Delayed gratification: Traveling during the off-season

Delayed gratification: Traveling during the off-season

I'd love to be on an island right now. Or a mountain. Or anyplace not gloppy.

Instead, I'm sitting in a Midwest coffee shop, 851 feet above sea level, watching another greasy winter rain goopify what little snow we've had this year. 

I know there are people freediving technicolor reefs this very second. I know there are people riding hidden glades of powder. I know these things because I can see them from my rigid chair. I can see every one of their posts and boasts and aprés toasts.  Based on their social feeds, it seems they're having a gangbuster time. And they really want me to know about it. Bastards.

But I know something they don't. 

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You'll never surf again

The song "You'll Never Surf Again" always killed me. It's from Dan Reeder's 2006 album Sweetheart. Well, I just now stumbled across this animation by Paul Ferraris which only adds to the poignancy. 

You know there's doctors conspiring against us right now. Plotting and planning all the stuff they're going to one day tell us we'll never do again. 

That day isn't today.

The S is for Simple

The S is for Simple

When I'm headed to points south, I always bring a journal. On those trips, with all the unplugged time available, it seems profound wisdom should be washing up onto every shore like sea shells after a storm.

Regardless of exactly where I'm headed, or exactly why, when I'm around the sea it just feels like I'm going to get some serious stuff figured out. And every time I'm on my way home? It feels like I did get some serious stuff figured out.

Well, this past weekend I flipped through a few of my old trip journals, looking for some of that wisdom. Perhaps a profound passage on What It All Means. Or at least an insightful bon mot that I could photograph and post on instagram in my brazen attempt to increase the Bring Limes Instagram following.

But.

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Cold water on bare skin

It's that time of year.

It's that thinkin' about St. Somewhere time. That wanting-some-white-beaches-and-blue-water-and-yellow-birds-all-around-me-time. (I'm referring to the yellow bird cocktail here. But actual yellow birds are encouraged to join me.) 

Well, the short video below isn't about any of that. While the water is blue, it's more of a gun metal blue. This is a cold place. There's shivering. And yet. I'm left longing for this water as if it was the sea-foamiest of seas. 

Filmmaker (and swimmer) Natasha Brooks has me seriously jonesing for a dip of the skinny variety. A cold naked swim, sleek and slippery. Of course, where I'm from, most of our swims are on the chilly side. Get to the shoulder seasons here and it's cold enough to pretty much guarantee you'll have the water to yourself. I like that.

As Natasha says in the video: "The sensation of that cold, on every part of your body, eclipses all thoughts. You leave everything behind, and it offers you the space to truly appreciate the moment."

That's absolutely true. And this is absolutely beautiful. Watch. 

Hey! Use your noodle!

Not that noodle you big silly...

I'm talking about using your brain. Your sense of imagination. Your sense of playfulness and resourcefulness and fun.

That's what Londoner Rich McCor does on Instagram. Smile-for-smile his account might be my favorite right now. It's the perfect testament to what skewing your perspective can do for you (also helpful: crazy scissor skills). 

He and his work (his play?) are no secret since he's been featured on CNN, among other places. His Instagram following is currently at 117,000. The Kardashian/Jenner family is over 180 million.  Help right the world by following Rich McCor instead. He'll make you happy. You'll see.


10 Travel Tricks: MacGyver Style

10 Travel Tricks: MacGyver Style

You already know the advantages of TSA pre-check, rolling your clothes, and hiring local guides. This ain't that. These are serious MacGyver moves. 

1) Free airline lint rollers

When I unpack my clothes and they’re covered in dog hair, I'll usually just let it ride. Occasionally though, you gotta be on point. Luckily, all airline travelers have a lint roller at the ready. Just pull the airline baggage tag from your suitcase, wrap it around your hand sticky-side out, and roll away.

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From timber to tide

The weather outside is frightful. Seems like a perfect day to build something.

Ben Harris built this beautiful boat entirely by hand. This four-minute portrait is a beautiful look at the work and the reward of doing so.

As for me, I'm planning to build a Dark 'N' Stormy later this afternoon. I intend to apply the same love and care to the project.

If you wake up tomorrow...

If you wake up tomorrow...

I woke up again this morning.

You did too. (Yes you did, I thought it through: You read therefore you am.)

This is an incredible thing, waking up every day. It's a cosmic mulligan – a daily do-over or, if you really rang the bell the day before, it's a hey-you-get-to-do-it-again-ya-lucky-bastard! Either way, the chance to start each day anew is a miracle. Sadly, it's one we take almost entirely for granted. (Unless you count all those inspirational instagram quotes which are set in a fun font and superimposed over sunrise photos. P.S. Don't count those.

Whether we appreciate it or not, waking up every day is gift.

Now I have to admit... Exactly How we wake up in the morning I have no idea. I suspect a blend of physiological whatnot, science things, etc. 

Why we wake up in the morning? There are days I'm not too sure about this one either. But I'm working on it. We all are.

Which brings us to If we wake up in the morning. This is where things get real. Extremely real. Because the fact of the matter is this: While we wake up most days, there's also a day we don't. 

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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. 

Hazy & Unfiltered

Gloom & Bloom..001.jpeg

The lake is looking a little different than it did in June and July and August. 

It was somewhere in there, July I believe, that I came across perhaps the best description of summer that I ever read: "Hazy and Unfiltered." Now, I was reading the label of my beer bottle at the time: a fine wheat with a wedge of homegrown lemon crammed down the neck.

"Hazy and unfiltered," of course, was describing the cloudy nature of the Bavarian-style wheat beer inside. But I'll be damned if it didn't nail the essence of summer too. Especially right then: Boat adrift. Sun and skin. Music shimmery and alive.

The boat (and the sun and the skin) have all been put into storage for the winter. But the music? I held on to that. Give this mix a try if the weather's got you down these days. It's a mellow mix of a thing. It might make you happy. It might make you sleepy. It's the dank nug of playlists.

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.