attached to the idea for ourselves; thank god we did tho; universe matchmaker

little spazz

when i feel alive i try to imagine a careless life
a scenic world where the sunsets are all breathtaking



my little antennae are strong strong these days. i anticipate messages, have dreams about them, wake up to them, think about contacting people and lo and behold they have done the work for me.

and the way we catch rides. we know who will pick us up. and if we set our intentions to get impossible distances in one day, we make it. some divine grace.

homeless or not.

we are going to morocco today and when we get there we are going five hours into the country where we will be trekking through the desert on camels. strange.

we swam in the mediteranean sea yesterday. we sat in the sun laughing and sleeping and cartwheeling. we walked as far as we could on the beach and then jumped in when we saw someone else in the water.

the most sensual experience. pure salt sea water all over my body. my limbs and torso sliding in between water molecules. staring at the beautiful blue sky and white puffy clouds high high up in the stratosphere.

healing salt.

tired night of writing many songs and confirming my flight on dec 9th.

talked to my mom about the dogs - her passion in life. it felt good to laugh with her.

body. such a strong connection to feelings in my body and emotions manifesting physically. southern spain mountains a hazy backdrop against the western sky golden setting sun. the BLUE of the mediteranean. life is a little fairytale and i could live this way forever until i remember there are invisible forces that keep me sustained that i must nurture.

i am the siamese twin of my shadow
my room mate came in so we stayed up all night
i put on a show of our hands as animals
she laughed at their psychosis and at mine

we´ve met such incredible people who care for us so well. i see things very clearly right now. people have been helping us so fully on our journey, in whatever way that they can. giving us maps, rides, information, their beds, even MONEY. strange. their care and affection and love. we have stayed with such incredible people and it has been a push and pull of different energetic interactions. i have never felt more sexual but without the need to express it through sex. i have been channeling it creatively into music and writing and loving interaction with emilie and strangers.

but i think that is the most important shift in me. help people. i try to be mindful of this always, but be unafraid in this world. INTERACT.

little shy bird

los camiones y dormemos in la calle

emilie and i slept on the street in barcelona. walking around a seedy equivalent to the 11th avenue loading docks in manhattan´s midtown, we sought a place to plant ourselves for nine hours before heading back to the truck that took us from perpignon france to barcelona, so that we could go to andalusia with him in the morning.

we laughed and laughed and told interactive stories one word each at a time. the alliteration game. the story of our trip. the sleeping bags came out and we snuggled into them wondering if it was safe to sleep on the street. there is no way to describe what it looked like, other than kind of blair witch project-esque. laughed at being homeless. woke up at 330 to a cold emilie snuggling close. moral is to bring a sleeping bag pad. 430 alarm clock, walked over to the truck, waited for him to open his shades and invite us in. the sun didnt come up for a few hours and i started thinking it would never. it would be dark forever. we stopped at a rest stop and the sun started peaking out. we picked out food and then pedro, our truck driver friend told us to get orange juice as well, and paid for our breakfast. we fell asleep in the truck for awhile to valencia oranges and olives on the landscape. beautiful. semi arrid climate with beautiful sandy rocky mountains.

woke up slept woke up

made friends with pedro. santa clause is fat and has a big nose in spain as well. discovered that i can speak spanish better than i realized, and is logical for my education. esta bien. esta verdad.

we entered andalusia, so beautiful and old and far removed from anything. all the way in the south. i suddenly felt so isolated with how remote we were. the only country near us is portugal. we are almost as far south in western europe as you can go. the furthest south, tarifa, is tomorrow.

the towns are stereotypical spanish cowboy movie towns. houses built into the earth, the mountains. little windows in caves. CAVES. CAVES. i love seeing places this way, from the windows of trucks and cars. speaking only a little bit of the language, not completely understanding what people are saying. but im getting a hang of it.

we were dropped off by pedro at a rest stop in the middle of andalusia, and he gave us his map and 20 euros to go buy food and his email. we got another truck ride immediately. we were going to sleep in granada last night, but went slightly too far and got a ride to malaga after eating a large dinner. the guy who drove us was the greatest, nicest, most genuine car salesmen i have ever met and drove us right into the center of malaga to look for a hostel. he wasnt even going to malaga. but he drove us there when he heard that we didnt know where we were going.

the ride from granada to malaga was probably the most beautiful drive i have ever done. hands down. beautiful arrid mountains turning into lush forested mountains, with beautiful white houses right on the hillsides. the sunset pink and the sky blue and angelic gold. soft angelic gold. and then the view of malaga and her sea. i feel so far from anything now. picasso lived here.

emilie and i are sleeping one more night here in a hostel that is beautiful. we get a big bed for the two of us in our own room. there are so many couches for us to sit in before we leave. in our room alone.

i dont ever want to leave and i want to go home all at once.

i feel like i could just evaporate into the road and sea and never return.

there has been so much excitement this week. nervous breakdowns, beautiful montpellier folks, beautiful parisian folks, strange clermont ferrand folks.

we are at the point in the journey where we both understand that we will find exactly what we need when we need it...a ride, a place to stay. it all comes. information too. and i feel like when we set our intentions, we get exactly what we need.

i am back in the state of feeling homeless, lonely, but i am in southern spain and i have plenty of time to be lonely when i am somewhere else so i will enjoy the beauty of this country and region, and i will catch up with that later if i have to.

traveling is the most fun and happiness i have had in a long time. little gypsy thing

les saintes maries de la mer

if anyone is reading this, the mediteranean sea is the place for me

places you stay for awhile

on the circus tour i learned that everyday was worth about a week. roughly. give or take.

i thought it might have been because i was living on a bus with ten other people performing circus shows and filtering grease all the time. alas, it seems that i am either adopting an intensified way of living my life which makes everyday feel simultaneously short and eternal, or traveling sets you up for this kind of feeling.

It has been 40 days in europe. that is almost the halfway point. sometimes i feel like i have done nothing, seen nothing, experienced nothing. other times i feel like i am so alive and i am of course experiencing everything exactly how i need to. paris has been fabulous. we've been claiming to leave for days now but nothing. four days later and one attempt at an exit, we are still in our suburban apartment with our friends. So much has happened. I played at an open mic the other night near bastille and hotel de ville with a bunch of rockers. they were all wonderful and the host was an excellent character. a new father, full of raw humor that came off as distaste, but rather transparent in how much he loved everyone and what was going on.

bruno played a short set with a singer from the band NEIMO. ive never met a singer whose voice i have liked so much as his. his voice rang such pure tones and they traveled so far from his throat, yet they still held on to his body. he sang two songs by the libertines and one by the smiths that really touched me. 'and if a double decker bus crashes into the both of us, to die by your side would be such a heavenly way to die.' emilie doesnt like the foppy boys, but for a few minutes there his pete doherty-esque voice had her swooning. really.
i received the nervous pleasure of following their act. i was only going to play one song - crush in the ghetto, and i havent sang for others since circus tour but i dont count that, so maybe even since february. but i ended up singing three; two jolie holland songs and one saruh lacoff song. thats me. saruh lacoff. i feel like my voice changed from the moment i got up there and sat on the little performer's stool. it floated right out of my throat like it wasnt even coming from me and it trilled and flowed so smooth and sweetly. never heard that sound before. but then again, i've never felt that song truly before, or any song of such emotion. different states of being make your body move differently.

i was sick for three days here in paris so emilie spent some of the time alone while i stayed inside sleeping, playing guitar, and having a little wrestling match with my brain. charming, i know. paris is a fabulous city. full of people who are paying attention. i've had plenty of momentary connections with people which i feel like i havent experienced anywhere since ireland. at least not so prevalently. people in cars stopped at lights, people on the train, people on the street, people at the open mic. it's an old towne, but it has such a feeling to it, it radiates something fierce and elegant. its architecture is stunning and so magnificent to behold. there are old fountain baths in between creperies, notre dame towers over the seine, the hotel de ville is just another beautiful building in the city. and montmartre. where do you begin to describe the feeling of being in a music box in ballet shoes pirouetting down the hilly sidewalks at night. le cafe du amelie poulain. le cemetaire - city of the dead. such beauty. le moulin rouge with its neo bourgesie tourists awaiting a cabaret of fine french women. le arch du triumph with the list of battles won by sir napoleon dynamite...bonaparte. under PETIT is TESTE. PETIT TESTE.

and of course le LOUVRE. I spent three hours yesterday wandering through a jungle of egyptian statues, artifacts, scrolls; sarcophogi, and of course, the most holy, the book of the dead. I sat beside a statue of isis for forty minutes in awe of her. the eyptians worshipped her so fiercely as a symbol of femininity, joy, love, and music, and you begin to feel that spirit living inside you when you focus on her long enough. ive been pretty fascinated with her for the last year but didnt learn more than archetypal information. makes me want to study archaeology. it also makes me realize what a godless world we live in. at this point in history i feel like religion has turned so many away from any notion of god that can exist. a feeling of oneness, or a feeling that there is something grander than ourselves. the egyptians, among others, worshipped the sun above all, as it brought with it warmth to grow crops, a beginning and end to the flooding nile, and a return of the spirits of the dead. osiris was said to govern the world during the day and the underworld at night with the setting of the sun. the setting sun did not disappear, it instead traveled to light the underworld.

i have observed these forces for the past year and a half. I feel like that has been the focus of this time...figure out how to give love purely (which essentially meant working out shit with my family) and paying attention to the changing seasons, where different feelings manifested in my body, and various healing traditions. giving thanks for my food and feeling ecstatic, and watching gabby die. it was all with consciousness and understanding that there is great beauty in everything and it is all inextricably connected. nothing is separate and when we die we dont disappear either, we just let go of our bodies and our souls release themselves into the ethers where it is easier to remember that everything is connected. that's what i learned when gabby died. so this has been a god-searching year in a godless world, and there i was yesterday in the louvre looking at relics of egyptian culture which are steeped in spirituality, and i couldnt help feeling like i belonged somewhere. ah, too bad i missed the boat - by many thousands of years to be exact. shame.

but those egyptians...stone carvings, blue dyes, wood working, metal work, nature worship, irrigation systems, medical technology and mummification. When a person died, they buried them with statuettes whose purpose was to perform the agricultural duties for the deceased. even after death, the dead were said to occupy the earth at daytime and were not exempt from their agricultural duties.

it made me want to study the human body. nursing school, become a midwife. so many things to do with my life. study music, study anatomy, natural medicine, archaeology, geology.

so ok. moral of story is dont travel for a month and a week without taking a day or two off, and give yourself a mental and emotional break too. the other moral, is to take some personal time if you are traveling with someone else so that you dont become too grumpy. the other moral is not to eat only cheese and chocolate. the other other other moral is to remember you are loved at home. the world is your oyster. but the most important moral, is to balance time between cities and nature because otherwise all else will be lost in the imbalance.

i feel like this is the part of our journey that starts to pick up and soon we are going to be moving at the speed of light on the most beautiful beaches in the sunshine and relative warmth of the northern hemisphere in november. southern france. Madrid. Andalusia, sending little thoughts and wishes to morocco on the wind, but only thoughts and wishes. and then the western coast of spain, up to barcelona, and a flight to roma. rome for a day, and a trip down the east coast to amalfi for a week. a day in isernia, a three day hitch to venice where emilie and i go separate ways on december 12, and i fly back to my beautiful ireland for four more days in wport until my flight home to new york city.

i dont know the point of hitch hiking on a foreign continent other than to remind yourself constantly that you are alive and the world is an incredible place. when you set yourself up in risky situations as such where you are putting your fate in someone else's hands, you have no choice but to acknowledge your life and your mortality and when people go so far out of their way to help you and to listen to your story, you realize that the things people tell you to fear are outweighed by the beauty of the world. moira told me this summer that she believes the world takes the best care of dreamers and wanderers, but i think more truly it takes the best care of lovers and optimists. maybe all of those identities overlap. i thought for awhile that i was destined to a life of wandering and caravans. i dont know so much anymore. i love this movement and i love seeing the world, breathing in the air of different countries, talking to people from different places, but it makes me want a space of my own. a space like my cabin. i loved that cabin. In the middle of the woods with a big enough bed, the sun right in my eyes at 630 every morning, and just enough space to do yoga and have a little space for meditation and practice. endless woods to walk through. i want to make that space again. what i learned then was that i couldnt live in the middle of the country without balancing my time in the city. i need balance. whether i am living in the city and spending time in the wilderness or vice versa, i dont know. but i need both.

so, new york will hold that space for me when i return. i dont know where i will live, but it will be the cave, the cabin...sacred space.

alright, little friends. i miss you all. i hope you are all happy and having your own fabulous adventures. maybe they involve three day long hitches to belgium from berlin, or maybe they involve cuddling with someone you love, or maybe they involve reading, or maybe exploring abandoned buildings. either way, I hope you are all living beautiful stories. i hope your homes are cozy and you bleed all over your sheets. not someone else's sheets though.

more pikshers

i want to put up more pikshers but it's not working. they are on facebook under europe part 2 on emilie's profile

pikshers

we were the most annoying people on the tube

the plane ride to frankfurt. i think the woman who sat next to us regretted it.

I Don't Want to Go to College, I Want to Go to Nutella Heaven

A bus in Achen Germany with a big big sign that said FUCKER . that was the brand name

three days to belgium from berlin

unexpected distances traveled at once, seemingly easy distances traveled over two days. beautiful strangers, death threats made by a hilarious polish woman living in utrecht, and emilie calling me le petit cabbage on the train - french endearment

little more later
im glad we didnt sleep in the public park in essen or the truck stop on the belgium germany border or the gas station in holland or the gas station in belgium
i cant tell my mom about any of this...shame
"i still think you're english is great for not having speakin in two years"

mmm

traveling can be so lonely

We NO Finish Poland, You Finish Poland, We Finish Berlin

We have been in Berlin for almost two days. Immediately upon arriving I felt this urge to be creative and make art and music and write letters to people.

There is something in the air here, or I am picking up on everyone else's vibe. fabulous.

So our adventure to Berlin started a day late because it took us so long to get out of the house due to hungover Emilie and lazy me. We cleaned up Hilleke's house and embarked on our adventure. First stop to a cafe to buy some mushrooms, where we met a strange fellow who ended up walking us to the right place to go and talking about healing and spirit animals.

After a stint of insanity on the street, some film making, and deciding to stay in amsterdam at a hostel for the evening, we headed to the red light district only to find that all of the hostels were damn expensive. we found the cheapest one around via a booking agent and when we got there discovered that it was a christian youth hostel. the receptionist told us that he has been a christian for four years and it has changed his life. he invited us to go on the journey with him and the rest of the staff. It was like talking to my nana - you have to try verý hard not to laugh in their face.

we embarked the next morning on our journey. we walked to the tram which dropped us off at the city limits, and waited for a ride to take us on what we considered to be a two day long journey. the distance between amsterdam and berlin is 660 km - roughly 400 miles. Within 15 minutes we got a ride from a young guy and his mother. he told us that it was no problem that they picked us up because in a few months that will be him. he is going to australia and bali. he was quite a smiley guy. they dropped us off at a giant gas station where everyone was very friendly and within another 15 minutes we got two different rides - albeit short distances. the person that i asked was from poland but living in amsterdam and only spoke dutch and polish, so we signaled to each other in sparse sentences and gestures where we were going. him and his buddy drove us much farther than the afformentioned 20 km, and when we got to the gas station he told us again in few words, and gestures that he was going to ask a van with polish plates if they would take us.

we ended up with a ride ALL THE WAY TO BERLIN that very same day. we skipped our planned stopover in hannover where we had a couchsurfing arrangement, and rode pretty much in silence all the way to berlin. the driver and i ended up talking in circles to each other, and he didn't understand BERLIN so he kept saying that we were going to poland. by this point, it was dark, around 7:30 and he was saying that he was going on a different road than that which would get us to where we were going so I was trying to get him to stop at a gas station so that we would have a possible chance of getting a ride. at this point we had lined up a place to stay with one of jane's friends (jane, is jojo's mom, jojo is tara's - and now my, friend). we stopped at a gas station and pointed to the map for 30 minutes trying to explain to each other where we were going, and eventually he understood, and said he would take us RIGHT to the road that we needed and drop us off at a fuel station. he didn't want to drive through the center of berlin, but there ended up being no fuel station, so he drove as all the way to berlin until we found one. we got another ride from a very dashing man with his daughter in the back and her and emilie drew pikshers, and wrote to each other in different languages, while i talked to the dad about his favorite travels.

once we arrived via train to where we were going we met up with johanna, who let us stay in her house for the night while she went to a friends' place, and let us eat her food. it was all very fortuitous and now we are staying at her mum's flat because there is an extra room.

it feels all very fateful and wonderful and i feel so enheartened after our experience in kleve.

we walked around the city yesterday and ended up finding this crazy four story house that was converted into a gallery. an ABSURD interactive gallery with the most ABSURD artwork. it's all very inspiring and it is everywhere. we found a sculpture garden, old parts of the city pre-wall. It's such a magical place.

I don't have much else to say other than I've been making art, having exciting fortuitous adventures, missing everyone, and reading about fortuity all at once. it is a good life, and i feel electric.

gútten tag

prison break from a german work camp

well, emilie and i escaped from jail with only bruises to the ego.

the last i updated we were in london staying at tara's, but about to depart for germany. we left a little later than expected but still with good time, but i led us too far in the sort of wrong direction due to london's crazy curvy streets. so we got on the overground train at the time when we should have been getting onto the airport train. nonetheless, we made good timing to the airport, to find that our plane was delayed a half hour. in security, they stopped my bag (i always manage to leave scissors or something taboo in a compartment that i dont even remember that i have). i left my wrench and hand sanitizer in my carryon so the security guy started looking through my bag. he was very friendly and asked me why i had this tool and i told him because it tunes my instrument. he wanted to see so i started playing my OUT OF TUNE mbira, which is difficult to tune right now because the only other sort of viable tool that i have is a spoon. he was really excited about it and wanted to ask all sorts of questions after he tested my hand sanitizer but we were running late so i told him not to worry about the hand sanitizer and to keep it. when i said that he good very sour and no longer wanted to be my friend. sad.

so we got on our plane and then took a bus through the beautiful broccoli-esque countryside of germany. i accidentally said NAZI really loudly on the bus...whoops. eventually we reached frankfurt am main (city center...120 kilometers away) and walked around for a while looking for maps, phrasebooks, food, and internet. we had planned on hitching to kleve to see michele that day, but soon realized it was too late to go anywhere despite the BEAUTIFUL sunny weather. so we stayed in the city where my father lived for two years and my brother was born.

big hot dogs are delicious. FRANKFURTERS clearly originate in FRANKFURT. the people of frankfurt are called frankfurters...they are big hot dogs.

we found a hostel after getting directions from two german speaking vegetable salesfolk. he drew us a map, that i later realized looked like a giant breast. no couch surfing luck. people might think we are murderers. emilie says we are.

so we got to the hostel where the person at the desk began staring at our money and when i asked him what he was doing he said "bling bling".

we ended up going out to a quiet german restaurant, talking loudly, and eating steak and mashed potatoes and beer. german beer is really yummy and not that strong like my pa said. the little bit of advice he gave me before i got there was "german beer is very strong"

we walked around the city talking absurd pikshers as always, and visiting a church, eating GELATO amazing.

i dont remember anything else other than seeing TONGUE TATTOOS in a toystore that i promised myself i would buy but then got lazy.

we left early the next morning and began our hitch hiking after a long walk in a big circle due to poor directions but of course, absolute perfect timing, because once we got to the petrol station to ask for a ride, we were greeted IMMEDIATELY by a man with red hair named oliver who said that he would drive us about 160 km north. he said he used to hitch hike when he was younger and we had wonderful conversations. elections, university, OKTOBERFEST.

if i was an ox and they ate me during oktoberfest, what you would see on the chalkboard behind my roasting body, would be "SARAH". that's what i learned.

oliver was a really wonderful person and we all really enjoyed each other's company. he pointed out churches on the countryside, told us some history, told us that we could change our careers if we wanted to when we were older...lots of good stuff. he also said that he doesn't know any of the hospitals in frankfurt because he hasn't had to go there yet to which we knocked on wood.

he dropped us off at a petrol station with lots of high school kids and we made friends with them and they almost took us on their bus that was going to holland to sail, but it was forbidden according to the bus driver. but they told us stories of how last year they took a trip to holland they picked up two hitchers because their driver was a standup kinda guy. i talked to the wavyblonde hair guy for a while and he told me about how he and his friend with the dreadlocks hitch hiked last year to go sailing and got rides with truck drivers. he seemed to have a perpetual humble smile and moved slowly with some hidden purpose. i really liked him.

we ended up riding with a german couple. the man is 40 and is a psychiatrist and the woman is 31 and writes for a housewives' magazine. they asked us if we knew of this popular german hiphop band that sings intellectual songs, but told us we wouldn't understand it since we dont speak german when we asked to hear it. we ended up listening to it anyway and both of us fell asleep in the back of the car. we laughed about the shadiness of that later. in my dream, the song was playing, and the words sounded like english words. i was hearing one song to be about rabbits hopping, and in my dream, we were playing with straws and making them fly up int the sky. not too deep.

one of their other songs had a chorus of MEIN KAMPF and for a minute i was pretty sure that they were singing about the nazi party until i realized that they were just singing about their own lives.

we got out at a big rest stop where we used the bathroom for fifty cents and then tried to get a ride for 40 minutes. a really nice blonde couple let us come with them a little ways down the road and dropped us off at a smaller gas station where the people were friendlier, but we didn't end up getting a ride for more than an hour and a half. but at least the people liked us. one family only spoke german and i'm pretty sure the mother tried to set me up with her 18 year old son. strange. i felt sad when i couldnt understand the father talking in german, but then he couldnt understand me in english, and he looked at me like i was the strangest little thing to walk the earth.

finally, a young guy pulled in and offered us a ride to the train a little while down the road, which would cost us about 20 euros. he gave us time to think about it and just as we were about to get into the car, another bunch of cars pulled up, and the first one emilie asked gave us a ride ALL THE WAY up north, a mere 12 km away from where we wanted to go. they were a pair of dutch men with a child's carseat in the back and we talked about the carribean, and various other things.

they dropped us off next to a salvation army bin, and we saw a teenage boy trying to get his clothes into the shute, but needing an extra pair of hands. i helped him and asked if he was going toward kleve, to which he said no, but him and his sister called us back and said that they would drive us to the train in emmerich where we could take a train for three euros to kleve. we got to the station and found the machine impossible to use. the buttons wouldnt push in easily, and it was in dutch until we figured out the english translation button. REALLY FUNNY. we didnt get a ticket because the only ones we could find were for 35 euros.

so the farm people came to pick us up and we drove back to the farm where we saw michele for the first time in a long long long time. we saunaed and told stories of our year and played a little bit of music. it felt so good to sing with her again. i always forget how much i love playing with other people, and then the two of us get together and it is beautiful and our sounds ring out to the highest most pure overtones.

we sang in the sauna for everyone, and by that point i started feeling very strange about the people who we were staying with. the next day we woke up for morning meeting and got assigned to work with johannes from holland to clear out a lot of soil, greenery, and rubbish from this one area outside so they could make it into storage.

the day was so grey and unwelcoming, and there were spiders everywhere which made emilie feel weird for a little while. it felt good to work though, especially doing that kindof labor which i haven't done in so long. not since the farm. i felt in my element.

johannes was really friendly and he sang us a folk tune, and told me his plans for moving to russia. his ex wife is dying from radiation in kazakhstan, and so he is moving there to work everything out, and to find a new woman. he wants a woman with a large family, so there can always be at least one person in the house at all times, so that nothing gets stolen. in russia, they think he is a millionaire because he travels, so when they get drunk, he says, they go and rob his house. not kidding.

i guess when you get older and you start getting robbed, love becomes very practical.

we switched jobs after lunch to work in the garden with crazy phillip. he is a chemistry/physics/agriculture teacher for secondary school and he is ruddy nuts. but so so so so so nice and friendly and fun to work with. our job was to pull an entire field of thistle weeds. really. an entire field of thistles. REALLY. it was very pointy and sticky and hurtful and i got to wheel the wheelbarrow and emilie's finger still hurts.

but phillip gave us fabulous advice that he lives by in school. as a teacher, he begins the year hating his students, and they love him. as the year progresses and comes to a close, his students begin hating him, and he loves them. he says, this makes the parting process easier, and that we should emulate this in all of our personal relationships. he also said that bok choy wasn't bok choy. this is not clear as of yet, and may never be.

while we were working in the fields emilie and i finally confessed to each other that we wanted to get the hell out of that hellhole. it went a little something like this:

emilie underherbreath: we're leaving tomorrow
sarah: yup

but of course, within the next twenty minutes, we had decided to leave right away and not tell anyone but bring some potatoes along. once we decided this, we laughed for the first time in what felt like ten years, and the sun came out after a weekend of rain. this couldbe taken as none other than a divine sign from god that we belonged not to this german work camp.

so we played music that night, i got my second home video taken of me singing, and michele and i harmonized beautifully. i fell asleep early after trying to tune my mbira with a spoon. emilie and i were going to escape at 7 am without telling anyone other than michele and dima, but michele asked us to wait until morning meeting and let everyone know so that they didnt ask her or put any blame on her. so we stayed. i woke up to a really nice message that reminded me that there was love in the world, and went down for meeting. they asked me to help farm and of course i said yes, because my spine is made of jello when people are expecting things of me, and then told them that we would be leaving but THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK FOR YOU and SPEND TIME HERE...i worded it nicely, but i think they all knew that we thought they were nuts and dysfunctional. emilie then went and told the woman we would be working with (who was obviously bipolar...obviously undiagnosed) that we were leaving right away even though they asked us to stay until lunch and she called emilie a bitch and told her that we were using them, and that we needed to GET OUT to which emilie shouted back GLADLY. so we packed and left. very fast. and once we got off the property the world was full of light and love and possibility again. we got a ride to the autobahn from a german woman listening to american rock and roll. she dropped us off at the median of the onramp to a highway and we got a ride surprisingly fast after singing bob dylan across the road to each other extremely loudly in our best dylan voice.

a german woman and her two daughters on a one day holiday picked us up on their way to the sea and i sat in the back talking to the kids while em talked to the mother in the front. they drove us about 45 minutes away from amsterdam where we ate at a restaurantreststophotel, and made a sign for amsterdam. what we learned here, is that dutch people are SO FRIENDLY. even if they didnt pick us up, they smiled at us and interacted in some way, whereas in other places people prefer to pretend you are not there. this put us in a really good mood and we started doing little dances for people getting onto the highway. then these guys in a big van yelled at us asking where we were going and when we told them they said something as they were pulling away to which i replied YES only to realize that we both thought they were asking "DO YOU FUCK" . it's still not clear but it gave us a good laugh.
AND THEN FINALLY A CAR! oh...a police van. they told us it was not allowed on this street, but that we could go to the gas station a little ways away and so we walked over and ate more chocolate. that's the thing about these rest stops, we end up eating lots of chocolate. it makes the time go by faster.

once again, the people were so friendly, and we ended up getting a ride from a businessman going to utrecht. he dropped us off there and we too pictures with our backpacks in a tiny photobooth. still not sure how we fit. but HILARIOUS. and then went outside where we sat down for two hours and went a little crazy. but we made up good songs and tried to get people to pay us for our music.

everyone rides bikes in holland. more people ride bikes than drive. it's fabulous.

so we commenced walking after sitting like a pair of homeless kids, which essentially we are, and found a gas station where we got a ride within thirty minutes, by a guy in a large van who listened to bob marley, and whose friends drove by on the highway and took pikshers of us to send to his wife.

he drove us right to where we needed to be in amsterdam but a woman on the street said that we had to take the tram so we got on only to find out that we were where we needed to be. the tram driver gave us maps and apologized profusely, and we walked back the grueling two minutes to where we had just been. hilleke, emilie's friend picked us up, and we had a great night laughing and eating a dutch meal of sauerkraut, sausage, and mashed potatoes. in the supermarket, the meat guy started talking to me about hockey, baseball, and his dreams to go to the venues where the new york teams play. we talked about the nyrangers for a while and then he told me that i should say IG BEN MOO to my friend when she wasn't expecting it. it means I AM TIRED. good way to learn vocabulary.

and here we are
with a cat that only drinks when his water is in motion, whose name is dick, which in dutch means fat.

and with a wonderful person, and life is no longer a sad rain cloud.

amsterdam is a fabulous city.

We are the HUMANS and if we don't like the animals, we can just genetically modify them, or kill them and eat them!

this whole day of october 3 was tara's birthday.

THE WHOLE DAY

and so we ate soup, salad, bread, brie, and CHOCOLATE CAKE at her house with three babies, three mommies, and three twentysomethings. in the evening we went to the hippodrome theater which has been in existence for many many years in the london equivalent of times square. we showed up half and hour late due to fish and chips, busses, and a rubbish street sign telling us leicester square was in the opposite direction. remember directional intuition.

so we showed up at this burlesque cabaret show in the middle of an act featuring the queen of circus whose act centered around queen songs. FABULOUS. he juggled in time with another one bites the dust, dropping balls at opportune moments. and later on he rode a unicycle down the stairs to the song BICYCLE BICYCLE. the act commenced with WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS...a sing along. and he gave a speech about how the song was about ALL of us, black, white, yellow, red, EVERYONE. and how we are the HUMAN BEINGS. we are the CHAMPIONS. and if we dont like the animals we can genetically modify them. or...we can kill them and eat them

KILL THE ANIMALS

amazing

and a beautiful hoop dancer with four silver hoops, dressed in white, doing acrobalance while spinning.

OH OH
and
a straps performance with a man in a bathtub. no words to describe this other than WET JEANS and MUSCLES

all of this performance has got me thinking about performance art as provocation. The other morning I woke up to EVENING ON THE GROUND by iron and wine and started thinking about a burlesque act involving juicy red fruits and the concept of the garden of eden. It's a seeling of an idea. more later

i realize that women are so sexualized and flaunted in our society, that i've become somewhat desensitized to the display of full frontal nudity. seeing men is more intriguing at this point because it is more novel.

yet we are still very scared of the female body and power.





tomorrow em and i take a plane to frankfurt where my father lived for two years and my brother was born. pa told me the beer is very strong. so i will be needing but a sip to finish me off, with the rate that i am going these days.

i'm ready to be leaving london. i have enjoyed it, and i've loved being with tara and her family but i am antsy to go and i feel like a change would do me good. what is this life?

i was alone for what felt like a very long time, but on saturday i had a companion again and now i have a constant companion. it's really nice having someone around. i have to find a balance for this. i push myself more when i am alone and i like the kind of growth that happens that way. this whole thing is getting out of the comfort zone

i have to remind myself tonight that there is love all around me, and i am loved by so many people. it's easy to feel like a speck of dust in the windcurrents and feel like i dont belong anywhere. but that's a little lie.

people just want to help. they want to make you feel good. they want to make you happy and they want to help you see the world. they want to give you what you need.

and i want to return the favor

You Mean You Can Be Relaxed Always?

This is a good life. This is a good kind of existence.

I like waking up and asking myself what my adventures are going to be. I like waking up next to my pal. I like waking up knowing that I can do anything, even though I am brokeass poor and not going to be seeing any income anytime soon. And I like being bright and shiny and making other people smile.

I like that when you are bright and shiny and brave people want to know you so they take you in and help you get the things you need. I like that people have their love glasses on.

I like that after seeing Maya Deren's psychotic dream film at the Tate both Emilie and I were reeling with ideas and started making little notes to give to people about being joyful and making art. I like that Tara joined in. I like that we were all so tired that they stopped making sense.

And I like that I feel good after being creative like that.

I like that doing yoga can put me in the state of BEHERENOWALWAYS and reminds me that I am on a different continent and in fact i am ALIVE and that's grand. I am not only alive, but I am around two very good friends, one of which is traveling with me by a force of serendipity and one who is sheltering us with so much love and joy. I like that I have just enough, and that my parents call me to wish me a happy jewish new year, that my dreams are full of people i miss during the day and then get to say hi to at night. i like that they wear canary yellow jackets and bowler hats in my dream.

i like walking beautiful old london streets and seeing all of the beautiful architecture. i like imagining the people building it and what they were thinking and feeling. how could you not feel absolute one-ness when you are building a grand house of god? even if i dont agree with it. and the westminster abbey

THE WESTMINSTER ABBEY. i could feel it like i was there at the time. walking through the quad halls, feeling the noontime sunlight on my face.

we both felt ghosts all around us.

and i like most of all
that i can find my way around the city
even if i have to ask eight people for directions



i am always walking in the right direction

Orbit

Emilie arrived this morning to a foggy London that started putting down rain as only it should.

It seems I brought the sunshine fiercely to these isles, but she has brought the rain, and that force is stronger than what I have summoned.

It was the right kind of day for laze. We got off the train, got a little lost following directions, bought food for an epic fritata, and walked in the rain until we spotted a bus. everyone kept telling us not to walk the distance, but once we got on the bus and paid 90 pence, we realized it was two or three stops away. you can't quite trust people telling you not to walk places. we are new yorkers with feet that want to take us on.

so it was the right day for me to go back to sleep while Emilie tries to catch up. we laughed and talked and got so excited on the train back to tara's house and talked to an english fellow from brighton which he says is the san francisco of london. queers and hippies all around. he is going through a divorce now - despite looking extremely young - say, 25. He is getting divorced from the person he has been with for 7 years, but supposedly, two years ago when they became married, everything changed. He told us not to rush this marriage thing, and to be absolutely sure. thank you, sir.

and it made me think of killing the things you love with the 'security' of forever. Equally as ferocious and violent is the inability to commit or trust, but there is something that dies in you when you try to secure things past the point of potential loss. we can never be sure of things. that is what gives fire to our connections, no? being secure is important in certain ways though. we can rest assured that we are loved, and that we LOVE someone/something, and we can trust in the connections we have, but we can never be fully sure that they will not change. and so we live everyday being true to our feelings, and hoping that the other person reciprocates. i'm not saying that i think things do change often, especially as we get older and more and more able to love fully and courageously. i am saying though, that we have to live in the absolute potential of change and greet everyday as new, because in the premature settling of things, we lose something very important. i think it is the ability to see the spontaneity of the world...it must be, because inherently, when you try to secure something forever, and deny its potential for change, you begin to deny all of the changes, inherent in spontaneity.

this is my head and heart right now. a mixture of having and not having. a state of existing both here and there, but seeking only one spot. And I want very badly to be in both places, but do not have the ability to coexist that way. and for the better.

so i am HERE and i am glad i am here because i have been wanting this for so long, but it's time for me to settle out my bones and be present. I don't want to continue to exist in thought.

there are so many things at home that are beautiful and make my life an amazing adventure. so many connections, all in a period of transition. and if i were there, i would be giving all 137% of myself to them, but i am HERE, and i want to be, because this is what i have chosen for now. this is what i have known is right for me. those things are right for me too, but if they are meant to be they will continue, and i trust they will only grow inside of me.

- - - -
and so we have it that emilie is here and i have a companion on this continent. i feel only excitement for this. i loved traveling alone, but i am ready to have someone to see with, and to experience with, who can hug me when i am feeling like the words in 'such great heights'. and to just love and be with because emilie is a beautiful pink flower

i think we are all going out tonight which is exciting and a bit overdue. it's not something i am used to, but i suppose none of this is anything i am used to and it will only serve to enrich my life.

here we go now

Good Byerelund, Hellondon

I left Westport sometime yesterday, which until about four hours ago, still counted as today, as i didn't sleep all night unti lthis brief nap.

i left after picking blueberries with amy and sarah, playing mbira with them, and seeing 'muldoon's insurance company'. it took 8 hours to get from wport to dublin and then 3 and a half hours by ferry to england. i visitted the outdoor observation deck and stared off into the cold blackness of night littered with stars and the heavenly shine of the light house swinging its light in circles.

what i have come to understand during this trip, is that i have no connection to the places i am, and no perspective therefore of where i am, if i do not feel the earth or water beneath me, or the sky above my head. i need to feel my surroundings and at least be free to look at them - like looking at the moon through the window, and the treeline at night when everything is darker and denser then the next thing.

so i stood on top of this vessel in the cold night air with teddo peering out from my bag and thought about these pilgrimages and how strong and slow we were in the irish sea with such force underneath us. the water is everlasting and brute force, especially in the darkness, but at the same time it is calm and loving. nature has a way of contradicting herself gracefully.

and so it was that i departed and met many wonderful people on the way back to dublin and all the way to london. i spoke with a ghanean man about his culture and philosophies about ancestry, deathlivingpresentpastfuture, and ritual. we talked about love, and being complete when you share your love with someone else, but how that doesn't negate your completeness when you are alone. he was very kind and gentle and we made a beautiful connection. he told me the story of his wife and him meeting and how his family is the most important thing to me. he asked me a whole heap of questions about traveling, spirituality vs religion in my life, self-denial for the purpose of spiritual discipline (abstinence, fasting), and the feelings of traveling alone. he asked me what it is i have learned about myself from traveling the world alone and i realized i hadnt put it to words yet, and all of this has been a mere WEEK. i have been on my lonesome for a week now. exactly a week ago i was just waking up from a nap in the hostel after walking on low fuel all day in dublin, trying to feel with my full heart, the nature of the city. i woke up with anxiety for uncertainty and the prospect of meeting new people which has always rattled my bones a bit. once i got up and went outside, everything fell into place, and i was eased into calmness.

i am feeling this now. this anxiety. i think from a deficiency in iron and true nutrition because i have eaten very few vegetables and nutritious foods, on top of having gotten my period two days ago. i have one luna pad. i have two white-turned-red socks. and i have a nervous little heart breathing fast in her own little heartcenter. tara is gone - perhaps to go move her stuff into her friends' house, or perhaps to go to the circus event she was going to.

i woke up in the bed in her father's house without a context, and the shade was drawn and the light made it look like a dungeon which was characteristic of my dream, though i can not remember it right now. and i am not discontent, but i am a little shaky and lonely, but feeling all the stronger and full of love for it. i'm so glad to be here with tara. paralleling situations, a beautiful baby, a beautiful sister, a beautiful city (BELLA), and so much joy and light. it was so so so foggy this morning. true london fog, and when i knew she was coming down the street to pick me up i couldn't help but smile at the brightness she was bringing with her. always bright, that one.

and so it is that i have been thinking about what i have learned, and trying hard not to dwell too much on the presence of a particular love i feel. rather, i let it color me and i let it move me to be more beautiful and full of light. i let it be my anchor and my support. i feel carried by this love that i have, and the love i have been surrounded with.

and i feel like i have learned about being alone and how to bring myself into the present. i have learned how to recognize when i need rest in order to give of myself fully in a way that is in my integrity.

and i have learned that the world is ONE PLACE and we are always home no matter how far away we are from whatever we identify as our nest. i dont know what i identify, or what i am comfortable to identify, but this last week and a half has had me watching a little change take place in where my center of gravity is, how i express love, feeling love freely, and acclamating to the trust of giving this love freely, even if it may not be received. and of course, it is, but you never know if your heart will recoil from someone throwing up their hands or shrugging their shoulders. all the more reason to give.

this is perhaps jumbled and too abstract. but i feel love and i feel an ache and i feel anxiety.

'i'm far away and i'm feeling alone, i've got one week behind me just 11 more to go. if i could see you i'd take off your clothes and we'd lie in the garden and watch the weeds grow.'

also, perhaps the biggest inner expansion for the last few days has been my focus on listening. it happened when i was at the beach way out on the peninsula with the blue herring and oyster shells. i found a little secluded encirclement and stood with the wind swishing past me, moving the little pool of water that had been caught in the land. i listened to the wind, with croagh patrick standing tall and grand in the light gray sky, and the ocean to my left, shrubs and grass to my left, under my feet, and i felt like my heart was listening. it was hearing the wind with stillness inside of itself, and my brain was quiet too as if the wind were telling it a secret it found worthy of calming down for. i listened to the wind gently trace the contours of my ears, felt her on my face, watched her move the surface of the water, and the grass. and i felt like i could see into the core of everything. it has only gotten stronger. i can look at people, animals, plants, even things, and i can feel the root of their life (soul i suppose you call it) shining and humming with brilliance, even if it isn't conscious for them. and it is all so beautiful and i try to be centered enough in my interaction with this world and its beings that i can honor it and see it clearly in every moment. or at least be conscious of it and express myself from the place of experiencing it.

and so with heavy heart, i will end this post, because i have a life to go experience and my adventures have been good and i have been doting on this love in my heart and spreading forth to me, but to write of it anymore would be putting too many sprinkles on the ice cream

with nervous heart of hearts, but nonetheless, all of it,

sairuh

horses

well
galway is a beautiful city, but when you are feeling sick and tired, it isn't the first place you want to be. i enjoyed beautiful irish trad music in taafe's pub after a walk to the beach and journaling at sunset. oh ireland. thank you for good weather.

i listened for quite sometime because the woman who picked me up and brought me to galway allowed me to stay at her house and her and her family made me feel very welcomed. she is 23 with a 34 year old husband, 15 year old stepdaughter, and 6 year old biological daughter. they are from brazil and are loads of fun. i stayed in all of yesterday and last evening after helping julia with her homework we talked and i played music for them - mbira and piano...but i dont play the piano. they took 30 minutes of home movies of me playing! i taught julia how to cartwheel and we did other acrobalance on the living room floor.

weder, the husband, who is gentle, and very earnest told me that he thinks obama can change the world, but he hopes he doesn't mess up because the good name of all black people will be destroyed and white people will find another reason to hate them. people in irelund keep up with the politics in america - as do the rest of the world it seems, because it directly effects them. yay superpower.

so this morning i caught a ride in with lilly, and she ended up not just taking me to cong, but to westport itself and i walked 4 km to croagh patrick, explored the beaches and delapidated abbey, and made friends with two horses. one of which wiped its runny nose on me. i only have another minute here, but i am doing well and am very pleased to have met such wonderful people.

and i am even more pleased that emilie will be joining me soon, and that i will be seeing tara in no time.

buona fortuna
sairuh

galway

yeah yeah yeah hitch hiking adventure!

i left my lovely westport family house this afternoon after little to no sleep and an early wake up to find the roads of irelund friendly and full of adventure.

i am missing amy and sarah - the little girls i was living with, but i am welcoming a chance to be quiet and conserve my energy. i am getting sick, i think. i am trying to take it slow.

i headed out at 1230 and was picked up by many wonderful irishfolks. stone-layers, construction-worker-become-painter-after-debilitating-accident (following the dream, yeah), truck driver, cattle farmer, fishery worker (to retire on october 6th!) and finally, brazilian woman with her girls.

The cattle farmer with smiling eyes and a valiant spirit took me in for lunch. We ate with his wife, two farmhands, polish helper, and son. He told me that he had just dropped his youngest of nine (who is 22, he was an older fella) at trainin' because 'he's a little retarded, but a happy, good lookin' fella. it's just that he can't talk.' I was humbled by the way he spoke of his son and how unashamed he was. His daughter lives in NYC - Long Beach LI, and we talked about obama and the election. he asked me what i did and i told him all of my jobs, but the one thing he was excited about was the circus. he told me that i am a freespirit and i wont ever work behind a desk, or in a laboratory. neither will he

he bid me off well and though i didn't get a ride for more than 2 km, i enjoyed the scenery and when i finally did get a ride it was absolutely fateful. when i was picked up by the brazilian woman, she told me of her reasons for moving to irelund. she told me that she cries when she listens to country and gospel music, and she not only drove me miles out of her way to bring me into the galway city centre, but she is going to pick me up later tonight and i will stay at her house. we laughed and talked about the places we are from, and her young daughter spoke in irish 'the teddy is writing'. I have been so blessed during this trip with wonderful people. I got to hear beautiful music with other wonderful american tourists and locals alike in westport yesterday evening after a shady evening in the flat of an irishman.


and that's a story too.

he stopped me on the street earlier that day after i smiled at him and we got to talking for about fifteen minutes. he told me he is a musician and asked what i was doing later. i called him at night thinking we would go out and listen to music in one of the pubs, but he instead took me back to his house where we sat on opposite sides of the room talking about politics (everyone is excited about the election...they all know what's going on) and music. he played me beautiful irish ballads on his guitar and then some indian riffs, to which i responded with wagon wheel and railroads (my song). At some point he crossed the room to go to the bathroom and on his way back to his seat, he stopped and looked at my cross around my neck. he took it in his hands, which already was strange, and then he touched my criss cross pin which was over my heart (read: left tit). he then sat next to me and we talked, until he reached for my leaf earring, and then my moon tattoo. oh! and THEN i received a massage, because it's rough carrying a backpack and my muscles must be sore. living in nyc has taught me to understand the nature of these encounters, and i understood him to be a benign character (afterall, he did sing a song to me that went 'there is a grrl Sairuh, and i like her smile') so i had to put all of my energy into not laughing so hard that my body shook and he realized it. my thoughts at the time sounded something like 'well, it's a free massage, so give it a minute or two, and then tell him you'll be leaving.'

never a dull moment

and then of course, there was patrick who picked me up in his truck. he asked me if i was ok to travel alone and if i didnt want a friend because he would want his wife to be with him. i told him about my vision of the two backpackers on the day that emilie asked to join me on my adventure, but that i am very excited about this solitary journey. what was scary at first dissolved within minutes and i am happy to be alone so far away, not knowing where i will stay, or anyone in the country.

he told me that he thinks reincarnation might be true because there was once a holiday he took with his wife where he knew the city without having ever been there. he thinks he lived there once. he also told me a lot of the history of irelund and then said ' i like picking up hitchers because i like hearing their stories, but i seem to do most of the talkin' myself'

the people of irelund are wonderful and full of love. my heart feathers are ruffling and my body is aching for rest.

trad music at a pub tonight before going to eau claire galway with lilly, my brazilian friend.

love from this beautiful isle,

Say Ruh

ps. the buildings in irelund are painted colors. i think it is because it is so gray most of the time - they need cheering

irelund

i have arrived in irelund after missing my flight - albeit, fatefully and rightfully so. i arrived in dublin to a new day of sunshine after a summer of horrid weather.

there is much to say of dublin. of how it is full of college students, and travelers and is very much like new york city in some ways. but what touched me most about dublin were little moments i witnessed

a little girl with blonde hair holding her father's hand down a small street, wearing a kangaroo pouch sweater with a baby kangaroo in it. her baby roo' fell out, so her dad stopped, and with utmost tenderness said 'oh, your friend fell out' and put it back in her little pouch.

a young boy riding his bicycle on his terrace.

a bus driver telling me where to go for cheap and how to get to westport for cheap. he told me he backpacked once. he had love in his eyes

the academics at trinity college greeting each other:
a LOVELY day, isn't it?
why yes it is
will you be traveling to the country this weekend?

on the bus to westport:
the laydee with the stick (cane) is with me

sweet things. and beautiful people taking care of me in westport. i will write more of them later. for now, i have to get off of this expensive thing

all my love to america and antarctica

Good Bye America!

I've worked this trip out so that I will be able to make as few commitments as possible. This includes the day I leave, of course, which has changed from Wednesday Sept. 10th (tomorrow) to Friday Sept. 12th (not tomorrow). 

Starting off with plans to go to India, which morphed into a Peruvian adventure, which crossed the Atlantic into Eastern Europe, which then backtracked to Dublin...I've been able to be as mutable as afternoon storm patterns. And that's good. I like that.

So I am for sure leaving Friday. There's a lot to be done in the time between now and then. College essays (because I'm going back in January??), mailing climbing gear back to New Paltz, calling my landlord to remind him to send me the $834 he owes me...because I'm pretty much broke otherwise, and getting a transcript from my high school. This is why I couldn't leave tomorrow. Also because I have no money.

But what I have learned in my 21 years of living is that I function on a moment to moment basis. When I can do that, I thrive. I can't make decisions months in advance. I can't make them days in advance, even. So, this is all wonderful for me, and because I have nothing to commit to, I am enjoying this existence. 

So...As for my plans. I'm really going to try to stick to this plan because I've done a lot of research on weather in all of the countries that I am going to, and if I don't visit certain places at specific times it will be too cold. I'm no polar bear. Also, I'm going to be camping. I don't want to be cold.

PLAN:

Sept 12 - fly from NYC to Dublin Airport. Hang out in Dublin for the night. Then hitch hike to West Meath where my Grandpa's family is from. Head over to Galway for about a week.

Scotland Sept 20 - 27 Ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland. Hitch hike to Edinburg. Maybe the Isle of Skye first? 

Sept 27 - 29 - hitch hike to London to pick Emilie up at the airport!!!! See Tara!!!! 

Sept 30 - Ferry to Netherlands from Harwich. Hang out for a day or two, then hitch hike to Berlin to see Michele (if she's still there). Berlin for a week

October 3-9 Berlin

Oct 10 - 13 Hitch hike to/visit Belgium

Oct 13 - hitch hike to Paris

Oct 18 - hitch hike to Switzerland (happy birthday Evan)...maybe. i don't know if it will be too cold. But I really want to go to Switzerland

Oct 18 - 21 - hang out in Switzerland

Oct 21 - hitch hike down to Aix en Provence. Visit Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. Romani patron saint Sarah la Kali lives here. Her day of veneration is on my birthday!

Oct 26 - hitch hike down to Southern Spain

Oct 29 - Nov 16 - Spain (Andalusia) and Portugal

Nov 17 - Hitch hike to Italy. God knows how long this will take

Nov 23? - Rome for gelato and fine fine Italian cuisine

Nov 25 - Isernia per un vaccazione alla casa di la mia famiglia. We have a villa apparently. When this guy dies it will be back in my family's name. Supposedly he's very old. 

Nov 27 - hitch hike down to the Amalfi Coast 

Nov 28 - Dec 7? - Amalfi Coast and surrounding area because it's heavenly

Dec 7 - Dec 15 - hitch hike back up to Belgium to catch the ferries for London and Ireland that will get me back home for Christmas and Chanukah.