Saturday, January 28, 2012

The beginning of change NYC to Guam 2 Jan 09

The beginning of change NYC to Guam

When I hit the ground from NYC on 2 January 09 after flying the kids back I entered my empty house and sat down and cried.

It was a very lonely place with out my tropical monkeys to keep me company.

I went to bed, woke up the next morning and sat back strategizing on how I could possibly get my entire house packed into 2 shipments to the U.A.E. and NYC and the yard sale stuff by the 15th of January.

Then the knock at my window came.  I went out and it was my friend J.

He had been begging me to do this great ocean swim to a cave for as long as I could remember. Until now, I could never go at lunch because I only had a half hour. The kids (who are amazing swimmers & snorkelers) could not have made the swim.

I grabbed my tennis shoes and goggles, put on my bikini, jumped into J's island boonie beater truck and headed to a hidden beach.

The waters were very (understatement) rough. (I knew there was a tropical storm headed in..even on an average day this isn't something exactly most "normal" people would ever do) We threw caution to the wind, (calculated risk...he did the math, crazy submariner nuke nutter) and set out to swim past the reef into the place where you can not see the bottom (pretty creepy but beautiful) into the Philippine Sea.  Out and around the tip of a tremendous rock to a place not many will ever see.

Behold the giant cave (GET THIS) WITH a rope swing in it. (Que Pirate music (Japanese Pirate Music...Nah...ok thats a stretch)) The trick to get to the swing was timing & climbing. There's also the small matter of the intake to small cave to the left. If you got caught in the wrong current you would get pulled into and stuck in the small cave getting smashed against the coral. (YoHoHo and a bottle of rum LOL good thing I don't drink rum)

J gave me explicit instructions on how to catch the current at the right time and my foot positioning once I got the spot in the cave to climb up.

Thank you J.

On a normal day I would have laughed at this as an easy challenge but still been cautious.  Today the waves were enormous. It was fabulous, freaking surfing without a surf board.

The only time I think I ever remember such a strong current (until last recently, before another hurricane on another coast) was when I was a white water rafting guide in college...After rafting ended, we used have the guy who drove the truck drop our kayaks w/ boogie boards bungied on top downstream.




Walk down the trail, stand on the rail and jump off a bridge (trying not to get busted) into the river, ride the current to our kayaks get to the rapids, to take boogie boards and go into the rapids and surf and crash..until it was almost dusk.  Then kayak the rest of the way back to the campground and sleep till the next day...Rinse, repeat...LOL At any rate....The cave...

J went in for the first go at the rock and I watched…He missed….He went in for another go when the lull came it.. He made it! RAWR Success!

So out of the safety of my floating in the open Philippine Sea I patiently waited for a lull and then went for it….getting bashed by waves and currents all the way…(I've been swimming, surfing, in the water my entire life, this was a challenge) I swam in, missed the pull into the small cave (whew) and made it to the face. Got my feet on the rock and went to pull up higher to climb onto the first ledge and a huge wave came in and pummeled me against the coral face.

I only cut my hands, elbow and knees in a couple of places so no big deal. But boy was I tired from the fight with the currents.  I might be a "little touched" according to some, but not full blown stupid.  So instead of going back in straight away, I swam back out into the open sea and rested for about 10 minutes.

I really love just hanging out looking at all the beauty and silence (well the roar of the surf but thats music to my ears) So I floated on my tummy and looked at fish (the beautiful fish...man do I miss that place) Thinking I am all alone in the sea...I spy the spear fishermen who appeared below my feet LOL!

One pops up next to me, and I say "Haifa"! How’s the fishing? It was really quite funny to have a conversation with a few guys with spears in the middle of the sea while I was hanging out with my tennis shoes on and bikini and goggles LOL….Neptune was watching out for me that day.

I waited for a lull in the waves (not much of a lull with the oncoming storm) and went at it full force.  Gave it everything I had.  Got into the flow, felt out the pull, drew down and kept out of the pull into the small cave and finally caught my feet on the rock. Another HUGE wave was coming in, I could feel it tugging at me, the pull out waiting for it to come in….I climbed faster than I have ever climbed the face of any rock in Utah, Idaho, California, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington... anywhere.

I made it up to the first ledge by the skin of my teeth, just before the wave hit. It was inching at me...teasing me...baiting me to draw me back into the sea. It actually came up to the first ledge and almost got me.

Thank you J for being so patient with me.  J threw his arm down from the second ledge just in time to give me my three points of contact on the face to fend off the wave and use the leverage of the force to propel my body up instead of out.  (Thank G_D for strong MAN arms)

So the waves were coming in harder, inching higher and higher. We kept climbing higher into this amazingly beautiful coral cave. Finally, at the top, I rested.  Laying back taking all of it in. Soaking in the peacefulness. It was amazing.  Looking at the washed up creatures in the pools of water.

J the manly adrenaline junkie wasted no time and just had to swing off the rope!  So I was lucky to just hang and observe.

The rope swing was an entirely different challenge.  I'm not afraid of heights, swinging, gravity or kerplunking into the open ocean.  That is the fun part.  Its the particular nature of the swing on this very blustery day that has me kerfluxed.

Instructions and observations after watching J's first swing: Keeping mental notes in my mind: HUGE jump to swing body way out,  but at same arching lower back and rotating hips swinging legs at same time to position body weight to keep force ensuring you curve around to the left. WAY Important: If you want to miss the big *ss piece of coral on the right and then get pulled into the smaller cave.

Being pummeled with coral and low probability of getting your somewhat sane (minutely bleeding body) out of here alive and floating over to the Philipines during a tropical storm...wasn't on my agenda if I could help it.

So crazy man J goes up to the very top of the cave, flings his big ole manly dude body into the air and makes it. So amazing, breathtaking really.

I however am still resting.  Realizing that after all of this....I have to have enough energy to swim all the way back to Tipalo beach where our towels are (like another hour swim at least in these waves LOL) (This of course is less than 12 hours after I got off of a 33 hour flight from NYC LOL)!

J climbs and swings 3 more times. The spear fisherman out in the distance are watching and I’m quite sure thinking we are lunatics. I get my energy back and am done looking at the beautiful blue starfish and small fish in the tidal pool and tell J I am ready to swing.

He once again patiently gives me instructions on how to swing out and around… I push my hardest off the rock and WWWOOOOOHOOOOOO what a blast! Hit the water and have my usual happy kid smile on!

We swim back through the strong currents to the beach slowly going down and holding our breath trying to be spear fishermen without spears LOL…enjoying the waves, the water, the sun, the fish and a great experience with a wonderful friend.

Thank you J, I am so happy we finally got to do that swim. Unfortunately due to my ear we weren't able to do it again before I left.  But someday I hope we make that swim again.  Perhaps not right before a humoungous storm (I think we should go kite surfing next to gov Guam building instead LOL).  So many things left to see, taste and feel in this world....

So back to reality: we went back to my house and immediately both of my neighbor friends saw my arrival popped into my driveway carport, M and L giving me a firm but nice scolding telling me it was time to get down to business and off we all went  into sort out my house….


Monday, January 23, 2012

新年快乐 Happy Chinese New Year 2012! Enter The Year Of The Dragon!....

I make it a point to incorporate many different "celebrations" into my life.  It's a part of Susan's Personal Nomadic Global Social Exploration Project.  (Sounds really fancy right?  Well, it actually not...LOL But it certainly was fun adding some fluffification to something so positively simple).


Why?  Many different reasons but primarily:  I believe that with knowledge, patience and understanding the world petrie dish might actually learn to listen instead of react.  If we proactively listen maybe we will learn to behave better on the world stage than the local kindergartners. So in my little petrie dish, I strive to learn about cultures, celebrations and people to engage and understand them. Which produces the desired effect (in my little petrie world) Respect, Tolerance, Kindness and creates a common ground in which we can begin to engage and push a mutually beneficial agenda (with appropriately managed expectations) providing for our growth forward instead of stalling it.  


I know you want to say it....Go ahead...I'm coming to terms with my "HippieDom" LOL  If you must label it, to make yourself feel better, please go ahead.


What in the world does this have to do with Chinese New Years Anyway?


One of the most important Chinese New Year customs (which I have failed miserably at for many years now to observe) is: 


Cleaning the house from top to bottom.  It is meant to clean all the "bad luck" that you gathered in the previous year. 

Quite frankly, I don't want ANY FORM of bad luck from my prior year (or all of my years) to carry into the New Year... My shoulders ache from the burden I've been carrying around.  I'd prefer a nice fresh start and a little yoga to stretch out those well worn and sore shoulders :D


So in Susan's petrie dish: Cleaning house means I've been going through hard disks, multiple journals (AKA random scraps of paper, actual journals, electronic entries of randomness) I have been barfing out all around the globe in one fashion or another since around 1987...

Cleaning out my mental house, organizing it and trying to make sense of all of it...

I've cleaned, now I'm digesting....Interesting food for thought...

Always learning and stretching...It's going to be an interesting 15 days of Celebrating Chinese New Years Susan Style...

Virtual Vomit On Boarding...

Wishing peace for all.


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Ennuideluxe: The Katrina Diary, SOPA, and me.

ennuideluxe: The Katrina Diary, SOPA, and me.: I would like to clear one thing up, if I may. I'll try to be brief. My name is Amy Rohde, and I wrote a book, The Katrina Diary. It's gott...

Friday, January 6, 2012

Welcome Home Warriors: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

To the remnants of "the former home of the free & brave" ....

Mr. President & Elected Officials:

How could you POSSIBLY RAM through something as fundamentally important to our Country as the NDAA When YOU CANT even pass a BUDGET?

How COULD you POSSIBLY bring OUR Warriors home to YOU and OUR President SIGNING a bill that takes away the very basic FREEDOMS so many put their lives on the line for AND DIED for?!

How COULD YOU: Then propose some viscous rhetorical statement of how you are going to slice & dice the Defense Budget (Most likely so during your election you can say see I saved you $XXX, just like I said I would) pass the buck to "Leon & Marty"  (REALLY?!!! Honestly, do they call you Barry?)

Threaten benefits?  PLEASE!!!! It's not the benefits that are killing us!

This is like telling CIO's you need to cut 20 Blackberry's to save a total of 3k per year....  When you really should be looking at Long Haul Comms Contracts that can save you a few mil per year....

It is our completely MISMANAGED, CORRUPT Inefficient, ineffective, NON AGILE methodologies that are killing us....WASTE, ABUSE....GALORE:

There have been efforts by many trying to show, empower you how to responsibly reduce billions, but we have been silenced.

The final straw: NOT Warrior BENEFITS.... AND DON'T tell me you are doing a better job of supporting those who have come home...When we have lost more bodies to suicide than in battle...

UNACCEPTABLE

YES I AM YELLING!  I am SCREAMING AT THE TOP  OF MY BLONDE HEAD!

This is my country, My Constitution, MY FREEDOM and I CARE.

Sincerely,

Your invisible voter
(potentially detained in the near future)








Thursday, January 5, 2012

What it comes down to...

‎"Maybe that's what it all comes down to - love, not as a surge of passion (which is a big part of it)but as a choice to commit to someone, no matter what obstacles stand in the way. 


And maybe making that choice again & again each day, each year, says more about love than never having the choice to make at all." 


-Emily Griffin


Thanks to SEG for reminding me of this great quote.



Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The White Board

The answer to my dreams came in a most unexpected state.

Something I could not fathom, in any time or space.

At a time when most people would blink or fade away.

I stood, completely glued staring fate directly in the face.



I finally stopped asking how, why or when the calculations had been made.

The white board in my mind, on which I always contemplate,

This is often where you will find me constantly consumed,

From the outside you would think, Im only sitting silently,

Looking peaceful and in tune.  Or perhaps, just maybe I'm simply just staring across the room.


Occasionally I'll reach out, even pulling out the runes.

Certainly you will find me listening to my beautiful tunes.

Frantically searching for solutions while patiently wading through buffoons.


My White Board has finally become a giant blank slate.

How beautiful it is, glimmering in the light,

Clean but well worn, and happy with delight.

The plain and simple has finally become exactly what I like.


How, Why or When, something so wonderful landed at my feet.

Is no longer a question, not important for the journey but just a wonderful treat.

I've finally become so comfortable, that I think, perhaps tonight, I will finally sleep.

Waiting for that unexpected pleasure to drop in on my dreams.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012: Its time...

I want to feel love



I want a to light a thermite burning fire



I want to feel the burn scorching the earth



I want to fufill all my dreams and desires



I want warrior man by my side



Not a man who flinches at potential pain, runs and hides



Are you willing to fight for me?



Are you willing to fight with me at your side?



Will You die for me?



Live and breathe for me?



Do you care for me?



Because if you don't then you should just leave now.





Because I believe its about time for some well deserved attention...





I really don't want anymore questions.  


I really don't feel the need to explain myself anymore.

If you don't have an answer, that's fine for someone else...





But while you just blinked, I spread my wings and flew away.....