27 March 2011

Today was awesome because I started reading one of my favourite books again.

As many people do, I go back and revisit my favourite books from time to time, like you do an old friend.  And from within the familiar pages of my beloved hardcovers and paperbacks, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, 1984, and The Princess Bride, I always manage to come across a passage, phrasing, or quotation that feels new.  Perhaps I was a little tired and my eyes were heavy the last time I was on these particular pages and the words barely registered... maybe my emotional or mental state is different than the last time I read the book in question and words that never jumped out at me before now make so much sense... or it could be that I've started relating to a character I never identified with before.

Discovering wonderful "new" bits to the books I adore is always exciting, but what I love most is reaching the moments that I love most.  When Edmond Dantes first meets the Abbé Faria while wrongfully exiled and imprisoned in the Chateau D'If.  When Julia slips Winston a piece of paper and he unfolds it to discover the words, "I LOVE YOU."  When, after listening to Vizzini proclaim several accomplished feats to have been "inconceivable!" Inigo finally comes to the conclusion, "You keep on using that word.  I do not think it means, what you think it means."

My favourite travel/lifestyle/philosophy book is "Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel" by Rolf Potts.  From cover to cover it is full of the most brilliant advice, anecdotes, profiles of people like Jack Kerouac, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau, and the most inspiring, thought-provoking, soul-searching quotations by them and many other of the world's greatest writers, thinkers, philosophers, and travelers.

I love this book.  I LOVE this book.  I've read it and re-read it so many times.  I've bought extra copies and given them out as gifts to friends whom I thought could use the inspiration, or sometimes, just because I wanted them to understand me a little bit more. (Many years ago, I even wrote a short recommendation for the book that was published on the Matador Network and can still be found there today.)

When my ukulele and other belongings arrived from Nelson, BC last week, Vagabonding was among the most prized possessions to return.  I never travel anywhere without it, always pulling it out of my rucksack for an extra boost of energy on the road or to share the wisdom of its' contents with kindred spirits (or doubters) I meet along my way.

Tonight, as I picked up the book to continue reading, it flipped open to a random page and my thumb happened to land on a wonderful thought that I'd like to share with whomever may be reading this:

It is easy in the world to live after the

world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to

live after your own; but the great man is

he who in the midst of the crowd keeps

with perfect sweetness the independence

of solitude.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

(from Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, Villard Books, 2003)

(What made your day awesome?  Tell me in the comments section below.  Reading it will be one more awesome part of my day!)

06 March 2011

Today was awesome because it was a healthy day for mind and body.

My mobile phone alarm clock woke me up at precisely 9:27am.  For no reason whatsoever, I have avoided setting any alarm for any time that ends in zero or five since I was a child.  At 9:28 a miniature version of myself in a devil costume appeared on my left shoulder and whispered that it would be alright to go back to sleep.  Tempted, I remembered my commitment to my new friend Ella, so I summoned the strength to sit up, swing my legs over the edge of the bed, stand, and walk to the toilet.

Running late, I skipped breakfast, borrowed a bicycle from my housemate Darryl, and greeted the morning sun.  At my first intersection I discovered the lack of functioning breaks on this particular Raleigh.  Still running late, no time to turn back.  I pedaled the brakeless bike to Ogden Point where Ella and friends were waiting.  After a few "pleased to make your acquaintances" we started pounding pavement.  Ella brought us together to support Walk in Her Shoes.  Every step will empower women and girls to fight poverty.  Over 8,000 seaside steps were taken by each of us.  I saw a starfish in the water!  I didn't know we had starfish in Canada.  We found a dead stingray washed up on the beach!  I didn't know we had stingrays in Canada.

The rest of my Sunday was spent the way Sundays should be; moving at a slightly slower pace that usual.  I practiced guitar, I wrote in the fresh-paper scented pages of my new treeless notebook, and I started reading a new book.  Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.  Long has it been on my "must read" list and forty-two pages in it has not disappointed.

Today, I got a little exercise in support of an important issue in the morning, and spent the remainder of the day exercising and resting my brain.  And today was awesome.


(What made your day awesome?  Tell me in the comments section below.  I'd love to hear about it!)