Live and Learn

A kindred spirit of mine recently wrote about her enjoyment of doing the "where was I a year ago" thing. I also love to do this... and as she just wrote of it; I had to stop a minute and think about last year, the year before... and such. I do this often enough that sometimes I worry I do not appreciate now enough. I love the past, this is true. But I love now also; and part of what I love about now is knowing that next year I will look back on it with fresh and different eyes... next year I will see it differently and think such things as "damn, I didn't enjoy that enough" and "damn, I sure was a silly thing, wasn't I?" and "boy, if I am ever in a situation like that again, I will certainly do something different". Such is life... I figure if we never look back then how can we learn from our mistakes? And if we never appreciate what was... how can we appreciate what is?
And thus I commence on a little "last year" trip. It seems an appropriate time as I have also just started a new journal having filled the one I started a little over a year ago. Interesting also; all who love me know I journal so I get journals as gifts often. The one I just started is very special to me as it is a "moon" journal and was given to me by a very special woman... back Christmas of 2000. And I have been carrying this empty journal with me for the last 2 years... since I traveled to Egypt... waiting for what felt like the right time to start it. Even though I had it with me I have chosen other journals when i could have chosen it. And now, in Sedona, land of nature, Native culture, shamans, the moon and bright night skies, and many other things... now was the time. And so, with reverence, I reopened it two nights ago and read the poem this very special woman had left in it for me... and I began. Every new journal is a new journey. It is a new beginning, a new story, and very ritualistic for me.
Alas, I digress... a year ago...Wow. I just reread the closest entry of my journal; which was the 19th... a year ago in two days. And wow. Ok, the little wow first... Background first. I was still in Korea and had already told my director I would stay longer than my one year which was fast approaching beginning of October. I was talking to this guy in Egypt about taking a job as a private tutor. And also thinking about other overseas teaching jobs... like Indonesia. I had a nice savings (my how times change) and money was no consideration for me. I had hopes of hanging in the states for a month or so. All of this I wrote about; but also I was upset with myself on this day for not journaling enough and for spending much of my free time channel surfing. Channel surfing is no treat in Korea; although I must say their custom of showing half a program and then having 20 minutes of commercials at one time and then showing the second half was kind of nice. But yeah, I remember being a channel surfing freak for a few months there... and now I find myself, once again, tv-less. Not true, we have a tv, just no cable thus no channels. Even before PC I had went tv-less once. It's an interesting phenomenon. Little wow. The big wow in this journal entry is that as I was writing about and questioning what I should do next I wrote..."I'm ok hanging in the states, but I want to go other places, I don't want to get stuck. Could I hook up with Joel?" Ha. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Joel for 3 years when I wrote this a year ago. And here I am, in his land :) Strange. Not too long ago I was telling him how I have romanticized his life to friends I have met on the road... like in PC I had at least 2 ppl interested in traveling the US with me to look up this "hobo who lives out of his RV and just travels from place to place". And now I have looked him up... it's so weird I mentioned him in my journal a year ago. Funny really.
Two years ago I was in the midst of traveling in Egypt and taking phone interviews for teaching jobs on hotel lobby phones. I talked to the man who hired me about 2 years ago from Luxor. I was sending paper work and putting everything together... and much like now; I was living on credit in the belief that I would soon pay it all off... huh. My kindred spirit also mentioned the circles of life... huh.