i wanna sing that rock and roll

"I wanna 'lectrify my soul, everybody been makin' a shout, so big and loud, been drownin' me out. I wanna sing that rock and roll."

Been weeding and watering and squishing bugs between my fingertips. Also eating delicious food prepared by Kaitlin and being entertained by Michael's guitar playing and singing. Lots of music and sunshine.

I absolutely love sleeping and waking in the tent - I haven't talked about this yet, but basically, the rainfly for the tent we had was no longer waterproof. We underwent an intensive two day research process to cull the perfect tent for our needs (spacious, light, 150% waterproof, durable quality). Eventually, we found the Black Diamond 3 person Vista. It's incredible. All mesh top so that for the past few nights when it's been a little muggy and most definitely hot as we started to sleep, we just slept without the rainfly.

That was, of course, until we woke up at 5 am to some rain falling on our faces. We sprung up and staked down the fly and all was well.

I'm in love with the San Ysidro dogs and James, the cat.

We're getting ready to send out the letters for the next few farms in North Carolina (cutting it short, we know, who knew how busy our lives would be!) Will, of course, keep your posted :)

On the farm

One thing I know for certain: We have the best friends one could ever ask for. From Binghamton to New Haven to Philadelphia - we are surrounded by wonderful, generous, huge-hearted people. To have their support as we travel is a huge encouragement and I am so grateful for that!

After that lovefest we bring you back to our regular programming: After eating all of Tariq's delicious chicken stew and seeing a wonderful play with Piyali, we ventured forth to Philadelphia. As there is never enough time to spend with our favorite people, it took a long time to wrangle ourselves from the glorious grip of Cedar Haus. Around 1:30 pm on Thurs, September 23rd we embarked on our adventure.

I, citing lack of sleep, was a complete cranky-pants and Caitlin drove the whole way to San Ysidro, bless her heart. We met Michael around 7 pm as he was just finishing up some chores - watering the veggies and feeding the horses. He had to depart rather quickly to go help a friend and so we had some time to set up camp for the next week or so. Kaitlin came home around 10, we met and chatted for a bit and then both parties decided it was time to hit the hay.

It's absolutely beautiful here. There are horses, cows, chickens dogs, and a cat named James who is just a lover. Michael and Kaitlin are both kind people and we're excited to help them out a bit!

Let the games begin!

We could've passed through the beautiful country

"We were careless and mistaken / To drive so far at night / There's so much we never could see past the headlights.
We could have passed through the beautiful country and never even known it."
-Girlyman

We have a tendency to push leaving wherever we are to the last possible moment. Which is, of course, both good and bad. Good because you can enjoy wherever you are as much as possible, see those last few sights, talk a little bit longer to the people you're with. Bad because you end up driving at night, missing a lot of sights, and having less time to talk to the people you're going to see.

I can't help it though - when I am someplace, I just want to know more about it, see more, do more. I'm never really satisfied because I've never done all there is to do. Which is, of course, an impossible feat, but one that nags me.

On top of that, I have this awful habit of falling in love with wherever we go. As mentioned in the previous entry, I'm always on the prowl for the next goal, the next fin de la route. When I do meet a place and inevitably fall in love, I start envisioning myself in that location - going to classes, having babies, long walks along the lake (or river - I will live by either, and will not live without them) when I'm 80.

That being said - I want to live in Chicago. While traveling from Minnesota back east to Binghamton, Cait and I stopped in Chicago. We stayed at the Hostel International Chicago location for a whopping $40 a night/person - granted, not that expensive in terms of hotels in the city, but which was still a big expenditure for our budget-minded adventure. However, when we went out to dinner and realized that we were right in downtown Chicago (I believe they call it "the Loop" - we weren't even there 24 hours so didn't have time to learn the lingo), the price began to make a little more sense.

I am by no means an architectural critic, but Chicago makes me want to take a class, or live in the library for an extended period of time. I felt like Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets" - Chicago makes me want to be a better person.

I woke up the next morning at 7 and continued a trend that I had started in Saint Paul while staying with Cait's family - a morning "wog" consisting of part walking, part jogging. We were literally a block away from Grant Park, so I wogged on over. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a garden, and not just your average tomato basil affair, either. It was a lovely plotted, world enhancing, biodiverse beauty, right there in the middle of Chicago. Upon further inspection, it was created by the amazing Milwaukee-based organization Growing Power. It's called the Grant Park "Art on the Farm" Urban Agriculture Pottager and you can read about it here.

After spending twenty minutes gawking, I finally made it over to Lake Michigan, where I proceeded to wog almost smack dab into a bench because I couldn't stop staring at the lake long enough to keep my eyes on the very clear path that was laid out before me. After that little mishap, I made it through the rest of the wog unscathed - I followed the path around the lake, then went along the river into the heart of downtown. The streets and bridges were buzzing with activity by this time, but down on the path there the few other joggers and I could enjoy the solitude and serenity of the water.

Wouldn't you also fall in love with a city like that? So grand in scope, accompanied by such sordid history? I remember reading Devil in the White City (about the Chicago World's Fair) and not really being able to imagine such a bright yet dark place. This short visit, however, has intrigued me more than any other place so far. I look forward to my possible future exploring what it has to offer!

At this point in our journey, we've spent some time in Binghamton with Rachael and friends for her birthday, camping on a beautiful hill, playing music and roasting marshmallows; have stopped in upstate NY to see my great family and meet my (basically) Uncle's pigs, cows and goats; and are currently in New Haven with Piyali and Tariq, loving their new house (congrats!) and all the amenities that come with having close friends who have a beautiful home and delicious food in their fridge to share with hobos like us.

Looking forward to our last pit-stop in Philadelphia before heading to San Ysidro Farms in Fredericksburg, VA. T-4 days, yikes!

Little Wings

"I don't wanna be a jetairliner, I just want to be a little bird. I don't wanna rip the sky right open, I just want my song to be heard; I don't wanna be state of the art, oh I don't wanna get there overnight, I just wanna be part of all this beauty, wanna be part of all this flight on little wings!"
-Kris Delmhorst

Caitlin and I are in Minnesota with her family. All of our stuff has been sorted and either stored or packed into our car. We've been doing some traveling to visit friends and family before we head out on our adventure and we've crammed it all into such a tight timeframe - a couple days here, a couple there. While I want to see everyone we're visiting (which is why we're visiting them!) the timeframe is frustrating.

Part of this journey, for me at least, is to become more comfortable with the in-between. Because my life has always been in some kind of upheaval, I tend to be very focused on "what's next" - an end goal that allows me to focus my energies and pour my hopes into some kind of stream that will guide me to the upcoming step I must take. I rush headstrong towards this climax and forget, a lot of the time, to both enjoy the ride and even moreso to maybe let it take me a little off the course I originally planned on.

While speeding to MN, I passed right by some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen. However, we had to be in MN to spend as much time with Cait's family as we could before we had to be back on the east coast in Binghamton for a good friend's birthday celebration. Dates, plans, obligations. All essential to our lives, of course. But hopefully, on this journey at least, their urgency and necessity will be temporarily suspended, allowing us to "be part of all this beauty, be part of all this flight."

T-10 days to our first farm, San Ysidro. So much to do before then! Will enjoy every minute of it, however.

Sorting the Laundry

"We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry." E.B. White

There's an interesting piece in the New York Times that was published on Saturday - "But Will it Make You Happy?". The article uses a couple that has rid themselves of all but 100 possessions as an example of Americans who are opting out of the culture of conspicuous consumerism in favor of a more experience-driven and fulfilling life.

The extremism of that couple aside, the article then goes on to discuss general trends that even giant corporations like Wal-Mart can't help but notice - people are coming to discover that having more things doesn't equate with more happiness. The desire for "simpler times" could be a result of the enormity of crises that the US is currently facing; or, Americans could really have started changing spending patterns to reflect dissatisfaction with how cluttered our lives have become.

Full disclosure? I have long been known by friends and family as a "pack-rat". I've peripherally heard of the show "Hoarders" but fear looking into it lest I see an image of me projected in a particularly unhealthy light.

I keep various found items for "art projects" in tupperware containers and bowls and wherever there's an empty shelf. My work space is usually designated by around fifty or so pieces of scraps with notes or sayings or poems, tacked up in a scattered, chaotic mess that makes me feel calm. Anything from a note from Caitlin - "Amy! I love you! so so much. - Caitlin" written while I was frantically never around and stressed out about senior year of college, to pictures of my grandfather, notes from my roommate in college, Judy Grahn poems, Adrienne Rich quotes, a pinwheel of common organic solutions to garden pests. Numerous postcards of gnomes and picasso and chinese fortunes - "the human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it."

Could I live without these things? Yes - but being surrounded by beauty and ideas that inspire me to create beautiful things is priceless.

In addition to all of these memories, however - I have movies and CDs and books - boy oh boy do Cait and I have books! Kitchen appliances and furniture and sports equipment and musical instruments and camping gear and shoes! Tshirts and sweaters and tshirts that hold sentimental value but neither of us would ever want to wear ever again. There's that question in the simplicity movement: when do you go from owning your things, to your things owning you? At one point I remember thinking that I didn't want to go on this monumental journey because I didn't want to have to deal with storing and going through all of these possessions.

But we will. Go through everything. Decide what's worth storing and beg friends and families for a corner of their basement or attic or spare room. As for the rest of the stuff - anyone want a broken sewing machine and a bunch of random fabric?

Cause it's a bittersweet, symphony this life.

"You're a slave to the money, then you die."

No my friends, that is not a fate for me. Today, officially, marks the end of both my job at the hip urban grocery store, and as a supervisor with the 2010 census. This day, Friday, August 6th, 2010, marks the first time since I was 15 that I was not working at least one (up to 5 at one point) wage-slave job. Taking up all of my time and barely paying me enough to get by.

It is most definitely not real, not at all. It's exactly like the feeling you have when you're on break after a semester at college - you wake up startled from a dead sleep, dreading the paper you have to turn in but you never started researching. I keep thinking, even right now, that there's something I'm supposed to be doing, something I have to turn in or something I didn't check. And I almost care.... almost.

So much to do, so little time! The farms we want to visit in Virginia have offically been contacted, and we've seen replies from a few. We're narrowing that last down and deciding our official dates to request WWOOFing space. We're making checklists of equipment we need, supplies we want to have, and things that are worthy enough of keeping in storage. This is by no means as easy to do as it is to type. But oh how great that would be!

My hands, they shake; My head, it spins

"Load the car and write the note. Grab your bag and grab your coat. Tell the ones who need to know - we are headed north."

This weekend Caitlin and I went to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. It was incredible - the music, the people, the ocean. Seeing Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore (with Yim Yames and eventually the Preservation Hall Jazz Band) was probably the highlight for me. The Avett Brothers, Andrew Bird, Brandi Carlile, The Low Anthem, Horse Feathers - all had great sets. Just as with farming - there's something really great happening right now with music. People rediscovering their voices and traditional instruments as methods to create these beautiful, thought provoking pieces of art.

Not only that, but the folk scene in general... it's really interesting to see the dynamic between the older generations - the ones that were most definitely at the first Newport - and the younger kids that are brought out by the acts that I previously mentioned - in particular the Avett Brothers. On Saturday, during numerous sets people would try to come up closer to the stage and stand/dance to the artists currently playing. A lot of the audience became infuriated and eventually got the staff to make all of the standers/dancers sit down.

I don't know where I'm going with this - but it was incredible to see the dancers eventually win out.. against the people who would have never, ever listened to anyone tell them to sit down and stop them from expressing themselves to the music when in their youthful hayday. In fact, I can never quite understand how people listening to music can sit without the rhythm infecting them. Its always been a bit perplexing, the "I can't dance" crowd. I may not be able to "dance" in the way our current society views dancing.. but I'll certainly shake whatever I have when the spirits move me to shake it!

I think the best part of the weekend, however, was our vagabond sleeping arrangements. Or, rather, lack of sleeping arrangements. We had purchased the tickets to the festival back in April, but hadn't really thought out where we were staying. After driving to a couple of hotels on the island on Saturday night, Cait finally asked if they had a policy about people sleeeping in their parking lot. After the guy at the desk basically said there wasn't a policy, nor was there a guard, we found a quiet, semi-dark corner and laid the seats down in the Honda Fit.

While somewhat nervous about people breaking into the car while we were sleeping, and both waking at various times to phantom knockings on the windows - it was a great nights sleep. I woke to the sun just barely rising around 5:45. After the strenuous task of waking Caitlin up, I hopped into the drivers seat and drove until I found the nearest beach. Just us and an older gentleman who described the cold ocean as "better than any cup of coffee" as he wrapped himself in a towel and walked to his car were on the beach at that time. To say it was beautiful would be an understatatement, of course. More importantly, it felt beautiful. While both of us still have our jobs to tend to... it felt, for a moment, as if our journey had already begun. We were free to get our feet wet, hell, to plunge right into the water and stay there for eternity.

Yes, it is extremely difficult to leave Philly right now - such great friendships, community and ideas are being built every day here - but this weekend only gave me a taste of what this next year could feel like. And I want more.