Mayday 3

According to insurance estimates, the average American drives about 12,000 miles a year. That number might be outdated, but for this discussion, let's go with it. Last year, I drove about 30,000 miles with my travel partner that was recently stolen from my grasp. People tell me I'm on a grand adventure, which I am, but think about what one could do with those 12,000 miles the average person drives. What does 12,000 miles get you? Well, by air that's almost halfway around the world. Obviously, most of your cars can't drive underwater, though I'm sure some of you have tried to push through flooded areas, but there are plenty of terrestrial options out there. My 30,000 miles were almost exclusively on U.S. soil, but had I been aiming for a more linear journey, I could've gone nearly from Nome, Alaska to Punta Arenas, Chile and back. We drive what feels like short distances to and from our offices, yet for those with wanderlust and for those who find ways to support that quality, the option is out there to explore.

Mayday 2

In the past three weeks, I have had my car totaled while innocently exploring the backcountry of Louisiana, I have left behind sources of strong feelings and dreamt of adventures, I have found boredom and financial poverty at the hands of Mother Nature, and I have attempted to plan an uncertain future with as many semi-feasible options as possible. A character is a sum of his experiences, is he not? Though it hasn't been the greatest time lately, I'm still here.

Driving through Plaquemine, Louisiana (< 3 square miles), I decided to double back to check out what sounded like an interesting photographic opportunity. While sitting at a stop sign, I watched one vehicle plow into the back of another, forcing a game of steel machine pinball in front of me. One ricochet off a utility pole later, my car and I were no longer bystanders, but victims, and I knew that the vehicle that had treated me so well through my many adventures over the previous decade would no longer be with me. I could do nothing but laugh when the tow truck driver (and later the insurance company) asked me to grab anything I wanted out of the vehicle. It was sadly humorous because I was traveling between cities for the show and thus had everything I owned in the car. However, my hiking boots, a backpack containing some Clif bars, a couple electronic items including my camera, and a short ride in the back of a cop (pronounced PO-leece) car to the nearby McDonald's (For food? Good lord, no! Just a wifi spot and place to steal some alternating current), and I had set up the incident command center on the road to recovery. Within hours of an online post updating the world on what had happened, my widespread family of coworkers past and present, as well as those of blood, had called to check up on me, to offer transportation for both my belongings and my body, and to arrange lodging. My delayed arrival in Cincinnati was of no concern to my employers, so long as I was okay.

The curious ask, “What are these sources of strong feelings?” Let's just say that in Houston I left something behind I'm glad to be rid of, but I also left something behind that I hope to reach again.

Mayday 1

I've sat in my house too much lately. With thunderstorms nearly daily for two weeks, my standard “just start walking” approach to photography and urban exploration becomes a bit hazardous. I've now opted to take the half block walk from my house into the nearby park, which is a curious refuge. I've been writing at the edge of the fish pond, with its quiet waters, plentiful bird calls around, and just enough little bugs crawling to make me question my spot, yet there is the white noise presence of automotive road noise just beyond the forest, there is the glimpse of the University of Cincinnati parking garage, peeking out just above the trees, there are the sporadic emergency sirens reminding me of Doppler and the fraternity boy's subwoofer reminding me of Richter. Is this a refuge? I suppose it could be, but somewhere to clear my mind? I feel sets of miniature appendages walking across my legs and every time I look down, I find a creature that is new to me: A large ant, some small beetle, a psyllid perhaps? I'm concerned less about a bug bite and more about a tiny explorer meandering into my laptop and frying something internal.

What does it mean to clear your mind? Having never been one to practice meditation, I ask myself this question. If it represents the clearing of your thoughts, focusing on nothing but a black void, I've tried that a couple times, but my busy brain always calls me back from that spot: Not necessarily back to reality, though, for my mind spends hours tracing the many paths of what could be.

I don't know where I'll be in four months. I gaze at the reflections on the lake's surface to see a blurred upside-down representation of trees and a small bird fly by and I think, “This world could be anywhere.” The colors are right for what I believe the Southeast Asian jungles to be. The church bells tolling from somewhere behind the parking garage bring the old structures of Europe to mind. I really could go anywhere, and the fear is not what would happen to me there so much as how would I support myself while there or afterward if the travels are not work-related.

Ideas => Options => Choices => Reality

Somewhere between the first two is the necessary “secret ingredient”, which, if I were still working with chemical equations, I would gladly write in a smaller font size over the arrow as a catalyst – ironically, the factor that accelerates the reaction. That ingredient is patience.

Even in this refuge, with all the sounds, smells, and sights of nature abound, my mind races.