Discouraged and recouraged

Okay, not actually this guy. Though a mentor in
rural Cambodia would indeed be fantastic.

I knew right away that I wanted this man to be my mentor. It was just obvious. He had no kids, my father died when I was four, he was a legend in the field I desperately wanted to enter, and we lived a mile apart. Jeez, we even loved the same countries and understood the need to find them. Maybe I should have informed him. Maybe that would have helped. Or just been incredibly, indelibly awkward.

Either way, it didn’t happen. No mentor showed up to do their job, and my fumbling attempts fumbled around, stepping in wasted time and tracking ink all down the halls of not being published. It’s just that you hear these stories. “I showed up without a clue and the editor took me under their wing…”

“I still don’t know why she’d do it. Here she was, established and on top of her game, and I was some dumb kid.”

“I learned more from him than I ever could have in an MFA course.”

And alas, not her either, since a mentor
from Cuba would be life changing,
I'm sure.

That sort of thing. Maybe everyone’s just too damn busy nowadays. Sometimes I feel guilty about being the only human left with spare time...until I try to plan something with family and friends, then I realize I don’t have it either.

I’m sorry, you’re going to have to postpone your birthday. I’m all booked up.

But eventually I noticed that going it alone was not going. So I took a seat at the table, intermittently framed with fellow word-wanters, once a week after everyone else has gone home. I liked their words, I liked their styles, I liked their faces. But when they asked me, “What are you writing about?” I could feel the thing on top of me, a backpack of rocks and memories, but just couldn’t say what its point was. I couldn’t see its destination, just the stamps along the way. But I had the sense it could be useful.

I came out of class feeling like a bucket of crap. Not gonna lie. “If anyone feels discouraged…” the teacher said, politely omitting my name. Discouraged? Yeah, you could say that.

If only, my Turkish friend.

Until a conversation about something tangential, with someone otherly influential, came around and knocked that dis- right off. Courage? Is that what this is? No, but close enough. And she’s not a mentor, but maybe a coach will work better anyway. I don’t know how people are supposed to link up, mentors in absentia, but eventually, if we’re lucky, and if we try sometimes, we’ll get what we need.

Maybe Mick Jagger will be my mentor.

The good, bad, and ugly of what I've learned in 500 posts

I spent more time in Europe than anticipated...

“In June of 2008 it suddenly bothered me that most of my food was better traveled than I was. So I bought a one-way ticket to Europe.” That’s how I started my first blog, five years ago. Since then I’ve put a lot of words on here, in a number of places, across a slew of subjects. Sometimes it feels like I’m continuously looking backward two days to find out where my life’s path is taking me, often reflected in these vagabond posts, of which there are now 500.

My goodness. I have blogged a ream.

It seems logical to mark the milestone with an entry into the fine tradition of “How to Blog” posts, but for two things:

1. Others have already done so, remarkably well; and

2. 

   This week was an average Sunday in Havana

   My expertise on the subject is as fuzzy and unreliable as the hummus I forgot to dispose of before flying to Cuba two weeks ago. (Flying home to a clean shower last night was a delight, opening the fridge this morning to the chromatic and olfactory melange, not so much.)

So instead I’m going to offer a little “The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly” post of what I’ve learned, and what I wish I could go back five years and warn myself about. And since this is my very own little digital kingdom, I’m going to do it in reverse order. So, to 2010 me, or any other beginning blogger:

The Ugly: some of your posts are going to suck. Sometimes you’ll know it, and sometimes it will surprise you, just how poorly received your words will be. My recent query as to the implications of an ancient preoccupation with certain aspects of the female body stands out in my mind. I found the conversation interesting, and was curious what readers might have to say about it. But one of the things I’ve learned about blogging is that few people are willing to read more than a pagelength post. This burns my soul and dictates my text. So I cut out the intricacies of the question, and in so doing, misrepresented the opinions of both myself and my partner and occluded the entire point of the post. L was less than enthusiastic about it, and my mother sat me down on a bench a week later and asked how she had managed to create a 30-something year old man with an adolescent preoccupation with boobs.

I just found it an interesting question

“Please, no more posts about breasts!” she entreated. I do so hope this doesn’t count as another. And I also hope that in the future, I don’t create the exact opposite message of the one I intended to convey. Because doing so is just plain Ugly.

The Bad. Your posts have a lifespan of about three hours. All the newcomers you’re going to get will arrive within the first 30 seconds, as you top the “Recently posted” sandpile, followed by the devout and precious souls who actually read the blogs they Follow. In the case of an Ugly post, this is a blessing, but when you’ve spent time writing something, wanting people to read it, and it expires before you finish your burrito… That’s Bad.

The Good. The people who will read. You’ll be aware of some of them, others will surprise you down the line, and some will be entirely hidden, but a precious few, you’ll get to know a little bit. This community of other writers, readers, travelers, photographers, cooks, poets, and marvelous humans is the best part about blogging. Maybe it’s different for more popular bloggers, but whenever I see a name from my modest cadre of regulars in a “____ liked your post” email, it always makes me smile. I appreciate the one-timers too, but knowing that someone has been interested enough to come back again is a nice little e-friendship. I have yet to actually meet any of these people in the real world, which would be great, but just knowing they’re out there is...Good.

(slideshow over images from over the years at the vagabondurges.com version, here)

Why bother blogging?

I'm supposed to be writing a blog right now. Instead, I'm pretending to type while observing the hunched man across the communal table, who looks like Lewis Black fallen on hard times. His hair is greasy and thinning, spots on his amorphous button-up shirt, and a stained paper coffeecup close at hand, even though we're sitting in the coffeeshop.

He looks like a scientist who's spent too much time in the lab. He looks like the parents' least favorite bus driver. He looks like a calm madman, glaring at his crotch as if it holds the answer, and occasionally starting sentences like “I don't know why...” and “It would work if...” but never finishing them, just exploding in sighs and more staring.

Coffee, words, and a postre in El Salvador

Now from his lap he takes a clump of papers, green ink notes and revisions. He's a writer. Of course he's a writer. Crapola. It feels like A Christmas Carol, and he's the Ghost of Careers future. Why would I want to do that? A writer friend’s words come stabbing up from where they lodged in my ear: “You’re young enough, have you considered getting out of this bullshit profession before it’s too late?” Yes I have. Regularly.

Today is just one of those days. When everything is...just not...doable. I picked up the weights for my wee morning exercise, and...put them down again. Once doesn't count. Crunches are usually the easy part, but I lay down on K's old yoga mat and just...lay there. Feeling heavy. One, two. Three. So heavy. Breakfast happened. Cereal. The only crunching I'll do today.

Pollo and palabras in Peru

I should work on something more substantive, but the thought runs rancid in my stomach. Okay, let’s start with a blog. But here I am, almost five years into blogging, aware that whether I spend all day or twenty minutes producing a post, it will debut in a mild spasm of links and email notifications, then live maybe six hours before it withers, fossilized under a layer of sandwich instagrams.

Every now and then I get a notification of a comment in an old blog, and feel a spark of joy: those words live! Then I read the comment and find only google translated spam from accounts with names like Acne Scar Removal and Cheap Nike Air Max.

Havana lunch

(My personal favorite: “Thanks so much and I am taking a look forward to touch you.”)

So when I got a comment last night for a 2012 post about an orphanage in Ecuador, (link) I assumed it was just another spammer. But no! A real human read the post and now wanted to visit Hogar Para Todos. I emailed them the contact info, thinking Now that was a blog worth posting. It got information about something good out to more good people. That is what these e-things are supposed to do.

So that’s one. Then I noticed that one of y'all precious long-time readers had liked nine of my posts in a row. And the best part? The time-stamps showed that she actually read them. And to put frosting on the awesome: she donated to Alvaro's fund at the end of it. Another blog worth posting...

Journaling with mysterious food in Kuala Lampur

And I realized one other thing while rereading the blog about the orphanage. It’s...not great. Not awful, but...I’d write it differently today. So? So I’m not taking an MFA program, and haven’t been able to rummage up a writing group around here, but regular blogging does seem to be having an effect on helping me put words together. Given the more substantial project I’m working on, that alone is reason to continue.

So if old posts might come around the mountain (riding six white horses) and inspire someone in some way...

And if new posts might hold the attentions of other interesting people...

And if the blogging itself helps my main project...

But there's one other important factor: do I enjoy this?

Cai, diary, and Turkish breakfast in Fethiye

Well. My coffee's gone, but a vague smile remains. And somehow I don’t feel quite as heavy as I did this morning... I think I'll keep doing this. And, to help myself and my regular readers, I’m adjusting my posting intentions to every Tuesday and Friday.

And poor tortured Lewis? He never did finish one of those sentences, but when he left a minute ago, there was a certain giddyup in his gait, the ebullience of a man enjoying his life. Maybe this word-stuff isn’t so bad after all, at least, not once you get going.

See you on Friday, when I’ll tell you about the more uplifting rest of the day.

Why is my head so constipated?

The question, comment, or discussion will sound good in my head before I start, all the Spanish/Dutch/Italian verbs lined up obediently, but once I try to bring it into the real world? Nada, nix, niente.

You nailed that song when you sang it in the car, but now that it's Wednesday night at Hulu Island Grill and Tiki Room and there's a karaoke mic in your hand...not so much.

Like this temple, that was an interesting walk.
Why can't I just talk about that?

Why is it that the process of formalizing, realizing, enacting something, even in a basic, beginner form, can so kill it?

I love stories, whether to my ears, from my mouth, or out of my fingertips in this blog, so why do they suddenly seem so alien to me now that I've attended an actual writing conference?

The staff at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference was so accessible, so amiable...and yet the equation still came though.

1. Americans don't read.
2. Americans don't travel.
   Ergo:
3. Americans sure as hell don't read about travel.

But F that, I want to do it anyway. So why does it feel like my word-brain has been anaesthetized and sent home for summer vacation?

There have just been so many distractions and other things that needed doing over the past two weeks! Excuse.

That dog guided me around the out-of-the-way temple in
Bagan. Too bad he's not here to guide me around my head.

The idyllic peace of a Portland summer afternoon is thick comfort and succulent ease! Excuse.

I'm intimidated by the quality of writing of others and fear that I have nothing worthwhile to say. Truth.

So? Start here. Uncork the brain and let the constipated sentences grind their way out.

Some of you might be shifting uncomfortable in your seats at that one. That makes me feel better already.

So here I am on the back porch, a cup of mediocre iced tea close at hand and far too many tortilla chips already eaten, going to start because what the hell, why not?