Blog: On Harvey

Introduction

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to skip this week’s blog or not simply out of bereavement, but the more I sat with the idea, the more I felt it was important to use this as an outlet & to show the world just how amazing a dog it just lost. I know for those of you who knew Harvey, even in the limited capacity, you understand. He was something truly & deeply special that extends well beyond being ‘just a dog.’ I know this blog will be hard to write, I’ve faced that & accepted it. I know for some of you it may also be hard to read as the hearts broken by this loss are not simply my own. I don’t, as of writing this introductory paragraph, know exactly what shape this blog will take but I know at the very least it will include a bit of an obituary, probably a reflection from yours truly, & maybe something else. I guess time will tell. If I seem to lose the plot or narrative from time to time, I apologize, as previously stated this blog is going to hard for me to write, I am sure I will break down a few times, as I already have just from writing of him briefly in the middle of this section.

History

Harvey was born on January 21st, 2011 at a puppy mill somewhere in Missouri. He was the last of his liter & at a certain point was either sold or given away to a dog seller in Bolivar. I found Harvey in mid-May of 2011 in an ad for the Kansas City Star after finishing my freshmen semester at Belmont University. I’d just moved off campus & was in desperate search for a dog as I missed having one around. We’d always had dogs growing up & I’d always wanted a golden retriever & Harvey seemed to be the purebred golden that nobody wanted as he had sat in a concrete kennel for the first four months of his life. Harvey & I first met on May 20th of 2011. I loved him instantly. My sister drove me to go get him where I payed $250 dollars cash for him & fell in love instantly. He was dirty, in desperate need of a bath & a name change. At the time he was going by “Rusty” which is ironically what my father was called as a child. After throwing up in my sister’s car & pooping in my parents carpeted bathroom, he was given a thorough bath & driven back to Nashville with me.

Harvey & I hit it off instantly, we were basically inseparable. Most anywhere I went, he joined. We slept in the same bed, ate at the same time, ran together, swam together, spent evenings on the couch together & were truly the closest & fastest of friends. Harvey was goofy, he had an infectious smile & energy & often got the zoomies, especially when take outside & let off the leash in the vacant field behind my apartment. He was impossible to potty train, as prior to our meeting he’d never been on grass & my first apartment was concrete slab flooring, but I did my best to have patience with him.

Harvey saw me through breakups, spiraling depression, days where I couldn’t get out of bed but knew I had to for his sake. He was always there to rest his head on my legs & look up at me with the kindest eyes & the warmest kisses, especially on the days I needed them the most.

He & I moved out of the city to the suburbs in December of 2012 where he now had a yard to play in & a river to swim in which he quickly adapted to & became obsessed with on our afternoon runs. And there we lived, all this time, seeing changes in seasons, roommates, relationships, & life.

Around 2019-2020 Harvey’s health started to decline. At the age of nine he really started not doing well; his joints were diminishing, he was having liver issues, he was barely eating & didn’t want to do majority of the activities he loved. The average lifespan of a golden retriever is around 10 years so I began to think maybe it was just approaching his time. Either way I switched up his diet & began to walk him a little more. The real turning point came in June of 2020 when Evan & I adopted Peter. Pete was meant to be a bit of a ‘bridging dog,’ planning for the inevitable & making the transition hypothetically easier. Pete gave Harvey new life & on he went kicking for another three years or so.

At a certain point we had to stop our hikes, our trips to the river, & way before any of those, our runs. His old body just couldn’t take it anymore but he never lost his heart, his smile, or the love that beamed from him at all times. He just slowed down.

In November of last year Harvey fell while on a walk. He was walking, faltered a little, & then fell over. From there he almost completely diminished. He wouldn’t eat or walk. He had no interest in treats of anything. So we took him to my family’s for Thanksgiving so that they could say their 'goodbyes’ to him fully anticipating that he wouldn’t make it through the following week. I wrote a blog around that time call “The Part Of Pet Ownership That No One Takes To Heart” you can read it by clicking the title if you’d like. Eventually though, Harvey bounced back. Apparently large retrieving dogs are prone to strokes in their old age, which they can heal from & get over.

Harvey continued chugging along until a few weeks ago when he started to become very picky about food. It wasn’t necessarily that he wasn’t eating, is was that he would take a whole day to finish a bowl he usually polished off in one setting. We chocked it up to the kibble hurting his gums & switched him entirely to wet food & rice, which he ate most of upon being served.

What Happened

Earlier this week he stopped taking much interest in the wet food. He would eat a bite or two, but would let it sit & would nibble throughout the day. He would still always finish the bowl until a few days ago when he cut his food intake down from two bowls a day to barely making it through one. I had the intent of taking him to the vet on Friday if nothing changed but he beat us to it.

Thursday Evan & I fed the dogs, Harvey ate a bit but not much, but he was still his normal energy level & self so we left to run a few errands, see a movie, & have dinner with a friend. We arrived home later in our evening to find our kitchen covered in blood. The blood ended up being Peter’s & was coming from the tip of his tail which we originally wrote off as “Happy Tail Syndrome” where a dog smacks its tail on a wall or something sharp & bleeds. After we got him mended, we turned back to the both of them to instigate a walk.

We’d noticed that Harvey seemed aloof when we got in the door, he didn’t greet us there like he typically does & was laying against the window with his tail tucked & his head hung. We checked him initially to see if he had any bites from Pete as they’ve been known to fight from time to time, but he was unscathed. We tried to get him up to go outside before his walk but he had to be helped, not uncommon. He went to get a drink & immediately fell back over. Evan managed to get him outside where he said he kind of just wobbled around & didn’t do anything before coming inside & laying down. I tried to rouse him for the walk of which he showed no interest & when I got him back up he simply sauntered into the laundry room & slumped against the wall. It was then that I noticed his breathing was heavy, he was having contractions of his lower abdomen, & he was salivating a ton, in addition to being hyper lethargic. We loaded him & Peter up in the car & took him off to the emergency vet.

When we got to the emergency vet I had to carry him in. With the weight he’d lost over the last couple of weeks & age he was fairly light, relatively speaking. The doctors put him on a gurney & rushed him to the back. We sat for about an hour with no word. Eventually the doctor came in & explained to us that they’d done an x-ray & it showed a mass effect where his liver & spleen sat. He gave us two options. We could either put him down or have him stabilized until the morning at which point they would do an ultrasound & a series of tests to determine the cause. We asked for a quote for the latter, just to make sure there was nothing that could be done to heal him. They came back a while later with a quote of around $3K just for the hospitalization & the tests. At this point it was round 3 AM & we asked if he was stable enough to take home so that we could take him to our normal vet at 7:30 when they opened to see their thoughts & recommendations. We didn’t get him back & out of the hospital til around 3:45 at which point we got help from the techs loading him into the car on a towel.

I carried Harvey into the house & laid him on the bathroom floor, his favorite sleeping spot, especially when he was hot. He was running a mild fever so it seemed fitting. I got out my sleeping bag & bed mat & set up a temporary arrangement by his side to spend the next couple of hours in case he needed anything. I laid there stroking his fur as he breathed heavily until he fell asleep & I did the same.

Around 6 AM Harvey attempted to get up, he didn’t make it very far off his side & proceeded to defecate on the floor of the bathroom. I only share this detail because it’s important for the coloration. Typically when dealing with liver diseases or cancer you see a build up of yellow bile in the system, this was entirely that. I hoisted him into the bath tub, got him all cleaned up, & prepared to depart for the vets office.

At this point I had no misconceptions. I knew I was about to lose him but I wanted a professional to tell me there was little to nothing that could be done. I told Evan that he needed to prepare for that, that I was 95% sure we would be returning home later in the morning without him. He agreed on the feeling.

We arrived at Belmont Animal Hospital right before they opened. I followed a receptionist in & explained what had happened & that even though I knew I didn’t have an appointment I was hoping they’d still be able to help. She got the nurses to gurney Harvey in where they initially took in the back to get a doctor’s opinion before bringing the three of us into an exam room. The doctor met us there where she instructed us that she thought there was likely nothing they could do. They were willing to run the tests if we wanted them & needed that closure, but she said that even if they had answers the likelihood of them being able to do anything to fix it at his age was slim to none. We agreed that it was time & began the process of saying goodbye.

Harvey was so tired at the end. He could barely keep his eyes open, he had no interest in the bit of bacon that the brought him, & you could just tell that he was ready to go. I know selfishly we all want our dogs to live forever. We all want them to recover indefinitely & be with us til we go, but that’s not the deal, & it hurts like hell to have to make that decision but I don’t regret it one bit. It was his time & anything past that would’ve just extended his suffering for my own selfish reasons.

The doctor gave us time to say our goodbyes, the doctor he’d had since he was a puppy came in to sit with him for a while, then we Evan & I sat on the floor with him as they administered the euthanasia.

I’m pretty sure Harvey was gone after the second dose of anesthetic they gave him. He let out one last big deep breath even before the euthanasia had been administered. Harvey passed away peacefully & surrounded by people that loved him to the ends of the earth around 8:30 AM on Friday May 24th, 2024 at the ripe age of 13 years & 4 months & 3 days. We sat with him for probably another thirty minutes to an hour before we left him in the car of the staff.

The Aftermath

I’m going to be real with you all. I miss my dog. I miss him so horribly that I can hardly stand it. It is grief like that which I have never known. Harvey was my best friend. He was one of my favorite things about my life. I would have done anything for that dog. He had this ability to bring out the best of us & his sweetness & kind heart knew no bounds right up until the very end. He was a better companion than I ever could have dreamed to asked for & is honestly one of the main reasons that I still make footprints on this planet. Our house feels like a vacant shell without him, like all that is good has been sapped from us & our hearts & we are left to deal with nothing but pain & emptiness. Harvey was by far the best of us. He inspired so many into not only adopting Goldens but adopting dogs in general in the sheer hope that they too would get to experience the level of love Harvey poured into all of us nonstop. He is irreplaceable & the greatest dog I think I will ever have the privilege of knowing, all biases aside.

There are things that no one tells you about losing your dog. They never tell you how you’ll relive lost echos in each room you pass through, that you’ll walk in the door still expecting to be greeted but that infectious, loving smile, & it’s just gone. They never warn you how empty your house feels. How you’ll cautiously turn every cornered, widening your birth because you expect to see them still lying there on the floor. They don’t warn you about the vacancy'; not just the physical but also the massive, bottomless hole that it leaves in your heart. The feeling that a piece of you is gone that you will never be able to retrieve or mend, but will instead just eventually get used to. They don’t warn you that your other dog will whine in their sleep, that he’ll search endlessly in the usual places around the yard & in the house for them. That they’ll begin each day by looking for their leash then laying to watch & see if they return through the front door. They never warn you that’ll you’ll make too much dinner. That you’ll repeat the practice that you’ve carried on for years not realizing you’ve made too much because there’s a bowl that will forever remain empty now. They never warn you about the favorite toys, the leashes, the bowls, the special treats that are scattered around the home waiting to flood you with grief. They never warn you about the smells that you’ll catch on an old blanket or hoodie that immediately take you back to them. They never warn you about that first walk without them, about how much ever single step hurts when they’re gone. They never warn you about the signatures they leave behind; the hair, the smudged on the window where they used to sit & wait for your return, the scratches on the floor where they used to roll & scratch after they finished their supper. They never warn you of how the pain sneaks up on you, of how something will pop up out of the blue & remind you of them & in an instant you’re back on the floor whispering your goodbyes to them. They never warn you about how hard it is to carry on after a great dog goes& they never warn you how much it rips you to shreds to not be able to call their name & watch their ears perk up.

Harvey, I will miss you forever. I am so grateful for all that you were not just to me, but to so many & the outpour of love in your name speaks volumes to just how amazingly bright a star you were. I love you to the deepest extent of my soul & your passing has demolished me. I will spend the rest of my days searching endlessly for a better dog than you, though I know that is a fruitless & hopeless endeavor. Rest easy Rooster, I will spend my lifetime counting down the days til I am reunited with the dog who was nothing short of an angel.

I miss my dog y’all, more than anything, I miss him so damn bad.

Please hug your pets for me tonight. They are more precious than you can possibly imagine.

With love always,

-C

Harvey May 2020

Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Blog: Healing Doesn't Happen Overnight.

About mid-March something happened while I was diving in the Philippines. If you’re an avid reader of my blogs you may already know to what I am alluding, but if you are not, worry not, I will fill you in as we go. I sustained a small, yet meaningful injury while out in Bohol that ended up altering the course of my trip as well as the weeks & months following it & for the last two months I’ve treated said injury like it was nothing, like it was healed or a thing in the past, which for all intents & medical purposes, it is. But I came to the realization this week that I don’t think I’ve psychologically healed from it.

Back in March I perforated my left ear drum. I’m not entirely sure if it was done while diving or when I had two o-rings pop on scuba tanks right next to the ear ear in question, but I am starting to feel it was a combination of the the two with the latter being the inceptive event.

I went to a doctor in the Philippines for the injury as well as two separate otolaryngologists here in The States that assured me that the hole was there initially & that it was sealed up & in the process of being healed. I noticed the injury going forward mostly within the first month of having it. Loud noises would cause it to buzz uncomfortably, almost like the feeling of a high pitched dental drill, but without the sound, & it also kept me awake at night. My eustachian tube would crackle & pop all throughout the night, adjusting to the pressure within & without the mending drum. Other than that, I had no physical pain or wonky discomfort & by all measures of medicine, I was healing.

I came to the realization earlier this week that I hadn’t had my ears underwater since being diagnosed with the perforation in the Philippines. Yes, I take showers & cleaned my ears, but I hadn’t taken a bath or gone swimming which for someone like me who craves the water & being submersed there in, is incredibly strange. I realized that for two whole months I hadn’t stuck my head underwater, which medically is probably wise since a perforation can take a total of 3-4 months to fully heal, but psychologically I found myself getting very anxious at the sheer thought of submerging my whole being back in water which is something that has never happened for me.

The body keeps score, whether we as people want to acknowledge that we’ve been through something traumatic or not, the body knows & often times the latent affects of that take a while to make their way up through the grey matter of our subconscious into the forefront of our thinking, conscious brain. For some of us that never happens & we end up living out lives unaware of the trauma that we are storing in certain parts of our body & the physical manifestations therefrom. The more I thought & thought about submersion, the more anxious it made me, & the more angry I found myself getting that I would be anxious over something I thought so trivial & stupid. I’ve been swimming as long as I can remember, bodies of water, especially oceans, are my calming, safe place, my retreat when I need to stop feeling like I’m drying out. To an extent that all felt kind of ripped away from me even though I knew there were ways of going forward in life had the perforation continued to exist. It didn’t take me long to decide that I needed to reclaim my strength & fortitude & try dealing with my trauma head on so that hopefully, it too will start to heal.

I guess the powers that be kind of forced my hand too as Evan & I had to have birds removed from our walls & the only way the retrieval crew could get to them was through the ceiling of our shower, which I have since patched with drywall & fixed. However, while our shower has been out of commission, I was forced to take baths to get clean.

I spent a relatively long time in the bath the other evening. Our tub is fairly large & allows for a person to lay down comfortably in it at least majority submerged, so I spent my time there preparing for the inevitability of having to dunk my whole head to get clean. When the time finally came & felt myself having to overly prepare for it mentally, like stepping into a cold shower or an ice bath. Once my head was finally under I found myself having to fight to regulate my heart rate.

I did this a process a few more times, each time trying my best to calmly navigate my way through it, osculating my head back & forth to make sure to get the water in my ear. At a certain point I got comfortable enough to set with it & fortunately, by the end of it, my ear didn't end up having it feel wonky or uncomfortable.

I found my anxiety continuing even after the conclusion of my bath. I sat in bed mentally checking to see if anything felt off physically with the ear or if I felt it had been a mistake to carry out my trial, but the more time I sat & thought about it, the more anxious I became. I decided to put it out of my mind for the night & see if the morning bore any different results from those of the evening.

Morning came & went & nothing came of the fears that still lived within me. I took another bath that evening & allowed myself to go through the trials of the ear drum once again, drying it thoroughly afterwards just to be safe & using medicated drops to make sure the moisture wouldn’t become trapped & result in an infection. Still I felt uneasy about it all.

I realized I was trying to rush my healing. I wanted to force & mold something delicate & tender with sheer brute force & will power & I had to realize that, as with all things, healing takes time, especially when it comes to healing the mind. I have to give myself & my body the space & patience they need to come back together on the same page, in a place where I am able to submerge without becoming anxious or fearful that my ear drum is going to just fly back open. Just like my body didn’t physically heal over night, my mind can't & shouldn’t be expected to do the same.

I’ll be alright, I know I will. I know there will come a time down the road where I won’t thing twice about fully entering the water & that is worth waiting for & it is worth putting in the effort to heal along the way.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend or whatever point of the week this blog finds you & remember to extend a little patience & grace your own way!

As Always, Much Love,

-C

Blog: *Insert Title Here

To be honest, I’m here staring at my screen, watching the place indicator blink on what was a previously blank page with the word “blog:” typed in the title slot above. It’s been that way for about an hour now & while I don’t know if anything will come of it, I figured it was better for me to just start typing & figure the rest out along the way. I don’t know what this will be, if it will be anything at all. I can’t promise you that it will be worth your time to read or that it will change your mind about some goings on in the world at the moment, I’m just a guy sat at his computer, desperately trying to squeeze some creative juice onto a virtual page. At the end of the day is that enough? Is my lack of prophetic insight this week enough to classify it as content, is it enough to keep those who read this virtual collection of thoughts & experiences satiated for another week? I don’t know, but here I am, still typing away.

Maybe this will end up being more of a brain dump, at least that’s the direction it seems to be going following that previous paragraph. What meta commentary I have for you all this week. But I don’t outwardly know what I have that is exciting for me to talk about with you all, & maybe that’s okay too.

A part of me is sitting here saying “just delete the whole thing & go do something else, no one is going to want to read this nonsense, just call off the blog for this week until you have something interesting to say.” Then there’s another side of me telling me that that is a cop out. That I need to power through & put data to page simply for the act of doing so & to hell with the idea that having it be accepted by anyone as a genuine ‘blog entry.’ I can’t dictate how you feel about it any more than it seems I can come up for an idea for this week’s entry. But to some extent, isn’t this an idea?

Isn’t my rambling, my word vomit, some form of an idea? Because if I’m being frank, I want you to relate to me. Selfishly I want you to read this & understand & empathize with what it is to stare your weekly commitments in the face & come up dry with anything that you deem is of value. Which, let’s face it, we all can relate to.

If you’ve made it this far & haven’t snuck out on me, I applaud you & I guess I also thank you for your time & whatever persistence is driving you through this borderline nihilistic hogwash I am putting us all through. I can’t make promises that next week’s blog will be better or more interesting or that I’ll have a better grasp on a concept to present you all with because I don’t know those things & typically when I sit down to write with no knowing of where the blog will take my I eventually come up with something, but my inspiration is fleeting today it seems. Sorry for the run on sentence.

I don’t know if I can pull some profound meaning out of all of this for us to tie up in a neat little bow, nor am I sure that I want to, because in a lot of ways that would feel inauthentic & I fear would present me as a pontificating try hard. I truly don’t know where or when to wrap this or even why I continue typing as I am, but it is what it is I suppose.

I could, in theory, relate this all back to what it is to be a creative, to be expected to ‘turn on’ my creativity like a light switch, but that feels like playing the martyr, when in reality I’m so blessed to be able to do this. I’m blessed to have readers who return to this place like Nic Kidman in an AMC ad (at least that’s how I imagine it), I’m blessed to have the ability to afford a laptop, internet, a squarespace subscription, a domain, that allows me to have this public voice. I’m blessed to have a creative mind that I get to squeeze from time to time & I’m blessed with the aspects of myself that have drawn you all in to reading this, to listening to my songs, to liking my photos, etc. Again, no idea where I’m going with all of this.

I’m curious though. As I think this will be one of the last paragraphs of this open journey entry what this blog has left you with. What has it made you feel? What emotions has it brought up? Do you feel that I wasted your time or did you find some form of solace & comradery in my musings? Please let me know, if anything this blog has piqued my curiosity in the inner workings of you all & how you depart these brief sessions we share together each week.

As always,

Much love to you all,

…sorry I didn’t have something more interesting to say,

-C

Blog: Target Misses The Mark

Well it’s almost June & you know what that means, it’s time for the grungy shine of rainbow capitalism to once again rear its head & pretend to give two licks about members of the LGBTQIA+ community. As per the annual occurrence, Target has launched their often wildly hit or miss pride collection to its usual mixed reviews, only this time there’s an awful lot more ‘booing’ than usual coming from the ignorant side of the shopping aisle.

If you’ve been to a Target ever in your life you’ll know that they always feature the monthly collections at the entrance to the store, whether it’s black history month, asian pacific islanders heritage month, woman’s history month, etc, there is always a display that caters to those wishing to express their pride in their often marginalized, persecuted, & subjugated communities. (Read that again please CIS/Het white folks, marginalized, persecuted, & subjugated communities, you needs not apply.) Pride month is no different & with the massive wave of anti-LGBTQ legislature & sentiment on the rise, this year, more than others, that seems to be causing quite the controversy.

Those who view themselves on the hearsay moral authority of the right have decided that this blatant display of pride in what makes someone’s life more difficult statistically in past & modern American life is an attempt at, one of their new favorite terms, grooming. That the displays in the front of the store are promoting (dare I say) acceptance & tolerance & teaching kids (god forbid) that it’s okay to not be on the ‘straight’ & narrow & that their thoughts & feelings might just be normal. They took major issue with Target’s offering of clothing items for kids & infants that might simply exist just as a way for children to show support for their LGBTQ+ parents, relatives, etc. Naturally, if you are new here, you can see where I fall on this side of the argument. These people have called for a boycott of Target store & unfortunately, it seems to have worked.

Target stores, over the course of the week long boycott, experienced around a nine billion dollar loss in market value. Not a number to bat an eye at. Surprisingly, however, the momentary monetary loss was not the issue. The issue was that these hateful, loathsome humans took it upon themselves to start rattling off death threats to target employees, who are simply there trying to earn a minimum wage. These threats were so forceful & so numerous that not only has Target unfortunately complied, moving the collection to the back of a lot of stores, but these acts are literally beginning to be labeled as forms of domestic terrorism because at the end of the day what is terrorism if not an attempt to scare someone into doing what you want?

This sets a precedent, it signals to those who disagree with anything even remotely outside of their limited world view that they can throw a fit, threaten people, & their voice & demands will be heard. What Target has caved to here will allow this type of action to be taken against other businesses, corporations, etc without the fear of any repercussions. Target has not only racked up a major loss for the visibility of those in marginalized groups but also for anyone else who has the balls to stand up against these closed minded individuals & declare “no, this is what’s right” in the face of hate.

I hope you all have a lovely week or weekend, whenever you may be reading this!

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Stumbling Through Life

This past week when I arrived back home from Arizona I received an email from a site called Feedspot. In the email they congratulated me on being placed as one of their 70 Best Nashville Music Blogs & Websites in 2023 to which they assigned me the 35th place. Now, I never applied for this site, nor had I honestly heard of it until I received the email, additionally I know absolutely zilch about the site or company itself but at the end of the day I’m honored that I was even considered to be on the list at all. After all, this blog is often just a journal of my ramblings & misadventures, a collection of my thoughts & feelings. The crazy thing is that, for whatever reason, it connects with people & that is what I am most grateful for.

So be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing each Friday or Saturday when I post a new entry in this crazy chronicle. What started out as a way to share my travel expertise & taste has shifted into a bit of an enigma that I’m still not entirely sure I have a grasp on. I’ve mentioned it before in previous blogs just how random & unexpected this is at times but in all honesty it often feels like I’m just stumbling through life, randomly landing on the occasional accomplishment.

I think this is true of most things I do; I put out music & it often sticks in the most random of places but seldom the ones that I intend. Same goes for this space. The blogs I write out of pain, frustration, or exhaustion are often the ones that are still read to this day. So too are the ones that I write from random spur of the moment travels, not the ones I spend weeks crafting trying to give my best possible recommendations for the many places in the world that I have frequented. To say I feel a tad unmoored or aimless in my day to day would be an understatement.

Maybe that’s all a part of the human experience, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but it feels like most days I wake up with a big, fat question mark floating above my head. I spend most of my mornings trying desperately to figure out the course of my day. Do I still have lists of tasks & work that I do each day? Of course, but it feels a little like I’m going through the motions a bit with no real end in sight. I don’t mean to say I’m depressed, quite the opposite, of the most part I find myself content, which is something that I believe we should all strive for, but I wish I had a better sense of direction or overt purpose than what I feel on my average day.

Again, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, or maybe this is entirely taboo to you as a reader but there are so many days that I wish someone would just grab me by the shoulders, look me dead in the eyes, & say ‘this is what you’re meant to be doing & this is how you get there.’ I wish there was an overt light or guide holding my hand through the blackness & pulling me towards my destination instead of feeling like a mast-less ship adrift in the middle of the Pacific surviving of a steady supply of rainwater, fresh fish, & a library of assorted books, musical instruments, & games. Did that analogy land or did it sink?…I’ll leave.

At the end of the day I am grateful. I am grateful that I get to spend my life creating in different fashions. I am grateful that I get to see & experience the world & all of the incredible beauties it holds. I am grateful that I have the space & lack of pressure to do something that is soul sucking & I am grateful to each of you out there who read or listen to the inner machinations of my mind & find them interesting enough to keep coming back. I am just longing for clear direction as so many of us do but in the mean time I intend to stay in my contentment & learn as I try to grow towards whatever end awaits me.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Rediscovering The Joy In Your Passions

This past week I had the utter privilege of spending some time with a few fellow artists & friends in Arizona at a songwriter’s retreat put on by the Songbird Society out of Adelaide, Australia. This camp was centered entirely around two concepts; tension & release.

The first point of interest, tension, was meant to help us as songwriters find the points of tension within our creativity that keep us from creating to our fullest. We each were given a series of prompts at the beginning of the day, after a morning yoga session, & asked to think about them throughout the day & bring them with us into the sessions we were given. The rules were simple regarding the songs themselves. Whoever’s idea the song started as had right of first use. The sessions were also meant to be open, honest, & vulnerable & established a safe space for expression & transparency. The songs that each of the two groups of writers produced were organic & an amazingly natural flowing process of creation. When snags were reached, they were easily talked & worked through without allowing the session to get bogged down & turned into a grueling task. The art that was created in these sessions was free, personal, & inspiring.

Following our sessions on the first day we sat down to engage in symposium. Each of us took turns discussing the areas of our lives that we felt carried tension, be it personal or creative. From there we were prompted to see ways forward through our lives & creative process that would allow the alleviation of said points of tension.

The second day focused on release. We started the day with a five AM double black diamond hike up the side of a mountain & then spent the remainder of the morning in ease while contemplating the prompts we were given post hike regarding the release of our points of tension. Sessions took place in the early afternoon after we’d regained our energy & footing & were once again an inspiring free fall into the depths of what it is to be a songwriter & to create amazing, personal yet still widely appealing, art. Both sets of sessions ran into often outright painful points of tension for the focal songwriter but both groups worked through them in a loving & understanding manner. The evening concluded with us showcasing our songs & once again engaging in symposium.

On the third day we shifted course a little. We ended up setting two rooms in which the producers/engineers on the track were given a prompt that would put them out of their comfort zone, allowing them to experiment through trial & error in an affirming & encouraging space. The writers for each of these rooms were not set but instead kind of ended up happening by happenstance & once more, beautiful, innovative art was created!

My point in bringing up my week & telling the base story around it is not to showcase or showoff how great & amazing a creative experience I was privy to, but instead to encourage. You see we all left this week (there were more days that just the three where we did other engaging & creative pursuits) with a new found sense of purpose, with a newly established spark of creativity. Songbird took a group of individuals, a lot of whom knew each other very well, & fostered an experience that expanded & fine tuned not only our interpersonal relationships but also our creative spirits. We all left the camp with hope & optimism & a joy for the art of songwriting that I personally had lost.

We’re all led to do the things we do out of passion. We’ve all heard the saying “do what you love & you’ll never work a day” but so many of us end up resenting the thing we started doing out of love & enjoyment because it becomes work & loses all sense of fun. I know I can speak to this personally by saying that a lot of the writing rooms I’ve left in the past few years have left me almost with an icky feeling stirring around my gut, because that love of what was being done & what was being created was absent. Now, that’s not to say all writes were like this but there was truly something different about the writing that was being done & the spirit in which it was being created that made me feel reborn.

So often we go into our work with the purest intentions & somewhere along the way lose sight of the reason behind why we started it in the first place. I mean, to be honest, I was really starting to question whether or not this was something I even wanted anymore because of how grueling it had become. I knew, deep inside that the answers was ‘of course’ but I could for the life of me find that ember that was still holding on to the hope of what I love doing.

How does this apply to you? Well I ask you, when was the last time you felt inspired & in love with the work that you do? When did you lose that & why? These are not things that are irreversible, you got into the rut somehow & there’s always a way out whether that lies in the past or in moving forward towards the future. In all honesty, I spoke to my father about the week & he said something rather jarring to me. I said that for once writing doesn’t feel like work, it feels free & creative & fun. To which he replied that work should feel like work, that’s what it is. Which then led me to this blog because I know so many people who are miserable doing the things they set out to do with the purest intention because they’ve lost the spark that brought them to where they are now.

Your work shouldn’t be draining, especially if it’s something you love doing. It should be life giving & inspiring & if you find that isn’t the case I would challenge you to take the time to figure out why. To find your points of tension & release them so that you can spend the time living in a place that brings you happiness & satisfaction, not just potential profit & gain.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: The New American Dream

Earlier this week, after the horrific events in Texas & the egregious mishandling & lack of policy change that went along with it, a friend of mine posted a prompt on their story. They were asking any one of their followers to give any insight that they had on how to legally bow out of the United States. I can already feel some of you turning off after reading that but this is a genuine sentiment shared by much of those the Millennial & Gen Z age range. We feel this country is sliding further & further away from the ideals & policies we’d like to see in place & is being continuously run by outdated, out of touch politicians. Whether you agree with that statement or not is beside the point, it’s fact.

We live in a country where Millennials are still being forced to rent well into their thirties because the housing market is outlandishly high & wages are outlandishly low. We live in a country where people use seeking medical help is a very last resort & even then people would often rather suffer than go into outrageous medical debt. We are one of the only “first world” countries without Universal Healthcare, Paid Medical Leave, Paid Vacation Time, Proper Work/Life Balance, Comprehensive Gun Laws, Prioritized Free Education Systems, Etc. And those, especially in the older generations, who are happy with the state of things because it does them no harm, don’t understand how we can look at countries like The UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, those in Scandinavia & majority of The EU, etc., & want for that.

So often the narrative in this country is that we are free, so so free, but free to what? The truth of the matter is that most Americans have no idea what true freedom is. True freedom is not the ability to do something, it is the ability to not have to worry about something. To not have to worry about choosing your health, their job, or going into debt, to not have to worry about getting shot in your school, place of worship, grocery store, etc., to not have to worry about being able to afford education that will propel you into jobs that aren’t soul sucking, to not worry if the next day some lobbied politician will strip your rights away, to not have to worry if your work will allow you time to still see your friends, family, maintain a social life, etc. True freedom is bliss, not ignorant bliss, but having systems in place that allow for their citizens to live, not just be cogs in the capitalist machine.

The new American dream has become that of Exodus. We want so badly to get out because we see that the storm is only getting worse along the horizon. We see how people live, truly live, in other countries & we envy that. I don’t profess to have the answers to the current American problems because they are innumerable from what I can see, I’m just here to inform, to recognize a common thread that I see becoming more & more apparent.

I, myself, have had this idea at the forefront of my brain. The impending & current doom of the states has me looking furiously for exits, seeing where I can be grandfathered into citizenship, who offers college programs, etc. Do I want to leave America? No, if I had a choice to stay & fix everything or leave I’d gladly pick the former but it’s becoming more & more apparent that we may have slipped far beyond repair.

You want to save this country? Stop electing self righteous, hateful nut jobs who are so out of touch with the people they represent & start electing people that care for the future of America, not its present.

I don’t want to have to leave this country but I fear that is where we are rapidly heading. I know a lot of you my age who are reading this feel the same & I wish I had an easy answer for you all, but I don’t. I think this November will be the deciding line for a lot of people with the threats against America’s established laws via privacy (Roe V. Wade, Oberfell V. Hodges, etc.), the fight to finally have some form of gun control, & the continued marginalization happening, I fear if this election season goes poorly the mass exodus will be in full swing.

I hope you have a great weekend & don’t weigh too heavily on all this, there is always a way out & always hope, keep pressing on.

-C

Object Writing: Wick

It flickers delicately in the softly shifting air of my abode. As its warmth turns wax to liquid & then to vapor it expels scents of Spearmint, Texas Cedar, Rose, Palo Santo, Rosemary, Grapefruit, & Eucalyptus into the space around it. The aromatic mixture invigorates the senses of all who pass into the space, igniting a deep calm that puts the brain at ease & unwinds the tension of muscular stress. This candle is of my own design, a combination of all that which puts me in a place of hospitable comfort. It is a natural favorite that I savor endlessly despite having the means for its recreation at any given moment. The melted wax & its aroma put me at peace & give me a sense of home that I feel has escaped me for so long.

Object Writing: Lightsaber

In Honor of May the Fourth!

Lightsaber

The pieces sit patiently waiting before me scattered meticulously over a thin shroud. Ceremony. My knees ache from the pressure of my personage against the dense, well practiced stone beneath them all while the light flickers around me, the smell of tradition & ritual settling comfortably into my nostrils. I reach out hesitant, space & time pulse with gentle insistence the closer my fingers get to the heart of that which I aim to construct & suddenly, without warning my mind is flooded with visions; a cacophonous eruption of life, death, light, & darkness, the swirling eternity calling out to me through this one small object. It had called to me before, this crystal. From deep within the cavern of its origin I heard its soft ring beaconing me to come & lay claim to it. Despite its make the stone is warm to the touch, like the embrace of an old friend it sends familiarity coursing through my veins before nestling neatly into my bones. I pick it up, turning it over diligently in my hand before reaching over to retrieve its housing. Once it is fixed in place it sends out a tintinnabulation of joyous acceptance. I grab the remainder of the guard & continue my meticulous assembly. The metal is cold to the touch in contrast to that of its core but it still feels instantly recognizable like the still of a snow covered winter’s eve. Once my task is complete so too is the rite. I stand victorious & the light is extinguished from the room. Igniting the blade it shares its true color with me, a reflection of its now bonded wielder. I am one of them, one of the Jedi & The Force is strong with me.

Travel Blog: Maui-Part One-Travel

SECTION ONE : KANSAS

In case you missed it, Evan & I took a week & went to Maui. I had been to Maui before but it’d been about 16 years since I was last there, Ev had never been. We were fully vaccinated, quarantined completely like good boys for the entirety of this COVID nightmare, Maui had just begun fully opening up for tourism, & the tickets were cheap so we said “yup, that’s for me” & went.

Our journey started not in Nashville, but instead in Kansas City; my parents live there & graciously offered to watch the pups while we were away. Part of your entry into the state of Hawaii consists of having a negative COVID test from within 72 hours of your arrival. So seeing as our flight was due to depart on Wednesday we drove our way to Kansas on Sunday grabbing Hawaiian Bros on the way in preparation for our trip….which I have since found out is run by four white people with no affiliation to Hawaii or its culture & that feels an awful lot like appropriation to me…

Monday started off not too eventful; just covid testing, a few errands, hung out with my niece & nephew, & filling out all of the documentation required to enter Maui from the airport. I grabbed my favorite turkey club from Jersey Boys in Overland Park before calling it an early night & heading into a much more eventful Tuesday…

Tuesday morning rolled around, I got up to swim laps with my father & Evan worked from home in the basement. I found myself exhausted from the hour long swim & the early morning so I took a brief nap only to get up & be met with my favorite KC barbecue, Jack Stack for lunch! (My order: Jack’s Best & Smoked Wings with Cheesy Corn & Beans) After lunch I ran to grab a new carryon bag, as the one I’d had since 2011 had officially bit the dust. I returned home to hang out with my sister before we had planned to go to the Royals game that evening. Our flight was set to leave MCI at 6 AM the next day & fly from KC to Dallas then we’d have an hour layover in Dallas before continuing on to Maui. Well while hanging out with Tori I got a call from American Airlines, whom I’d never flown before, saying that our flight to Dallas had been cancelled due to weather. Evan went into panic mode. I, someone who seldom gets overly stressed about anything, starting looking for solutions. While on hold with American Airlines, the hold time of which I was told was going to be over two hours, I was looking into other airlines, trying to find ways to fly to Dallas that evening instead of waiting in the morning but the plan eventually became “rent a car & drive over night to Dallas.” Fortunately before that plan could be full enacted a lovely woman picked up on the other end of the line & found us a route to Maui through Phoenix. It left around the same time but had a much longer layover of four hours. It also, naturally, arrived in Maui much later & was bumping up to the closing time of the rental car agency we were picking up a (two day) car from…more on that later. During this whole ordeal Evan had apparently gone downstairs & speed packed his entire suitcase in ten minutes planning to have to leave then & there for Dallas by car, still glad that didn’t happen. With new flights & of course upgraded seats we headed off to the Royals game for the night.

Got to bed a lot later than I’d hoped on Tuesday evening. I blame the ball game & the fact that I hadn’t taken the time during the day to pack. Really it all comes down to user error. Either way we had to head to the airport around 4 AM as my rentals live about an hour away from MCI. I think in total I got about three hours of sleep that night…thriving! The airport was dead, just like I felt inside at that point, & security was a breeze. Our flight to Phoenix however was full. I’m pretty sure I slept the whole time but I can’t recall now thinking back on it. At any rate, we landed in Phoenix & were now faced with four hours of “what the hell we gone do now?” We decided to venture out into the greater Phoenix metropolitan era in search of sustenance. I was really hoping to find a place that served endless sopapillas with honey in a bread basket a la Cheesecake Factory style but none of them were open so we found a trendy little breakfast spot called The Hash Kitchen & grabbed cold brew, tamales verdes benedict, s’mores pancakes, & blue corn banana’s foster pancakes! Yes, they smacked.

After finding our way back to the airport we took one of those quick, corner airport naps before finally boarding our flight to Hawai’i! Our flight took six hours to get to Maui & it only took about an hour to realize my computer hadn’t downloaded any of the movies I told it to…so it was a long flight.

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SECTION TWO : MAUI

DAY ONE

We landed in Maui around 2:45 PM Hawaiian time & were immediately put in line to check-in & show our COVID documentation. Evan had been really on top of making sure that we had all our ducks in a row so the check-in was a breeze! It really helped that we brought our vaccine cards with us as well!

While we had been in line for the check-in I received a call from our rental car company asking when we’d be arriving to pick up the car as they were planning to close at 4 PM that day. It was a car that we were only going to be able to rent for two days because all of the other cars on the island were spoken for or several hundred dollars a day to rent & we planned to use it to do all the things around the island that required a car to get there. We didn’t get through with check-in & getting our baggage until around 3:15 & it was a 30 minute cab ride to the rental company. In addition to the distance all of the Lyfts & Ubers were telling us that it would be at least 35-40 minutes before they could even get there to pick us up. I made the executive decision to hail a cab.

We got the last. available. cab. Now would be a good time I guess to talk about the super power I have! I have the ability to get a parking spot, a reservation, or find transportation anywhere. This will come into play again later as well. So. Last cab at the airport! The whole ride to the rental company the driver was getting request after request after request for a ride & she was having to tell each caller that it’d be at least 45 minutes before she could get to them.

As I posted in an earlier blog, I believe there is no such thing as a coincidence. See in more detail here! That being said, our driver initially dropped us at the “wrong” rental agency, I’ll explain why wrong is in quotes a little later on. She quickly corrected the mistake & we arrived to pick up the Chevy Cruz, lol, we’d reserved right at 3:45!

From there we stopped by Maui Dive Shop so that I could fill out some of my scuba paper work & so Evan could grab some snorkel gear. We then went to go check in to our VRBO in South Kihei. It was a cute little one bedroom/one bath with a full kitchen, living room, & a balcony that overlooked Charley Young Park! Our hostess, Diane, whom I never had the pleasure of meeting in person was an absolute gem, she was so accommodating & such a lovely human to interact with even if our dialogue was limited to the digital. If you’d like to see more of this listing or book it yourself the link is here!

The street our VRBO was on! It’s the third floor balcony with the chair against the railing.

After checking in & making sure our car wasn’t going to get towed I immediately dropped my bags, fished out my fins, mask, & snorkel, put on a bathing suit & got my ass into the ocean. If you weren’t aware, I’m definitely a saltwater soul, I dry out far too often & require placement in the nearest ocean ASAP. So even though the sun was beginning to set, I had to get in. I was instantly greeted by a small school of trevally which naturally brought me immediate joy!

We spent about 30-45 minutes in the ocean before the hunger began to set in. Seeing as we thought we’d only have a rental car for two days we decided to venture back up to Kahului & grab dinner from Tin Roof. At the recommendation of our cashier we ordered Mochiko Chicken on Garlic Noodles, Pork Belly on Rice, Ulu Mac Salad, & Birthday Cake Bibingka, I unfortunately don’t have any pictures from this meal to share with you all. On the way back to the condo we stopped at a natural foods market & stocked up on a few items we figured we could use for snacking throughout the week; mangos, papaya, pineapple, cassava chips, Paia Gelato, juice, Hawaiian Suns, etc. When we got back we broke out the food, ate on the balcony, & I had a religious experience with a mango.

Am I about to devote an entire paragraph to a mango, you bet your ass I am. So, we get back to the condo, we’re plating up the to-go food we got from Tin Roof & I decide we need a little side of produce as well, & cut up a mango. Now, this mango was from a local mango farm called Yee’s. Yee’s Orchard & Fruit Stand can be found in Kihei operating mostly mid-week & weekends (closed Mondays & Fridays). The mango I had the privilege of consuming was a Golden Glow Mango which is apparently akin to the Alphonso Mango of India, which is said to be the best mango in the world, go figure it’s banned in the US cuz we can’t have nice things here, you know, like universal healthcare…ANYWAY, this was the sweetest, creamiest, most perfect mango I’ve ever eaten in my life, so naturally I filled the rest of the trip with my daily portion of them.

We went to bed fairly early on, because, you know, travel exhaustion & minimal sleep & we prepared for another busy day to follow.

END DAY ONE

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DAY TWO

We woke up around 6:30 AM partially because circadian rhythm, partially because we were told by the woman at our rental car agency to get breakfast at Kihei Caffe, who gets a line fairly early, & partially because we had a day planned that was full of a lot of driving & a lot of hiking. We got to Kihei Caffe around 7:15 & the line was already wrapped around the building. It was moving fairly quickly so we decided to risk it. While in line I popped into Lava Java Coffee Roasters & I got us each a Granita, which is a frozen mocha with a little extra love added to it. The line only took us about 15-20 minutes before we were at the register ordering. I, once again, had the cashier order for me. She selected Loco Moco w/ Kalua Pork, Papaya Delight, & French Toast w/ Bananas & Macadamia Nuts topped w/ Coconut Syrup. All of it smacked but despite my sweet tooth I think my favorite parts of the meal were the first two items!

We immediately left breakfast & started our climb up Haleakala. I guess now would be a good time to mention the one time my superpower didn’t work. I tried to get us reservations for the sunrise at the summit of Haleakala…it sold out in 15 seconds BUT on the flipside of the same day, my superpowers pulled through! You see the previous day when our driver had dropped us at the wrong rental service something piqued in my brain. What if this “wrong” local rental service is actually the right local rental service? So, as we drove, I had Evan look up the rental agency & request a car from Friday-Tuesday when we were departing. THEY HAD ONE! ONE SINGULAR CAR LEFT! AAAAAND IT WASN’T SOMETHING THAT WOULD REQURE ME TO TAKE OUT A SECONDARY MORTGAGE ON THE HOUSE!!!!

The drive to the top of the volcano took us about an hour & a half but along the way you pass through some beautiful parts of the island! From the blue jacaranda trees to the eucalyptus groves there is massive monstera & pothos growing everywhere, its worth the climb for the drive alone. The summit & crater of Haleakala sit within Haleakala National Park, upon the top there is an observatory as well as a small visitors center. We walked around the top before making a slight decent down to the trail that leads into the crater. The whole hike is about 11 miles in total but we decided to only hike down to a small ridge in the center, about a mile or so down.

Haleakala is one of only a few energy vortexes on this planet. In addition to its measurable energies it is also sacred to the Hawaiian people & I can absolutely understand why. The air feels different here, not just because of the altitude but it feels charged while at the same time being very soothing. Where the trail steepens at the ridge we stopped & did a brief meditation. The wind whipping through your hair, the soft brush of the red volcanic ash over your skin, it truly is a magical place & I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to spend even the smallest amount of time there.

Feeling energetically a new, with a caked on layer of red dust & definitely a slight sunburn in spite of copious amounts of sunblock, we ascended the slops back up to our Chevy Cruz & began the winding decent back down the sacred mountain, our next destination being the Highway to Hana.

Halfway down the mountain we realized that we had rapidly burnt through our supply of gas during the climb & were in need of a refuel if we were to make it around the rest of the island. Fortunately the small town of Kula exists. We found this adorable gas station & general store run by the cutest elderly couple. Their whole business was cash based & the store was truly a perfectionists nightmare. I loved it. Next door to these modest lots sat another, Grandma’s Coffee House. Feeling the post hike grumblies & a tad under caffeinated we stopped in for an Iced Coffee, a slice of Coconut/Banana Dream Cake, & a Coconut Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie!

Refueled we pressed on through the up country til we came upon MauiWine. We hadn’t planned to stop but the place was aesthetic AF & I’m a sucker for a tasting menu of any kind. We were told the current wait for the wine tasting was about an hour & since we had places to be & people to see, i.e. trying to make it through to the Seven Sacred Pools, we decided to grab a bottle instead & save it for consumption when we got back to Kihei. They had quite a few Pineapple & Lilokoi (Hawaiian Passionfruit) Wines but the somm on duty recommended a sparkling white grown on island called Ulupalakua Blanc de Blanc. With the bag secured the voyage continued.

If you’ve never driven the Highway to Hana it’s actually a fairly daunting experience, especially for those who would consider themselves not the greatest of drivers & especially in a Chevy Cruz…The drive is absolutely beautiful, there’s no denying that, & I was more than capable of driving it but majority of it consists of one-ish lane roads with no shoulder that are often times either not paved or are paved in the most peculiar of ways. It however cannot be overstated just how beautiful this drive is. You find yourself, over the course of around two hours or so, transitioning from biome to biome as you wrap around the island of Maui. You go from upcountry to lava fields, from lava fields to rocky herding lands, from the herd lands to grassy farms & then finally into sheer jungle. The amount of biodiversity & different landscape is astounding.

We got to the Seven Sacred Pools a little late, really only having about an hour to hike it before the National Park closed so unfortunately we only got to go up to the first of the seven major waterfall. The beauty of the drive, the sense of adventure, the falls themselves, & what was to follow really made the trek worth it though; it’s just for next time I’ll plan to be there a little earlier so I can see it all!

Slightly saddened that we couldn’t get a swim out of the day (you can’t swim in the pools anyway) we continued on down the road toward Hana. Along the way we rounded a corner & found a line of cars parked off to the side of the road with a ton of people just standing around. At the end of the line of cars sat a covered pickup adorned with palm fronds that was blasting reggae. In front of the car stood a family of four; mother, father, & their two boys both no older than four. They were standing in behind a wagon with a machete. In the wagon, & in the back of the pickup, were mounds upon mounds of fresh coconut. Remarking at how cute the roadside set up was we continued on past the stationary vehicles til we noticed several people on the road crossing the bridge ahead. As we cautiously passed them we noticed all of these people were walking up to or returning from a beautiful waterfall that sat just off the road to the right. I knew immediately we had to stop. Evan, on the other hand, was hesitant but I veto’d his apprehension & we turned around.

I quickly parked the car, grabbed my swimming suit & my GoPro, & we too headed over the bridge to the falls. The path down to them was an easy decent freshly paved with mud from the frequent traffic of the dampened returning from their swim. Down the garnished path of giant pothos & slick black lava rock we found a nook to store our towels, clothes, & phones & slipped into the mirky pool the sat below. The water was frigid, but oh so relaxing after a long day spent sweating in the blazing sun & humid jungle. We found our way across the pool to a small cave tucked away at the base of the falls & sat there watching the water rain down from above. We were then met with the sounds of horns blaring. Not sure if they were from park rangers or a flash flood warning we shot out of the water & quickly gathered up our belongings before making our way back to the car. We were met on the bridge by one of the National Park rangers who lovingly asked how the water was & said she herself would have stopped if she didn’t have to be elsewhere.

Returning by way of the family selling coconuts I paused to ask them how much each of their drupes were selling for. I was told $10 cash which I happily paid & they hacked me open a fresh coconut. The water within was sweet & refreshing & they explained that they were continuing a tradition passed down from a gent who used to sit by the falls & weave palm frond hats, a shrine to whom sat across from where their vehicle sat. I thanked them for the coconut & we continued down the road.

From the park ranger at Seven Sacred Pools we got the recommendation to stop at I Lava Tacos. I Lava Tacos sat inside a large community of other food trucks but they were the only one open at the time of our arrival. We ordered the freshest Fish Tacos I’ve ever consumed, the most amazing Guava Wood Smoked Marlin Dip, & a Carne Asada Tacos. Truly breathtaking food! The owner, Justis Andrada, was such a cool guy & was more than happy to show off his amazing culinary prowess!

With full bellies, warmed hearts, & in the fading light of the sun we continued our way around the island back home to Kihei.

I think if I have one regret for the entirely of this trip it’s that we didn’t spend more time in Hana, it seems like a remarkable place full of lively people & incredible culture. I’m also sad we missed the views on the east coast of the island in the sun’s absence but I’m sure we’ll be back soon to take them in!

END DAY TWO

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I’m more than excited to fill you in on more of our Maui adventures but it’ll have to wait til next week when we’ll get to talk Scuba amongst other things!!!

Until next week,

C

Blog: But Like...Bro, Where Have You Been?

Hi!

Did you miss me? I sure hope you did haha.

Soooooo, I’m going to cut right to the chase on this one, make it a little easier on all of us. Rip off the figurative bandage….all of this sounds very dramatic, it’s really not. I’ve been two places. I’m going to start with the second primarily because it was definitely the more fun of the two by a million & a half miles. As I’m sure many of you saw all over my social media accounts, I was in Maui! Yes, it was as amazing & yes, I’m ready to sell everything & move there tomorrow. On the other hand, the first place that I was……not so fun. I was sick, like “hacking up my lungs in bed for two weeks straight” sick. Like “completely lost my voice, barely slept cuz I was coughing all night” sick. Like “had to go back to the doctor a week after my initial diagnosis to get a new diagnosis” sick. Like…well…you get the point…

I will spare you the gruesome details regarding the color, shade, volume, & consistency of the gunk I was having to evacuate from my lungs as well as the lengthy states of lethargy it induced & instead will leave the “sickness” portion of this blog at this. We still have no idea the root cause of my phlegmy ailment, however it did appear to be bacterial, opposite of the initial diagnosis I received from doctor #1. They ended up treating me with doxycycline, an antibiotic sometimes used to treat bronchitis, malaria, & other more deeply set, non-sinus, bacterial infections. And while I am better, immensely so in fact, I still am in recovery mode for it, especially where my voice is concerned.

On the other glorious, beautiful, & immaculate hand was Maui. I don’t want to say too much about Maui here & now, simply because I’m saving it for later blogs, there’s a lot to tell there! So for this section of the blog I’m going to leave it at the following. To all the wonderful folks I met along the way this last week, thank you for making my trip such a vibrant & comforting experience. I am so happy to have met each & every one of you & for the often lengthy gestures of hospitality you each showed me in your own unique ways. You truly made me feel right at home.

I know this blog post isn’t as long winded as I normally am; I didn’t anticipate it being so, especially since I got back into town Thursday night, late. I just wanted to come on here to give you all a little information into my sudden disappearance & tell you that moving forward for the foreseeable future, blogs are back! Next week’s will definitely be about Maui, the following may also be. It’ll be full of pictures & videos & stories & all the wonderful things our modern brains crave, so stay tuned for that! In the interim, I look forward to interacting with you all over socials & hope you know just how excited I am to share my magical experiences with you all!

I hope you have the greatest of weeks!

-C