All the Reasons Why Not

Boulder“An adventure is an inconvenience properly understood.”
GK Chesterton

 

There are so many reasons why we should NOT pack up everything we own and travel the world for a year.  There’s nothing we need to run away from; our life in Boulder is great.  The record shop that Will bought a little over a year ago is doing well beyond our best projections and he has so many ideas of how to expand the business.  I have been getting paid to help kids write college essays and loving it – I could really dig in and make this a fun career. I’m halfway through the writing of an historical fiction book for middle schoolers that I’ve had to table until this trip is done.  The kids are happy in their Waldorf school and each will miss the milestones built into the curricula next year.

In my early twenties, I lived a mobile life from my old Saab 900.  I kept my toothbrush and real treasures – like passport and audio cassette by my mother – locked in the glove compartment. I compiled a box with stamps, envelopes, stapler and checkbook that served as my “office” in the front seat and everything else I owned fit in the back. When I was in my mid-twenties and guided trips in Asia, I could just pay my rent and credit card ahead and leave with a few days of scrambling.

I no longer have a Saab nor a Subaru but instead a mini-van with a husband, four kids, an elderly Pug, hefty rabbit and a well-behaved fish.  The sheer mass of our stuff is enough for me to say, what was I thinking?  I am no longer mobile enough to act like a twenty-five year-old.  Mid life is not conducive to mobility. Who do I think I am?

What if our parents get sick?  What if one of us gets sick? What if (another) war breaks out that makes the world an unsafe place for Americans?  What if we burn through so much money that we will be living on ramen noodles in our last month in Italy?  What if it’s too much “quality time” together as a family and I just want them to go to school already?  What if Will can’t handle living without a turntable?  How will Will and I get any privacy as a couple?

I’m a Boulderite and I’ve grown to depend on my modern/organic/necessary splurges.  What if I can’t survive without the posse of people it takes to maintain this 46 year-old body.  I have my Kundalini yoga community that keeps me focused and happy.  There is the chiropractor, the naturopath, my boutique barre workout class, my acupuncturist and the woman who colors my hair.  The truth is: this body is not as self-sufficient as it was when I owned my Saab.

And then there’s what if we don’t follow a dream that Will and I had before we even had one kid?  What if we let fear and the need to avoid inconvenience dictate our lives?  What kind of cancerous thing would creep into us if we looked back on our lives in thirty years and said, “shoulda, coulda, woulda”?  I think these last questions weigh more than the stuff we need to pack.

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Rebuilding the Tumbuk Monastery with Mission Nepal

When devastating earthquakes hit the country of Nepal in April of 2015, many buildings were destroyed including schools and monasteries. We have strong personal connections with one village, Tumbuk, and want to raise money to help the rebuilding efforts by selling chai at Shining Mountain.

Currently there is a project underway in Tumbuk to rebuild an important monastery and the community hall next to it. These buildings are very important to the village and have so many cracks that they are unsafe to enter. The village comprises 27 households with majority of Sherpa families. Since the village is off the major trekking trail, it hasn’t witnessed any form of development. The village is not yet connected to the road networks like other villages. The village has a pre-primary school. Recently the village was connected with electricity from another village. The villagers still need to walk for an hour to reach Junbesi to get basic health facilities and the children also need to do the long walk to reach school past the primary level.

The entire project costs $13,000 and the community has already raised $7,500 through the government as well as private sources. The Paradise kids and their friends hope to raise the remaining $5500 from local fundraising and help with the finishing touches when we arrive in Nepal in August of 2017.

We are asking the school to allow us to sell chai two afternoons a week for six weeks. We are also asking for use of the school’s large hot beverage containers both for those eight afternoons and on Saturdays for our sales at Bart’s. Our goal is to raise $2000. We will also host some small fundraising dinners at our house and sell chai at Bart’s record shop on the weekend. Pemba Sherpa, who is also from this area, lives in Boulder and owns Sherpa chai company as well as Sherpa’s Restaurant. He has offered to donate all of the chai. We will simply solicit donations for the almond milk and cups on our own.

In turn, we can facilitate education about Nepal and/or the rebuilding efforts of an entire country by Pemba Sherpa. He has amazing slides about the projects that he has already completed and about the country’s great culture and way of life.

Lorna, Lucy and Kai will sell the chai for $3 per 12oz. cup with the help of three six grade friends, yet to be determined. There will also be a donation box at the chai stand as well as donation links on Mission Nepal’s website.

Mission Nepal is a local non-profit run by Pemba Sherpa and Heather Bulk. They are a 501(c)3 and have the capability for online donations. They are administratively holding the project for us to raise the money. We personally know the family who will be on the ground and the community of Tumbuk has their own construction committee to handle to funds responsibly.

Tasks to Complete:

  1. Proposal acceptance
  2. Announcements ready for the Weekly Notes and possibly the Community Notes
  3. Details of chai sales done by the Paradise’s
  4. Chai pickup
  5. Table, cups, signs, thermoses.
  6. Coordinate any education at the school if teachers are interested

If this is alright with the school, we would like to do Tuesdays and Thursdays from February 28 – March 30. And if you can think of any other school events where we can sell our chai, we will be happy to accommodate!

Thanks so much for considering this project! You can pull Lorna out of class to discuss or just email Annika back and I will pass along your answer to the kids.

The Paradise Family (Lorna, Lucy, Kai, Pasang, Will and Annika)

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Passports

There is just something about a stamp in a passport. It gives me that giddy feeling like ticking off the last item of my to-do list.

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Letter to a Stranger

Inspired by the website “Off Assignment”

You sat across from me in the train traveling east to Munich in August of 1990.  I sat on the west side going forward. You were facing west, traveling backwards.  You hadn’t eaten in three days and as our conversation progressed, you admitted to eating nothing but “tinned” food for the last month.  We were both twenty years old.  I shared some of my “Digestive” crackers purchased back in the train station in Paris.

After the wall came down, you stood in line to get your visa on the first day that you could.  Out of East Berlin.  When I met you, you had been all over western Europe but mostly in England.  You had saved and skimped and saw.  You were hungry and looked, to me, deflated to go back.

We spoke about communism, The Wall, Russia and the freedom of travel.  We spoke about the meaning of life and the requirements for happiness on this planet.  We spoke about the ways in which our governments teach us to fear one another, when everyday humans all want the same things.  We spoke of heady things for twenty year-olds. People came and went but we kept talking.  In English.  Now, I wonder how you knew English so well – it had probably improved steeply in your recent travels.

Our conversation was the one of the top five most powerful conversations of my life.  Thank you.

You had no hair: no eyebrows, lashes, arm hair nor stuff on your head.  You tried to explain what was going on but I didn’t want to act nosey.  Now I know it’s called alopecia but in that moment, I thought it was somehow a side effect of communism.

I bought you a “Happy Meal” from McDonald’s in Munich because it felt like a metaphorical Cold War peace offering and you needed food before you boarded your train to Berlin. I would explore the city before heading down to Austria.  For you, your visa and money were up and needed to return to a life you dreaded.  For me, it was a stop along the way before heading to my semester in Madrid. My uncle gifted me my Eurail pass for a month and my travel partner had canceled last minute from mono.  I thought I was brave to go anyway, alone.  I was just barely brave compared to you.  For the first time in my life, I profoundly understood how deeply lucky I was.  I was changed.

Your life, your experience living under communism (It’s always “under” never “with” or “during”), your need to see the larger world have stayed with me.  I wonder where you are and what you are doing with your life.  I wonder if you are in an integrated Berlin or perhaps operating a travel agency in London.

Our time together is one of those chinks in the chain that makes magic of travel.  References to The Wall coming down brings me to you, to our hours together and to a real human experience, melting the ink of the facts and figures we read in books.

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