42. Catalina Islands

My lungs feel like they are the size of watermelons, growing larger as each second passes. The pressure against my chest continues to increase. “Air, you need air.” My body is no longer asking my head to obey, it’s telling it to. “Air!” It begins to say louder and louder. But there! Fifteen feet away I spot a kelp bass hiding under a rock ledge. His fins waving back and forth keeping his body resting motionless in a ever moving tide. I slow the kick of my fins so as to not alarm him of danger. Ten feet away. Pulling my spear back, the bungee loads and I grip down tighter to keep it from shooting until the right moment. The tip of the spear sharpened with a file is ready to claim it’s next subject. The bass, facing the away from me, allows me to continue my slow steady approach unnoticed. My only movement now is coming from my legs behind me, slowly, steadily moving my fins back and forth. Cruising through the water gives my body a unique sensation of flying. It’s incredible. “AIR!” My body screams at my head so as to scare it into an ascent towards freedom. But I know this is a mental game more than anything, my lungs can go longer than this. Right? Surely. “Keep moving,” my mind commands my body to obey. The kelp bass is now only seven feet away. Placing my left hand on the jutting out section of reef he is hiding under, I guide my body towards the ocean floor for a broadside shot. As my head turns sideways to see around the edge of the reef, water floods my ears as the trapped air escapes. As the water hits my eardrums a burst of cold feeling inters my head. But I’m focused, and neither the cooling sensation on my eardrums or the rubbed raw spot on my ankles from the fins don’t draw my focus. “AIRRRR!” My lungs are now enraged that they have not been given relief and will not be ignored any longer. They begin a constant scream at my head to concede. I can’t tell myself it’s a head game anymore, my body must have air. The only thing keeping me there is desire. Now only five feet away, the bass senses something isn’t right and begins to turn. Lungs screaming, head unable to think of anything but relief, my arm thrusts out and lets go of the spear simultaneously. The spear launches forwards towards the bass. But he had turned just enough and saw my arm thrust forwards. As the spear rocketed from my hand, the bass shot forwards like a bullet from a riffle causing the spear tip to brush his tail fin and blow past him into the sandy ocean floor. As the spear tip hit the sand my feet were already unconsciously kicking ferociously. “AIR!! AIR!! AIR!!” Twenty-five feet away. Twenty. Fifteen. The mirror underside of the waters surface is getting closer and closer through my goggles. Ten Feet. Five feet. “HUUHHHHHHHH!” My lungs explosively draw air down in to my chest deflating the pressure that had been so long neglected. Only then can I muster, “Bollocks!” Out from my lips while treading water trying to catch my breath. “How could I have missed again!?” I say to myself with frustration as salt water enters in. Spitting it out I see Matt clambering over the side and into the dingy with a nice sheepshead stuck on the end of his spear. “Aghhh!!” I shake my head, clear my snorkel, and begin swimming the surface scanning the ocean floor for another opportunity.

Sailing to the Catalina islands for the weekend last month to go spear fishing was by far one of the highlights of the trip so far. Partly because sailing is a blast and something I had never experienced before. Partly because I got to try my hand at spear fishing. But mostly because of the goons I got to be with on the trip. 

41. Be Silly

I chose a grassy spot just off the paved trail that ties Venice beach and Santa Monica beach together. It was an ideal spot for me to focus in and do some writing...

When I’m adventuring, it’s easy to end up with no down days to write, read, or rest. My mind tends to say, “Go! Go! Go! Otherwise, you’ll miss out on getting the most out of this time.”  But I believe the real truth is the exact opposite. When I force myself to sit back and be mindful about what I’m experiencing, the more rich my experiences become. Unfortunately, at times, I can let the “Go! Go! Go!” shout louder than what I know to be true. As strange as it may sound, I begin to miss out by doing too much. Consequently, looking back at my life, I become the most exasperated with juggling work, family time, friendships, have-to-dos, and want-to-dos when I don’t set time aside to be write, read, and rest. I might neglect it because I don’t feel like I have the time available or maybe it’s because I would rather do something active, but regardless, it can end up on the back burner. I don’t meditate. I don’t practice mindfulness. I just, Go! Go! Go! 

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend not long ago. He had began obsessing about reading one book every month. Always making sure the next book was one that would teach him to be a better father, husband, business man, investor, you name it and he was reading how to be better than he was yesterday. Most any person would respect and revere him for doing so. But, after a year of this it became apparent to him that he hadn’t stored the information he had read. He was eating so much intellectual food that his body wasn’t able to digest it at his rate of consumption. That’s how I feel if I don’t mindfully stop and digest life. Think through what’s happening, how I’m responding, enjoying, engaging, and experiencing this thing called “life”. 

...So, I chose this little tree in the grass to lean up against to be mindful and write about life of late. Half an hour had eased by and during my time of writing, I bet over 500 people had passed by me biking, skating, walking, running, dancing, and scooting. I hadn’t paid them any attention. But then a young family came to a stop on their bikes in the grass just a little ways away. The dad put his kick stand down and began to get their son out of the kid carrier. A boy near the age of three or four popped out and plopped down on the blanket his mom had just laid down. A moment later the little boy was running from tree to tree circling the little picnic as if he were being chased and the only safe spot was touching a tree. He was grinning from ear to ear giggling.

Shifting my focus from my writing to watching the little boy play, I watched as he ran from tree to tree with his imagination lighting up his face. I wonder who or what he imagined was chasing him? I wonder what kind of fortress his eyes were seeing when he would look at the trees? He was having the time of his life on a pretty plain patch of grass between four trees. After five minutes of this, his dad, still somewhat baby faced himself, jumped up and entered his child’s world. He landed hunched over with his feet wide and his arms out like he was trying to hug a sequoia tree. The monster had entered the scene. Growling and muttering the deep grumblings of a troll he began his pursuit. His boy wide eyed, laughed with glee and began running from tree to tree much faster now in order to escape the gangly armed troll. Around and around the picnic blanket the child ran always barely escaping the grasp of the troll. This way and that, they ran. The troll never broke character and even hurdled the bikes a time or two always landing in his hunched over arms out troll style. The troll was now making efforts to stay an arm length away from the boy but still keep the pursuit so as to never catch him. The laughter of the boy could be heard overtop the folk music playing through my earbuds. I turned my music off to hear the shouts of joy and laughter untainted by the music I had chosen for the afternoon writing session. After ten minutes the troll fell in a heap of exhaustion on the picnic blanket. As if the fall had caused the troll to immediately transform back into “Dad”, the boy came running in and jumped into his dads arms. 

Silliness. It’s a medicine not just for those who are involved but also for spectators. Kids do the best to bring silliness out of people, even those who believe they have outgrown it. If you find yourself taking life too seriously, make a point to spend some time around a child. Be a troll, a princess, or whatever the scene calls for. Change your voice, become the character, enter into the child’s imagination. Forget who is watching and fully submerge into the silliness. It’s safe to say, silliness is better than any drug or doctor prescribed medicine. 

So stop taking life so seriously, and find an excuse to be silly. There’s no age restriction, no income restriction, no maturity restriction, no responsibility restriction, none. The only restriction is the one we place on ourselves. So, unbuckle yourself, and get to it. Who knows, you might just inspire others to find the joy and laughter that silliness brings into our world. 

One of my favorite humans to be silly with! Love you CC!

39. Door Of Adventure

When you start off on an adventure living out of a van you don’t expect to find yourself at a wine tasting event with a handful of Jackson, WY locals. But that’s the beauty of adventuring. Nothing turns out quite like you expect. Maybe receiving joy from situations that ebb and flow away from the original plan is isolated to certain personalities, I can’t say for sure. But what I can say, is that I love the unexpected, the unplanned for, the shifts, the changes, the last second decisions whether to turn right or left. That’s what adventuring is all about in my book. 

I mean, what are you suppose to do when you accidentally leave your only warm jacket 7 miles out in the Yellowstone wilderness and it drops to 20 degrees with snow covering your van a week later? Or what do you do when your van locks you out without food, water, or warmth while you’re back in the sticks of a Wyoming national forest? What do you do when every camping site in the 30 miles between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park are all full and you’re looking for a place to sleep? What do you do when a two day stop in Bozeman, MT turns into two weeks and you’re timeline is now totally off? What do you do when you’re miles out in the desert land of Wyoming and your original mountain bike tire and your spare both pop leaving you stranded? Or what do you do when you are miles away from your campsite back up in Shoshoni National Forest and the chain on your bike decides to break in two? What do you do? I’ll tell you what you do, you roll with it. 

But adventuring is not all about the unexpected problem or hurdles, sometimes it’s the unexpected blessing. What do you do when a guy working at the local fly shop walks in, hands you a beer, tells you to go check out the local rodeo, and then come out for beers later? What do you do when a random stranger tells you of a secret fishing stretch along the North Platte River? What do you do when you meet a random Italian guy in the middle of a national forest who invites you to join him and his pup on a hike to a mountain top lake. What do you do when you’re invited to float and fish the Madison River on a friend of a friend of a friend’s drift raft? What do you do when people offer to let you use their showers and run a load of laundry while you’re in town? What do you do when a girl asks you if you want to climb to the roof of a downtown office building while in Bozeman, MT? What do you when a guy with “Salsa Man” written across his shirt with a marker at a farmers market in Casper, WY asks you if you want to try his spicy salsa called “The Reaper”? What do you do when you’re invited to help bottle a batch of wine with the local winery? What do you do when you’re invited to a local hangout after last call at a bar in a town so small it doesn’t have a name? I’ll tell you what you do, you roll with it. 

When the door of adventure cracks open, don’t be afraid to push it wider and walk through into the unknown. 

37. Don’t Be Afraid To Say, “Yes”

I found myself struggling to keep bites of homemade spatzle in my mouth due to the belly laughing circulating through the six of us at the dinner table. If joy and laughter required a certain amount of square footage, this tiny arched cabin would have exploded. Sitting at the dinner table, we took up a large portion of the open floor plan of the downstairs space. You could be anywhere in the downstairs space in seven steps or less. The beautiful quaint kitchen held barely enough room for two people to move about. A handful of plates, bowls, cups, and mugs sat lovingly placed upon the natural wood grain open shelves. Flames danced behind the door of the wood furnace in the corner producing the only source of heat the cabin had to make it through the Idaho winters. A small bathroom contained the only interior door in the cabin. A ladder near the front door led up to the simple and efficient bedroom above. And it was in this space, amongst the laughter of new friends that I felt the most at home I have since I left my house over three months ago. Since living in the van I have learned that it’s not the amount of space you have, it’s how you use the space that makes it special. Sitting at the table looking up at the skis in the rafters above me I smiled at how efficient this cabin was being used. I was with new found family. In a town I had never been before, in a cabin I had never been in before, in a room of people I had met less than 24 hours before, I was with new found family. 

I arrived to the Ross Creek Cedars in Idaho due to a suggestion from a group of people I had met while at Symes hot springs in Montana. Getting out of Pearl I stepped around to grab my jacket and overheard, “How long is this hike?” The guys parked next to me were discussing the hike and I tuned in to see if I could learn what I was also wondering. Interjecting myself into the conversation we started chatting. This led to me joining their group for the hike. Before long I was helping Tim and Tawny’s little girl Willow over streams and down from tall logs. I could just tell the way they talked and interacted that there was something different about them. “Hey, I have a feeling like I already know the answer to this...” I started in as we hiked through the 1000 year old cedars, “...do y’all know Jesus?” A smile crept over their faces. “Yes, indeed we do.” Tim answered back. “I grew up in the Dominican Republic in a missionary family and Toby, the German over there, and his wife Shalom were also missionary kids. And yes, Jesus plays a big part in our lives.” That answered it all. The scripture, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” came to mind. And that’s exactly what it was, it was their inclusivity and love that made them different than the average Joe. An hour later the hike came to an end. Toby strolled over and in his German accent asked me if I wanted to join for dinner and games that evening. They lived over an hour back the other way from the direction I was needing to go. I had even told a friend I would be at his house that evening in Sandpoint, ID which was a couple hours the other direction. Weighing my options I knew that I had no option but to say, “Yes” and join. 

For the next 24 hours I ate every meal with them, played every game with them, talked Jesus, politics, and everything in between with them. I even accidentally smoked everyone out of the house the next morning at 7am when I couldn’t get the wood burning furnace to work properly. Coughing and laughing all five of them with sleep still in their eyes came down the stairs. That day for lunch I learned how to make homemade spatzle thanks to Toby and his family roots. I’ve never felt so accepted and close to a group of people after only knowing them for only 24 hours. Truly a blessing of knowing Jesus and meeting others who also know Him. 

When adventure asks you if you want to join, don’t be afraid to go out of your way and say, “Yes”. As a good friend of mine once told me, “Adventure begins when you are no longer in control.”

38. To Be Still

To lie on your back watching clouds morph and dance across the sky. To listen to the babbling brook, the different sounds of her voice clambering on and on. To watch a dragonfly dance in the sun. To notice the business of a bird go about its daily tasks. To watch shadows move. That, is to be still. It is an art. A lost art in many ways. To be still long enough that nature forgets you’re there. Or to notice the feel of the temperature drop degree by degree as the suns light gives way. That, is to be still.  

Only then, in that stillness, can one fully analyze the senses that God gave us. To notice the feeling of the sun warmed rock upon your back. To pick apart the thousands of sounds the forest shares, each from it’s own source, picking them apart like a child separating his marble collection. To see the maze of veins running through the backside of a mesmerizing yellow maple leaf after its final Fall decent. To taste the swirling mixture of tart and sugary sweetness of a wild raspberry pulled from its thorny hiding place. To smell the cool fresh scent of a mountain brook. Only in those times of stillness, can the senses be fully appreciated.    

It seems that our attention spans are shortening. The advertisements must be quicker, more unique, more colorful to catch our eye. All 5,000 that the average person sees in a day are fighting for 3 to 5 seconds of our attention to convey their message before they lose us to checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or a myriad of other attention drain holes. Are the days of watching clouds a thing of the past? Has finding beauty in a sunlit leaf become archaic? Will people still lie on their backs and be enamored by tall pines stretching upwards towards the heavens? Has our world traded our ability to find joy in the little things for the ability to swipe right or to double tap a “like”? 

I believe the most needed medicine our world needs is a prescription to walk out to an open field, lie down, and pick out what the clouds draw as they dance across the sky.  

To be still... 

40. Old Friends

 Ben Rector said it best...

“You can grow up, and make new ones

But truth is there's nothing like old friends

'Cause you can't make old friends

And I've got some good friends now

But I've never seen their parents' back porch

I wouldn't change how things turned out

But there's no one in this time zone

Who knows what inline skates that I wore

Can you take me back when we were just kids

Who weren't scared of getting older? 

'Cause no one knows you like they know you

And no one probably ever will

You can grow up, make new ones

But the truth is

That we grow up, then wish we could go back then

There's nothing like old friends 

'Cause you can't make old friends”

I sit here on a boat grinning from ear to ear between laughs surrounded by old friends. These are not just any old friends, they’re “The Family”. Any one of them can tell you handfuls of stories of what has made me into the man I am today. To my left, Matt is feet up and head down nearly asleep as the rest of the crew is making playful jabs back and forth telling old and new stories. Max and Trent are sitting kicked back on the bench across from me scheming up something that the rest of us can’t hear but will be sure to see come to fruition at our expense in the moments to come. Having been roommates with Max for the better part of two years gave us many late night conversations discussing all the finer and many times more sticky situations life brings. We still to this day call them “Blue Chair Conversations.” Anytime we need to hash something out we often reference the 1960’s baby blue cushioned chair we used to sit in back in the day as those late night convos flowed. To my right Alex, now Alex Lambert, leans up against Annamarie as they drill me with questions of a recent date I went on. However, their questions turn into more advising me of where I went wrong and telling me what I should have said or should have done. They play the sister role to a “T”. There are only a few women who have earned the right to give me a mixture of hounding and correction and they are two of them. The only person in the room I’ve known longer than Alex is Matt. Meeting Matt roughly fifteen years ago in high school we have more stories together than I can count. He brought Alex around for the first time almost ten years ago and there are mixed stories floating around but the truth is that I married them over a seafood dinner nearly two years ago now. Yessir, you’re reading the writings of an ordained minister in the state of California. 

If I added up the years of friendship between the six of us, I’m looking at somewhere near fifty years of friendship between them and I. And that’s not even including another eight years of friendship with Jeremy who didn’t make it out on this trip but is also a member of “The Family”. Naturally, his wife is incredible and she’s been adopted in the family. So that adds several more years to the total. Needless to say, we’ve all been friends for somewhere between half and one third of our lifetimes to date. 

One of the greatest desires of human beings is be known. It’s a better gift than gold. When we meet people we want to grow close to, we tell them about ourselves and share with them experiences we’ve had during our lifetime. We do this to try and explain who we are and what makes us, us. This is all fine an dandy and not to be overlooked. But there are a few people who know you based off years of being by your side, having lived those stories with you. Years of being neighbors. Years of exploring together. Years of sharing meals together. Years of being stupid together. Years of watching Sunday afternoon football together. Years of making breakfasts, brunches, lunches, and dinners together. Years of laughting and crying together. Years of traveling to Austin, New Orleans, Tahoe, St. Louis, Nashville, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Portland, Las Angelas, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Santa Barbara, Central America, and even overseas together. There’s a different level of being known when you can sit across from friends and without saying a word, be known. It takes time. It takes walking through through different life stages together. It takes hotel rooms, rental cars, Uber rides, and lost luggage adventures. It takes learning how to share sushi between five lions and not fight over it. It takes eating street food together not knowing exactly what it is you’re even eating. It takes pushing the limits of life and death together.  

There may be other ways of creating this level of being known, but this is how it happened for me. You don’t choose your blood family. But you do get to choose your friends. I’ve been blessed beyond measure with not only my family, but also the friends I have in my life. I don’t think I could have written it out any better than how it’s come to fruition. To that, I give God the glory.

The best advice I can give anyone who is wanting to build closer friendships, is to go travel and cook food side by side with the people you want to become close to. Go to cities you’ve never been to. Try cooking things you’ve never cooked before. Share new experiences, get into a little bit of mischief, don’t be afraid to dive into deep meaningful conversation, travel, eat, and dance together. That is the recipe for rich friendships. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be doing those same things with the same people come two years, and then five years, and ten years, and then you have “old friends”. That’s how it happened for me.