This is why

I started Bring Limes four months ago.

I'm glad I'm doing it, this I know. I'll be honest though, I'm still not sure why I'm doing it. 

I'm hoping to get that figured out in 2016. I'm hoping to get a lot of things figured out in 2016 actually: the appeal of kombucha, the proper use of semi-colons, ukulele chords that require more than two fingers, etc.

But back to why. Why Bring Limes? I wonder sometimes. And then I discover something like "The Important Places" by Forest Woodward and Gnarly Bay. It all becomes clear.

I didn't make this video. But I feel it. I don't know these dudes, the father nor the son. But I know their story. Deeply. And I want to share it. And I want to add my own chapters. This is why.

A tale of two trees

Any dummy can have fun on vacation. Seven weeks ago, that dummy was me.

Oh I was happy! Hiking through the subtropical bush in St. Croix, searching for the ruins of an old mill. I ended up finding it, which was great. But I also found a gorgeous kapok tree. So big! And perfectly smooth. The kapok is the hairless cat of trees.

Without hesitation, I threw down my pack and began to climb. Why? Because I was on a faraway adventure and when I'm in faraway adventure mode, I'm a man of uncontainable whimsy and joy. That's why.

Now fast forward seven weeks. I'm standing on my patio waiting for the grill to heat up. I've been thinking about doing something with the yard next spring which had me looking up into the trees. And son of a bitch! Standing not 20 feet from me is the perfect climbing tree: a finely crowned silver maple with limbs in all the right places. My kids have climbed this tree many times. And okay, I did once as well. But for the most part, I've been walking past this tree several times a day for the past decade.

Why? Because at home I'm not in faraway adventure mode. I'm in go-get-some-salt-for-the-water-softener mode. These are two distinctly different modes.

I'm planning to change that in the upcoming year though. Regardless of my GPS coordinates, I'm going to try to approach my days with a sense of play; a sense of adventure, scaled appropriately if need be. I realize everyone says this on their way back from every single vacation they've ever taken. Myself included.

But I'm not on my way back from a vacation today. I'm at home in regular-life mode. This morning I was looking out the window and thinking about the impossibility of another gloomy December day. I considered getting a few things done in the basement. Because obviously, it's not tree-climbing weather. 

I have to say, though, getting into the upper section of the tree was easier than I expected.

It's just getting up onto that first limb that's the tricky part. 

Goats and limes and oysters oh my!

A friend I haven't seen for quite a while recently stumbled across Bring Limes. 

She sent me a nice note in which, among other things, she mentioned that she's reached a bit of a personal plateau. After kicking some serious ass in the corporate world over the years, she's wondering what's next.

Now, she tells me, she's working on a plan to become a goat farmer. Of course, the fact that I've felt the same farming urge, only with limes, shouldn't come as a surprise. But I feel a lot of urges. All the time. In fact there's stuff careening through my head right now that I won't even remember in... wait, what was my point? Heh.

My friend though? It seems she's serious. And I hope she figures it out. First of all because goats are awesome, even with their freaky-ass eyeballs. But more important I can't think of too many things that provide connection to, and meaning for, our lives on planet earth the way farming does. 

This video is a great example of that. If you like farming or oysters or the sea or incredible french guy voices, I bet you'll like it.

“Our life is determined by the tides and the sea. Which is good because we can’t just make something up. The wind and the sea are unchangeable. You don’t mess with it. You don’t cheat with it. So it’s very important to us.”

Being There > Being Away

This past week had me on both coasts.

I was within yards of each ocean, to the east and the west, but never got the chance to touch either one. From my hotel window in Asbury Park, New Jersey, I could see a tiny sliver of the sea. And then 48 hours later: a strip of bright white turbulence, lit by the moon, along the Pacific Coast Highway. Just a quick glimpse from the driver's seat at 60 miles per hour before the 10 took us inland.

They were business trips both: a presentation in New Jersey followed by a photo shoot in LA. The presentation was well received and the shoot, despite a huge celebrity and 50 or 60 people on set, went off without a hitch. So: mission(s) accomplished. I made my way through the airport Sunday evening feeling exhausted but, you know, pretty good. 

One thing I wasn't feeling though is that I had actually been in either place. Yes, I had been away from home. There were planes, trains, and automobiles. I have receipts. But I never really had a moment, or more accurately: I never took a moment to be where I was. 

I was thinking about this last night. And then this morning I came across this video. The filmmaker, Andrew Norton, and his wife (who sounds as cute as a bug!), serve up a great reminder of what it's like to truly be in a place. To be affected by it. Sometimes it's epic in scale. Other times, small and simple. If you don't open yourself up to it, though, you're going to miss your chance for either.

I do realize he was in the Galapagos and I was in Jersey. So I'm not going to beat myself up over it too much. But my point holds. 

Rode hard and put away wet

Go big and go home

Off the grid and tiny. These are two popular themes in homes these days.

More often than not, though, "off the grid and tiny" translates to poorly joined plywood, battery-powered wifi, and a precious name ending in "ita." All of which exists for the sole purpose of being painstakingly documented on Instagram.

OG snowboarder Mike Basich's tiny off-the-grid house ain't that. His shit is crafted. Like really crafted. And way bigger than the sum of its parts.

Mike was tearing it up on the snowboarding tournament circuit 15 years ago. He was doing well and living large. And then one day he decided to bail on all that. He spent the next 5 years building the coolest little place I can imagine. The stonework alone took him 2 1/2 years, all done by hand. His hand.

What do you do when you're done? You call your buds and you build a friggin' chairlift to go with it! 

I love building things. The sense of gratification and pride is so rewarding. But aside from a few sketchy snow caves over the years, I've never slept in a place that I've built. This alone has the gears in my head turning. Combine that with the careening clown car that we call 2015 America and, well, I might be building sooner rather than later.

This weekend: just breathe

I've been thinking lately about the courses our lives take.

Beginnings and middles and ends. Indeterminate trajectories and the rolling onward of wheels. To be clear: I haven't fallen into a mood hole. I'm just feeling very aware.

What's at work here, mostly, is the fact that I've had some opportunities for quality thinking lately. Combine contemplation time with a shift in seasons and the upcoming holidays and, yeah... you find yourself thinking/writing screwy shit like "indeterminate trajectories and the rolling onward of wheels."

On a lighter but related note, I've also been reading Willie Nelson's autobiography "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die." In addition to being a king hell songwriter (Patsy's "Crazy," Faron's "Hello Walls," and Waylon's "Good Hearted Woman," not to mention his own hits), Willie is a king hell lifeliver. He's clearly my kind of people.

Anyway, the book had me in a Willie way over the weekend, listening to a Willie playlist in a cabin in the snow. After a bulletproof mix of Willie songs I had heard a thousand times before came one I wasn't familiar with: a cover of Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe" that Willie did with his son Lukas. 

Just like Johnny Cash singing NIN's "Hurt" gave it immediate weight, so too does Willie singing "Just Breathe" with his son. But while "Hurt" mostly makes you hurt, "Just Breathe" is a perfect reminder of the things in life that really matter.

If you have a few minutes, give the video a watch. It might add some perspective to the time you'll be spending with family and friends this weekend. At least it did for me. The whole thing definitely puts me in a thanks-giving state of mind.

If you're up for the original, here's a great live version by Eddie and Pearl Jam.

Love something so much you forget to go the toilet

This guy, and this video, are wonderful. I really think you should watch it.

And then ask yourself:

"Is there something I love as much as Snowflake loves skiing?"

If so: You're lucky! You get to go do it. 

If not: You're lucky! You get to go find it.

Either way, get going.

Here's to traveling alone

MT. VICTORY, ST. CROIX, USVI, 11.09.15

When is the last time you took a trip that was entirely for you? A trip that wasn't about the people you were traveling with, nor the people you were traveling to see? A trip with no agenda except your own? 

I just got back from exactly such a trip. And holy shit.

Before I get started let me say that I generally don't have anything against other people. It's just that they're not always my cup of tea. To be clear: I love my family. I love my friends. I love the people I work with. I'm the luckiest bastard in the world. I know this. But sometimes it's just... you know?

That's where I was back in August when I booked this trip to St. Croix. I needed some time alone. 

Over the course of this year, I'd been feeling a growing need for Less. Less constraints. Less time commitments. Less of those goddamn ICS meeting invite chips people keep sending me which basically say "I didn't get a chance to pee on your granola bar this morning, so instead I'm sending you this unrequested obligation." 

What I needed was a good long meander. With the emphasis on "me." 

As the departure date neared, my basement became a staging area where I'd determine what to pack and what to leave behind. I decided that the aesthetics of this trip were important: I'd be taking a minimalist approach. A one-man tent. Very basic camping, fishing and diving gear. Just two t-shirts: green and grey. Two swimsuits: grey and green. A bluetooth speaker. A book. A ukulele. 

Just as important were the things I decided to leave behind. No laptop. No extra clothes for "a nice dinner." No schedule of events or list of things to see. 

None of these decisions required second opinion or sign off. They were entirely my own, as were any repercussions. This realization felt so freeing. Down in my basement with King Tubby blaring, it seemed like some kind of transformation was already underway. 

One of the huge upsides of traveling alone, to my way of thinking, is that you can be exactly who you truly are. Or exactly who you'd like to be. You're free to try on enhanced or entirely different versions of yourself and nobody is the wiser. My enhanced version of me? It's a guy that's unencumbered (mentally, physically, and spiritually) and entirely engaged in every moment.

I know I can hit those notes on occasion at home. We all can. But in St. Croix, I was going for the long sustain. In a place I knew very little about. I basically created a situation where I'd be forced to leave my natural introvertedness behind – down in the basement with all those unnecessary pairs of underwear.

Well, I hit the ground running in STX. My first night in Christiansted (the only hotel stay of the trip), I was hellbent on talking to as many people as possible. I continued my course while camping and diving around Fredriksted and Cane Bay. This, I realize, is a weird thing for a guy to do who consciously decided to visit an island during the off-season to live in a one-man tent. But conversations lead to connections. And connections make the difference between observing a place and engaging with it.

This approach, combined with an open-ended agenda, meant that I got to know more people on this trip than I would in several months back home. All kinds too: Locals, expats, and wanderers. Hanging-outters and hangers-on. It wasn't long before I ran into people I knew almost everywhere I went. They would introduce me to their friends and their favorite haunts. We'd share drinks, dive sites, and hazy late-night hijinks. 

This rarely happens when traveling with others. Why? Conversations are easier with old friends. When we travel with others we eat huddled around tables (instead of out in the open at the bar as God intended). We move in clusters like middle schoolers. We have plans and other places to be. 

If you want to go fast, says the African proverb, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Well, I couldn't agree more. For this trip though, I wasn't looking for fast. I wasn't looking for far either. In fact, those are the exact kind of measurements I was looking to avoid. I knew I'd have plenty of fast and far waiting for me when I got home.

What I was really looking for was freedom. Freedom to seek. Freedom to see. Freedom to make a fried egg sandwich over an open fire while shittily playing a ukulele naked at dawn.

If you're interested in the same, or your version of it... 

I'd definitely suggest going alone. 

Found on my photo roll

Salt Lake City, Utah, I believe. Maybe 2009-ish.

Stop Sense Making

Tree forts don't make sense. A compound of tree forts, high in the mountains, overlooking your own massive poured concrete skate bowl, really doesn't make sense. But Foster Huntington just went ahead and did that shit anyway.

You can get his story here, and check out his excellent blog called A Restless Transplant.

But what you should really do is watch the short film below. It's a leisurely look at the year it took for him and his buds to build and settle into Cinder Cone. It's a very well put together piece, documenting a very well put together place.

The whole thing leaves me feeling a little jelly, of course. But what it really does is leaves me thinking about the no-sense-making shit I should get started on myself.

Edward Abbey and the sweet and lucid air

I spent today on the water with family. And friends. And a splash or three of tequila. 

This evening I spent reading Edward Abbey. And now, for whatever reason, I decided it would be a good idea to share. I have a strong suspicion that "whatever reason" = "a splash or three of tequila." But so it goes.

Hat tip to mi amigo Señor West for originally steering me to this quote. 

Longing for the apocalypse? Try Rx Nature!

This 90-second video is 100 percent awesome – a perfectly crafted reminder to get yer ass outside. It also includes what must be my favorite disclaimer copy of all time: "Results may vary. Golf is not nature."

You should totally do this: ukulele edition

Cheap, fun, and easy. I'm all about all three of those. If you are too, and I know you are, then have I got the thing for you! Sketchy details here:

And then, after you've followed my sage advice and got a ukulele, hit this link to hear from a guy with actual knowledge and ability and such. He addresses everything from tuning to playing. By the way, he calls it an ooo-kulele. This is the correct pronunciation. I'm just not comfortable saying it yet. Much like SOW-na, and Regina, Saskatchewan. Also note: his hat choice adds whimsy to an already whimsical undertaking. You'll have to define your own boundaries in that regard.

Twenty-Eight Feet: life on a little wooden boat

Every single thing about this short documentary is perfect. David Welsford traded his previous reality for one on the sea, living aboard a 50-year old sailboat he restored himself. The simplicity of small spaces and the sea, all together in one life. Damn. 

You can learn more about David here.