Writer’s Life – An Accidental Vagabond

The sunrise streams through the summer trees in Maine.

Transitions -This Title is Not for Your Algorithm

Published on August 1, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond2 Comments

Sunrise behind the trees in East Machias, Maine. — East Machias Sunrise

Change is hard. They say. The great “THEY” say that it is even harder as you get older. When it comes to changing a physical location, you can say, I’m an expert at it. Only the physical move, though, everything else does seem to be getting harder.

In the past year my husband and I have moved from South Korea to Maine and then to Portland. It wasn’t that streamlined though. It went more like this: We moved from our place in Itaewon, Seoul in July of 2023, and spent two weeks driving around South Korea visiting places like Gyeongju, Namhae, and Incheon.

A view of the green hills rising above terra cotta rooftops in a historic folk village in Gyeongju, South Korea. — Gyeongju

Bright colors of red, orange and green pop out against a grey seaside background in the coastal island Namhae, South Korea. — Gyeongju

We had some confidence at this time. My husband had a job waiting for him in Maine, we had a savings, and I had my pension. The evidence of 7 years of teaching English in South Korea.

I am the reason we left South Korea. I had been ready to leave Korea since 2017. My first few months of teaching had been a bad experience with a bad company and a terrible school principle. The Korean staff was great, the other teachers were great, but the “boss” was terrible. A dishonest and manipulative person who treated her Korean staff far worse than the foreign staff. I heard she had finally been fired for embezzlement. It may have been a rumor how she was fired, but she was fired. However this was a few years after I had left. As a foreign teacher in South Korea you are housed which is part of the draw, but the type of housing you get has a lot to do with who employs you. My housing was abysmal, but I knew of people who had worse. I quit that job, breaking my contract within the first 90 days of my employment which was within my contract, but the “boss” requested I stay for at least 6 months claiming it was that difficult to find a replacement. I agreed, which I should not have done since later it stabbed me in the back. I wont go into the boring detail, but needless to say, I did not receive my final paycheck. Luckily, I did get the coveted Letter of Release allowing me to find work elsewhere. My next job and the job’s after were better, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth. Months before meeting Eun, I had already decided to leave Korea.

Seven Years Later

Things change. You meet people. You fall in love. You get married. You have a pandemic. Your parent gets sick. Your dog almost dies. Things happen.

Once things began to reach a base level once again, Eun and I decided to leave South Korea. Again, a lot of it was me. I never did pick up the language, and my chance of finding a job outside of teaching was low. I did manage to get a writing gig for about two months, but they stopped accepting contract writers. I was disappointed, but that is how it goes. I had hoped maybe to find another writing gig, but nothing so far has panned out. My idea was, “let’s go to Portland, OR. I have friends there.” Yet, Eun didn’t feel comfortable with that. He needed a job first. After all, that’s how normal people do it. Job first. Move second. I never worked that way. Move then figure it out. My way is more difficult and scarier.

He got the job in Maine. So we left Itaewon and did our road trip. Flew to Washington state on July 17. Spent two days in Seattle. Two weeks in Portland. Got a car loan. Bought a car using the loan and some of my pension money. We took a trip to California to see my dad. Then back up to Oregon to visit the gravesite of Sue and then we drove across the country passing through Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and finally Maine. We even stayed the night in some of those states.

For ten months we lived in a dorm with international students. We lived in downeast Maine in a rural little town named East Machias. Eun worked as a Health and Wellness teacher, a Freshman Basketball coach, and a dorm parent while I tried to reinvent myself. I took online courses through coursera trying to learn UX design. I went back to my novel that I wrote over 10 years ago, but never published. I looked for remote work online. No one wanted to hire me except online tutors. I had no transferable skills. I started teaching in 2013 as a means to travel, but it now identified me as a teacher with no other career potential. If I were younger would it be better? I don’t know. The nearest grocery store was always hiring, but it was 5 miles away. I didn’t have a license, Eun worked full time, and there was no public transportation. It took me 8 months to get my license due to logistics. I loved the beauty and nature of Maine, but I wanted to leave for a similar reason as to why I wanted to leave South Korea. I wanted opportunity to grow.

Why is it that I couldn’t find some way to be creative while I had all that freedom and time?

Poor mentality. I wasn’t lazy. I worked daily. Keeping the apartment clean. Making every meal. Laundry- the daily duties. I was writing, drawing, learning, reading and attempting to educate myself in every way possible. I was also looking for remote jobs. I even restarted my YouTube channel (which has grown a bit) but I have a poor mentality. I was never fully able to just do art or learn or be committed to being creative because I wasn’t contributing financially. I never sent my work out (writing) because I never believed I could be paid as a writer. I could never be paid for anything creative. It wasn’t for me. I was not meant for that world.

I still suffer from this thinking. I assume I will die with this mentality. It is tough to unlearn.

10 Months Later

We left East Machias on June 18th, not even a full year since we left South Korea. We packed our life into the car once again only this time we had no savings, no jobs, no home, no prospects. Eun trusted me this time, but this time I felt unsure. Very unsure. Once again we drove across America. We passed through many of the same states minus Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, and we added Michigan and Wisconsin. We had less money and more time. You could say we were foolish. If things fail you can say, “you deserve it.” If we succeed you could say we were adventurous. It is all determined by the outcome even though it shouldn’t be.

Eun is a basketball player and a coach and he found an opportunity to grow as a player and a trainer, so we spent a week in Michigan so that he could participate in this program. While in Michigan a violent windstorm passed through and a large branch broke from a tree and flew into our car damaging the passenger side. I was distraught since we hadn’t even paid for the car yet. Eun, who is more positive, reminded me that we have insurance. Still, the cost of the program, the cost of staying a week in Michigan and now the cost of the car was weighing on me. If things fail it’s my fault. That’s what played through my mind. Still we continued to make what some people may call bad choices. We kept moving forward with our travels. Staying in South Dakota to visit the Badlands and Deadwood. You can watch our journey on Youtube if you are so inclined.

We moved forward with our plan to stay in Cody, Wyoming as we visited Yellowstone, and then stayed in Montana to see Yellowstone for a few more days. We lost money having to change places to stay. One we had to change because of floods that hit Minnesota and South Dakota. We had to cancel camping stays that were meant to save money because we finally accepted the fact that our dog can’t camp. We spent more money on airbnbs because our dog needs space away from strangers and other dogs. We continued on to stay in La Grande so I could once again visit the grave of my friend Sue and to see her sister whom I hadn’t seen since the funeral 16 years ago.

Portland, OR

At the moment of writing this we have been in America for 1 year and 1 week. We have been in Portland for nearly 3 weeks. We don’t have jobs. We don’t have much money. Our car is in the shop. We have a place to stay for about two more weeks, and Eun has two more paychecks before we have nothing. We are in debt, too. We began applying for jobs our first full day in Portland. The first week was silent. Then the second week rejection e-mails and automatic rejection responses came in. Then at the end of the second week, we began to get phone interviews. Eun had some in person interviews. Our emotions which are tied to our fears and anxieties ebb and flow like the ocean tides. We celebrate an interview, we try to shrug away the rejections, and we try to ignore the silence. Eun is applying for jobs as a teacher. He is moving forward with this career. Digging into his role as a P.E. teacher and a basketball coach. This next job is going to be the one for the next few years. We want it to be a good place. As for me, it is more difficult. I am trying to transition out of being a teacher. I want to work in an office with benefits. I want to create content. To be what the digital age calls “a creative.” But, it is difficult. I am having trouble breaking in and proving I can be worthy. The place I had volunteered for 7 years didn’t give me an interview after hanging onto my resume and communicating with me for a month, and I got rejected by Barnes & Nobles. Both, writing adjacent jobs.

Will this be a story of throw caution-to-the wind-adventure with a happy ending or will it be a cautionary tale? Only time will tell. Time will tell soon as the clock is ticking. As I line this final paragraph with cliches, I want to return to the introduction that change is hard. It is very difficult to change your career especially in a rapidly changing world. 10 years ago I worked in an office, I was an office administrator, but today I am no longer an ideal candidate. It is hard not to feel dejected when you have a poor mentality. This blog drips with pathos, but it is also held together with a tenacious web of hope and perseverance. I am making progress. Pages have been written. They may not fit the timeline of the meta masses but they fit my time line which is the duration of my life. So, we will see where this path takes me.

I haven’t forgotten part three of the Huashan hike it will be posted. One day. Till then enjoy these mushrooms. They are pretty, but not the kind to open your mind. You have to do that yourself. Advise to me from me. You can use it too if you want.

Four beautiful mushrooms growing in Maine.

Writing For Online Travel Mags

Published on December 19, 2022March 3, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond1 Comment

October

Back in October, around the time that I wrote my last post on here, I applied for a freelance writing gig with an online travel/tourism magazine Korea By Me. I sent in an example post of something that I had been writing for my personal blog. They liked it and I got the gig.

Link to article on Korea By Me — My first published article about Korean poet Jeong Ho-Seung and four of his books of poetry. **Photo from Korea By Me website**

Writing For Others

Between working part-time at a kindergarten, and commuting back and forth across the Han River to go to tutoring gigs, I’ve been trying to spend all my free-time (not home time, but free-time) writing articles for the website. It’s not much of a mystery to figure out that I don’t want to be a teacher. One huge sign is that I never write about teaching on this blog. It has become a job that barely pays the bills and allows me to stay in Korea with Eun. I like the kids. They are cute, but it’s exhausting with very little monetary reward, and oddly, or maybe not oddly, the pay never increases. I’ve been teaching for 8 years, but my pay has either stayed the same or gone down. Anyway, not important.

I’m tired, my body hurts, I’m burnt out, and we barely have any money. We realized after our dog got sick, and we had to pay thousands of dollars to save her life, that we were living paycheck to paycheck; not much different from the U.S.. The big difference of course is that my options are limited due to lack of language and citizenship. So, of course once this opportunity opened up I wanted to go all in. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough money to allow me to only focus on writing, but I’m hoping that it is a small stepping stone toward something bigger.

I had at one time, maybe 14 years ago when I first started this blog, that I would be turning this blog, and the others I have, into some “Writing Empire”. I see plenty of success stories. However, I’m inconsistent. That’s all I really need to write. Inconsistent. Inconsistent in the content, in the posting, in the research to keep on top of the latest technology, and in my physical energy to write. My excuses were/are that I’m never be able to find the time and feel too tired. I would sit at the computer to write, and then suddenly feel overwhelmed with an exhaustion so heavy that I could not lift my fingers. My eyes got tired. I swear I felt like I could barely breath. I had thought something was physically wrong with me.

In truth, there is something wrong with me. I’ve been going to doctors, but so far there is no clear answer. I have constant pain throughout my entire body. It’s been going on for some years now. Chronic pain is of course exhausting, so I figured that the two just went together. Feeling constant pain equals too tired to write. Yet, as I sit here writing now, it has dawned on me that my exhaustion from the effort to write is far more psychological than physical.

The physical is there, but when I write articles for Korea By Me, I don’t actually feel my pain. It’s there, but no where near intense as it can be. My mind becomes distracted from the pain. If this is the case then why wasn’t I writing all the time? Because it was my blog. My unpaid, unvalued blog. I have put in many hours to Korea By Me, and gladly. I made a submission tracker. I write down all my ideas; the day I started an article; what’s in progress; what’s submitted. I take it seriously. Since I got the gig on November 11th, I have written and submitted eight articles, and have had four of them published. Five of the articles involved some research and reading since five of them were book reviews. In a little over a month, I completed eight articles, even though I’m working a part-time job, and have four separate tutoring jobs that meet twice a week each. I am commuting at least three to four hours a day back and forth plus I have my home chores like cooking and cleaning.

Yet, I write a post for this blog, once every three months, maybe. I now know that I do have energy, and I can make energy even while busy, and feeling pain, but only when I do it for other people. I don’t value myself as a writer. It’s abundantly clear to me that if I am doing something for me, for my personal joy or gain, if it doesn’t have a paycheck its worthless. I physically respond to this so much that I sabotage my work by getting exhausted. That’s pretty sad. And, pretty amazing what our brains in states of low self-worth can do to our body. At least it is finally clear to me.

What Now

I’ve had some good feedback with Korea By Me. Getting published feels a bit like a drug hit. I feel an actual surge of adrenaline. I like to go to the site and see my writings on the page. I know my work isn’t perfect. When I read it, I can see mistakes I’ve made; things that myself and the editor missed. I’d like to be better. I want to work on it. Yet, the content is good.

In November I was chosen as having the best article of the month. I felt really good about that. It is self inspiring. I’d like to leave the teaching jobs. My current contract is up in March. It would be so nice if I could find something writing wise that would supplement that income. It would be nice if I put as much effort into my own blog and really did build my “Writing Empire” instead of not giving myself the value I deserve. These are what I’m working on now.

The winning article about Korean photographer Atta Kim **Photo from Korea By Me website**

Although my blog is focused on travel, what I write for Korea By Me wont be the same articles obviously, so if you’re interested in reading my stuff at Korea By Me please check it out. If you are planning on visiting South Korea it is a great source of information and stories on Korea. My focus here is to build up my literary travel writing style. I’m not giving up. I’m tenacious.

A Long Pause and A New Return

Published on April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

A friend of mine had asked to interview me for her podcast. I was truly surprised. Why would anyone want to interview me? I haven’t done anything that anyone would want to listen to. Even so, I agreed, because I felt so honored to be asked. During the interview she asked me about where I was currently living (South Korea), and where was it that we had met (Prague); and what brought me to Prague (the death of my mother); and what sparked me to travel (an old high school nemesis and a best friend); all the jobs I’ve had in my life (too many to mention in that podcast); was I in love (yes, happily so); and how do I deal with grief (not very well).

If you want to hear the podcast click here A Colorful Life to listen to my interview and the interviews of other travelers who all intersect in one way or another through my friend, Keiko, the creator of the podcast.

I had a lot of fun doing the interview, but soon after we had finished and said good-bye, I began to feel nervous about it. I worried that I had sounded like an idiot. Who was I to talk about travel? There are so many more people out there who are professional travelers and who can offer advice, wisdom, and know how about traveling, and how to live a full and lush life. My insecurity came rushing in and swallowed me up like Carrie from De Palma’s Carrie when she wanted to go to the prom. “They’re all gonna laugh at you!” I hear Piper Laurie’s voice often in my head whenever I want to do anything artistic and put it out there.

Once my friend texted me that the interview had been uploaded to her podcast, I felt my nervousness rise. I couldn’t share it with my friends until I heard it. I had to judge for myself. Did I sound like an idiot, or pretentious? Was I obnoxious? My worst critic, me, was ready to tear me up. But, it was okay. It was okay. Someone out there will hate it. Some troll will write something terrible in a comment to her about me, yes, that could happen, but it’s okay, because my internal critic who can be so mean was okay with it. In Keiko’s introduction she said the kindest things about me. She called me an inspiration, and said that although I had talked about how much I had wanted to be an artists my whole life, that even though it did not manifest as I had imagined it would, I was an artist. I had made my life the canvas. I thought that was so kind and sweet, and a generous thing to say. I don’t if it’s true, but it is true for her. It is her perspective of me and my life, and I have never lied about my life. I don’t lie because what’s the need to lie? I only have my friends and they know the truths, so I’d be lying to them, and they’d call me out.

I’m in the midst of change. My fiancé and I have decided that this will be our last year in South Korea. I just finished a teaching contract and I am in between jobs. I’m burnt out on teaching and want to do something else. But what? I’ve been teaching in one form or another for over 10 years. Yet, with all those years under my belt I only have a TEFL and working experience, but it wouldn’t be enough to teach in the states. I’d need a teaching certificate or a masters, and that requires more time and money for a job I no longer enjoy. I’ve been feeling useless and worthless. My partner loves me, my friends love me, but I feel that this world, that the societies we live in have no use for someone like me. So, I was feeling low. Then my friend asked to interview me for her podcast. She said, I had inspired her not to give up when she was trying to make a move to South Korea. Other people have told me I inspired them. Inspired them to follow acting, inspired to become a writer, inspired to travel, inspired to create a new business. I’ve inspired people, and yet, I’ve never seen it in myself. So, I thought, maybe I should turn some of that inspiration inside out and shine that golden light on myself for a bit. I said, I wanted to be an artist. I said, I wanted to write. So write. Here’s a platform. I have some content. I haven’t been on the sight for some time, and I was never very good at updating, and I never knew how to gain an audience. I never bothered to learn. I was too nervous for people to see what I wrote because like the podcast I thought; what if I sound like an idiot? What if they hate me and say terrible things? What if they call me out for the fraud I am? Public humiliation and shame. The worst. Yet, is it the worst? I can think of worse things. Still, my fragile little ego is, was, and maybe will still be, frightened.

Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time for me to really try. To get this out there. To clean up all my mess of random forgotten blogs and try to make this work. Perhaps, some of what I write can inspire others to do things they’ve dreamed. I have try.

It will take time, and I have to learn somethings, but I’ll be back. I’ll get this little Accidental Vagabond on the road again. I still have some time left to learn.

St. Kilda, A Special Part of Melbourne

Published on May 28, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

In all honesty, I didn’t do any research before going to Australia. My friend sent me a message about how we should meet up in Australia, and I said yes. I bought a plane ticket, I reached out to my few Aussie, and Tassie friends, they hooked me up with places to stay and recommendations and then that was it. My friend Lisa did much of the research on what to do and where to stay. I felt like after spending six months in China that a trip to Australia was going to be so easy- and I was so right.

I’m happy Lisa put more into it because without Lisa’s research we may never have stayed in what I consider the best part of Melbourne. St. Kilda is a little distance from the center of the city, but worth the commute. It felt like a place completely separate from Melbourne, which I imagine it is to some extent. I’ve already mentioned that I liked Melbourne, and there were many great parts of the city, but St. Kilda was my favorite.

It wasn’t just because of this creepy fun park with the nightmarish clown mouth that you walk into, Sydney also had a Luna Park, but it helped with the setting. I had heard from some people that St. Kilda was once a pretty aggressive area. It makes me think of Dog Town when Southern California beach towns were tough and surfers weren’t the pretty groomed boys and girls of the magazines, but actually more gang like and territorial. I don’t know if that’s really what it was like, but you can tell that it’s still a little rough around the edges. I personally like that; the rough around the edges part. I tend to think rough around the edges is another way of saying creative and edgy.

No one wants to live in a place where they feel unsafe, but you also don’t want everything to look like the cookie cutter idea of happiness. I think you always need a little bit of wild to remind yourself that life is unpredictable and chaotic; everything else is just a facade. I guess to be more specific, once money and image comes into a neighborhood the rules and regulations get tighter. That once awesome muralist that would paint amazing paintings on the wall is suddenly a criminal, all because one person with more money moved into the neighborhood and doesn’t like the way it looks. Or the local market that would once give away food that was going to go bad to homeless people is suddenly fined because that new posh business that just moved into the neighborhood doesn’t like having homeless people around because it’s bad for business, or that local rock club that has been around for decades has to shut down because some real estate mogul has come in and bought up the property and wants to build condos for vacationers and he doesn’t care what happens to the local neighborhood because he doesn’t even live there, and so on. There’s still homelessness, there’s still crime (or new crimes have been created through new laws) you just can’t see any of it because they pushed it into another neighborhood. That’s what I mean about the facade.

I suspect St. Kilda will head the direction of tourist and vacation destination and price increases. I imagine it has already seen some price increases. It’s too bad it couldn’t stop right about where it is just floating between once rough and now up-in-coming that’s always the best time.

Judging by the architecture and some of the old photos of the area it was originally a pretty wealthy place, a fun palisade for the wealthier folk of Melbourne to come and visit for their summer holidays. But as happened to so many places at the turn of the century, it went from a Victorian playground for the rich to a red light district. Something happens and it falls into neglect and disrepair and eventually it becomes dangerous like Coney Island or Santa Cruz boardwalk. Those places were both scary in the 70’s and 80’s just watch The Warriors. All they wanted to do was make it back to Coney Island. Maybe it’s all just a crazy cycle.

One thing that we got to experience while we were there was the St. Kilda festival. Nine days of music and art. It doesn’t get more spectacular then that really. We watched several bands, and wandered into many galleries. To me music and art are basic fundamental parts of life just like food and shelter. We need it in order to really feel alive. We are nourished and then we express ourselves. If you really want to see what’s happening in a city check out the music and art scene. Is it exciting and new, refreshing, and surprising or is it something you can see on vevo or any manufactured pop scene?

I didn’t take many pictures of the bands, but I loved this colorful girl group that called themselves We Love the 90’s or something like that. I didn’t realize the 90’s were so bright and poppy, but maybe I wasn’t paying much attention back then.

And, of course we had to see some metal. We stayed about three nights in St. Kilda in a nice hotel just a few blocks from the beach. Even after we left and stayed in another part of town, I returned to take a final walk on the beach. I mean, just take a look at that sunset. It’s like it’s something straight out of a last days of summer motif.

2014; The End of an Amazing Year a.k.a My Year of Grieving

Published on January 1, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

At the time of writing this post there are six hours left until the New Year begins; for me that is. My friends in Australia and New Zealand have already seen the date change.

I think that if it were not for one event in my life, and a major event it was, I would chalk up 2014 to being challenging, but pretty thrilling, and damn- for lack of a better adjective: interesting. But, there was the main event that just broke my heart in a so-far-irreparable way: my heart was shattered. No one wants their parents to die (almost no one) and no one wants to know that that precious parent was found dead alone on a bedroom floor, and no one wants to know that that parent died of a drug overdose; prescription or otherwise. Yet, at the end of the year no matter how that loved one died, death is death. That life is over and you just have to let it go, and keep living.

In all honesty, I haven’t really dealt with it too much. When the thoughts of my mother rise, my brain goes into emergency mode: “You can’t think about it. Don’t think about it. You are not in a safe place. There is no passage here. Avoid it. Avoid those thoughts!” And so I mostly do.

Well, this is the New Year. I’m in Prague and the snow has fallen. Time is ticking and my year is nearly over- not that life is really gauged in years, but it’s a great way to write out a list.

2014

New Year’s Eve in Zhengzhou, China. The night starts out at Maddie’s with Bobby. We have too many drinks and go to Muse, a little smoky dance club next to Maddie’s apartment. Maddie leaves at a reasonable hour, but Bobby and I stay the whole night, have to climb stairs in the morning, and we wake up on Maddie’s couch. Bobby is covered in Gummie Bears. He fell asleep on them.

January
I travel to Ho Chi Minh City and meet a new friend who I had been communicating with via Facebook. We were on similar journeys. Took a trip on the Mekong River: One of my favorite moments in Vietnam.
Met up with a dear friend in Australia. We met new and great people in Sydney and Melbourne.

February
The 13th read a message from my mother. She was excited to hear about my trips to Vietnam and Australia. I wrote her back saying I would write on the 16th.
14th back in Zhengzhou.
16th forgot to send an e-mail to mom.
19th around 10:00 p.m. in Chico, California: Mom dies.
20th around 2:00 p.m. after school, Zhengzhou, China: Get a strange message to contact one of mom’s friend’s. Skype to find out my mother died.
21st Fly to San Francisco, CA. Stay a night with a friend before another, my best childhood friend, Rachelle, comes to pick me up and drive me to Paradise, California.
22nd another of my best friends, Rosi, comes from Seattle to help me with mom’s funeral arrangements.
23-24 We pick up mom’s things from the police. Have her cremated. I don’t see her body (not sure if this was good or bad since I haven’t seen her since August of 2013). We clean her apartment with mom’s best girlfriends. She had really loving girlfriends just like I do.
25th- My birthday begins with cleaning mom’s apartment: she had so much shit. A regular little horder. My best friend Rosi and my mom’s friends kick me out of the apartment. Rosi says, “what do you want for your birthday?” I say, “I want to go to the psychic, Madame Ruby, who lives across the street.” I’d seen her neon palm in the window since I was a little kid.
Rosi leaves, and Sara N. comes from Portland. We pick up mom’s ashes and Rachelle and her husband drive us to Eureka to spread mom’s ashes. My only knowledge of the place is that it was her only place of positive childhood memories. We spend the night in Eureka and then drive to Trinadad. We hike up the mountain and throw some of her ashes into the wind above a dramatic pacific ocean. I don’t know what she would want. She didn’t plan on dying so soon. Some things are hard to plan.
Dad comes to visit and drives me around Chico to the places where mom and him met and the first place they lived.
I give some of mom’s ashes to her girlfriends, and put a few ashes in Chinese stacking dolls for me.

March-July
One last night in San Francisco before returning to Zhengzhou, China
Shao Boa, and Xiang Kia take me to Hua Shen, and we hike one of the most dangerous mountains in China. I toss some of mom’s ashes off of the sacred mountain. Now that she’s dead she can travel.

Apple takes me to Luoyang and we visit the Longmen Grottoes and hike in a gorge outside of the city after being stuck in what may have been the craziest country Chinese traffic jam ever.
School ends.

My students take me to Kaifeng for a three day trip. Me and five 16 year olds on e-bikes.

CIMG5291 — Kaifeng with some of my students

July- August
I work at a new school.
Trip to Xi’an and meet a new friend: Leslie a fabulous scientist! See one of my childhood dream sites: The Terracotta Army.

August
Leave China.
One day and night in Seoul, Korea.

Arrive in Prague, CZ.

September
TEFL training and certificate.
Visit Viktoria in Switzerland.

October
Go to Cesky Krumluv and Ceske Budejovice
Can’t decide if I want to stay in Prague

November
Decide to stay. Begin visa process
Go to Poland for Angloville- 5 days

Go to Berlin for Visa application- 3 days meet another amazing woman.
Back to Prague and begin new job
Go to Brno, CZ for first teaching job

December
Malacky, Slovakia for work.
Trenčianske Stankovce, Slovakia for work.

CIMG7721 — Trenčianske Stankovce, Slovakia

Poland for Christmas.
Prague for New Year’s.

CIMG7822 — Snow on the Zizkov tower babies

The End of 2014

Musings From Ceske Budejovice

Published on November 22, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Taken from a journal entry: October 10th, 2014

It’s a Friday, and I am in Ceske Budejovice- a city whose name I can not yet pronounce. I am sitting in the city square, drinking a cappuccino, and waiting for Carol and her boyfriend Lukas to arrive.

Carol was with me at the language house. She was one of the few students that had not planned to stay in Prague for work. Ceske Budejovice was home for her. It had only been a week since the course had ended, but it felt as if a month had passed since I had seen Carol. They had driven to Cesky Krumluv and picked me up and drove me into CB and left me at a place I had found on Couchsurfing. That morning we agreed to meet in the square.

I had ordered the cappuccino before finding a place to sit where I felt I could be seen. I had asked for the coffee in Czech, Dom si cappuccino prosim, but when she asked me a question I responded in Chinese.

“Shi…I mean…ano…ano”

I know a little of each language of each place I have lived or visited, but never enough to converse and in each new place I seem to regurgitate the wrong language. I can only ever order and thank.

The central clock tower chimes and it sounds like a children’s rhyme. It is eerie like the music from a horror film.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star
how I wonder what you are
up above the world so high
like a diamond in-“

I wait for the rest, but it never comes it only repeats:

“Twinkle, twinkle…up
above the world so high
like a diamond in-“

And the music hangs onto nothingness.

I am having many memories, not nostalgia, but distant memories moving like a train of dreams. I try to capture one and place it onto the paper, but they are too fast, too fleeting and they escape my ink. They are not meant to be permanent at this moment.

I’ve been traveling for three days, yet it feels like I have been gone from Prague for years. This is only a weekend holiday, but I haven’t worked for two months so do I really have any holidays? I must express with absolute honesty I love the freedom of time that not working gives me. I am free and belong to none. There has been work, personal work: getting the TEFl, finding places to stay and to live, writing (the only work I really want) and finding me. This is valuable work that comes with no income, but it is important that I recognize that it is work. I must remember that living fully is part of the work because in the past I did not see this. I had listened to the words of the narrow minded world. You are lazy. You are wasting your life. You do nothing. What do you do for a living? For a living; what an odd question. Am I really wasting my life sitting here in a square waiting for a friend to arrive? It is true, I can be in a cubical waiting to earn money, to buy myself something that makes me feel valuable, but is that living? It doesn’t matter living is living is living is life.

But, I will need money soon. I don’t worry. I’ll find it, I know this.

A spider walks on my finger. He raises his abdomen, and I can see his web leave his body and attach between my finger tips. He has decided to make my hand his home. I spread my fingers apart and allow him to crawl his tightrope from my first finger to my middle finger. I gently shake my hand, it is an accident, but he falls. His web supports his decent as he belays to the ground. My fingers move to much for him to call them home.

He is living too.

Midnight Wanderings in Cesky Krumluv

Published on November 20, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

It was midnight when I decided to visit the Krumlov castle. It was dark and cool. I only felt small twinges of fear as I ascended a curving stone staircase that lead from the medieval village toward the castle. There wasn’t a need for this fear because the castle grounds were safe. It is not a common experience, for me, to feel able to wander alone in the darkness safely. I stopped to look through the black bars of an iron fence that was on both sides of the small bridge that preceded the main doors to the castle. On either side of this bridge 6 to 7 meters down (roughly 20 feet) were the bear pits. The famous bear pits. Not just famous to the castle but famous to me personally. To myself and friends from Garmisch, famous to the memory of a lost friend. Alex had fallen into the bear cage over 16 year’s ago.

I had been living in Germany at the time. Alex and a few others from Garmisch had taken a trip to Cesky Krumlov. I’m not certain exactly what had happened, but what I had heard was that he had been climbing on the wall and slipped and fell into the pit. He had broken his back, and it was amazing that he had survived. As I stared down and tried to gage the distance of his fall, I thought about the the bears’ reactions to this young German man falling into their dens. I felt a sudden wave of sadness. He had survived that fall, but five year’s later he would die in an avalanche. Too many young people from Garmisch had already died. Alex, Carley, Stephano, Sue…my dear friend Sue. There had been others.

I left the pit and wandered aimlessly the length of the castle. I thought of ghosts and history. I had the castle to myself for most of the evening aside from one couple that had followed behind me. They had their arms wrapped around each other for warmth and affection. They passed me as if I were invisible. I was an apparition silently standing in a haunted the palace. While I walked the streets of Krumlov after midnight, I felt like I could lose my fight or flight awareness that I had to carry with me when walking at night alone. It was exhausting always thinking of an escape route. Here I could just be with myself in the peaceful evening. The night itself is not bad, many beautiful things live in the darkness, it is man that makes the night terrifying.

The streets were narrow and each pathway took me through a a sliver of history that I did not know. I reached a church and began to walk the steps. Fresh urine dripped down the top of the stairs, the scent pungent and the piss was still inching over a step. It could’ve been a dog, it could’ve been a man. I heard a noise. I had a eerie feeling. I was probably being paranoid, but I decided to save the church for the next day. Still, my nervousness did not ruin my midnight explorations. I stood on a bridge and took pictures of the castle under the lights. Two drunk musicians were laughing and singing. One held out a beer to me. “Ne” I said with a smile.

In Czech he said, “you speak Czech?”

“Ne?” I said.

“Come have a drink with us!” He sang joyfully in English.

“Ne.” I said with a smile.

They shrugged and continued to weave and sing down the street toward a hidden pub.

I took one last night photo of a saint with the full moon in the background.

Life was beautiful. It was time to sleep.

Tales from Cesky Krumlov: A Prison Sentence and a Fairytale Wedding

Published on November 3, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond2 Comments

The idea of a native country, that is to say a certain bit of ground traced out on a map and separated from other bits by a red or blue line: no not for me, my native country is the country I love, meaning the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well.
Gustave Flaubert
The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton

I am living in the Czech Republic, and I have 90 days to be here legally. Not only in the CR, but in all of the Schengen countries which covers most of Europe. When I was here in the late 90’s, the last hay days of the American dollar, if your tourist visa was about to run out, you could go to a neighboring country hang out for a while and then return to your desired country with a fresh new entry stamp. Those days are over. You have to go farther away and spend more money for that to work. If you become illegal in all of Schengen you will have an enormous fine and not be allowed to return to Europe for up to ten years. It is a race for the visas if a person wants to stay. I want to stay, and I know other Americans who are gambling with time for their visas and for the opportunity to stay in a place that is other then their birth place. It’s all politics and government.

When the ability to live where you have greater resources, or to have a better life for your children or to marry whom you love or just to live a new life in a new place is impeded by politics it doesn’t take an individual long to figure out how little they matter to politics, governments, and big corporate business, and you can feel very small and vulnerable. That’s how control works. Of course, everywhere in the world should be a good place to live, but this world is not equal.

Marek’s story was similar to mine except he was a Czech living in America. He had gone to America on a visa very much like I am doing now in the Czech Republic. He was lured to stay for romance which in my opinion can cause a human to take more risks. Most of the risks people take to live in a country other than their own comes from love. The love to be with someone, the love to take care of a family, the desire to have a better life for that family. A better life. Love for yourself. I don’t know why Marek had gone to the U.S. originally, but while he was there he met someone, and decided to stay. He became engaged to be married. Getting married and getting citizenship in a country other than your own is not an easy thing. You are often treated more like a criminal than a potential new citizen. It is a slow and long process. As Marek and his fiancé waited for the legal procedures his visa expired. He admittedly said he knew it went over, but he was going to be married, and was waiting for his green card, and he didn’t realize the consequences were more than a fine or the threat of deportation.

When it was discovered that Marek’s visa had expired he was arrested, and sent to a prison for 70 days. A prison with bars, and a number, and an orange jump suit. Not, because he had stolen, vandalized, raped or murdered, but because he overstayed his visa as he waited for his green card. He was 22 had never committed any actual crime, and he was sent to a state penitentiary. It wasn’t just the arrest or even some jail time that surprised me, what surprised me was the amount of jail time and that it was prison time. To me prisons should be used for real criminals, like rapists, child killers, murderers in general, companies that steal millions of dollars from people subsequently causing economic crashes and destroying lives- real crimes. I don’t understand why people who are illegal, whether they snuck across a boarder or overstayed a tourist or student visa, are being sent to prisons? Why not just deported? Does it cost more money to keep an illegal immigrant in our prisons then to deport them?

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Were these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty ever true? I think, as I travel through this life, I gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be free. That this freedom can not be taken for granted, and many of those who believe they are free are not. Are our world boarders really protecting us? Protecting us from what? From people stealing our homes, our children, our dreams? Those things are stolen from us everyday from our backyards, our schools, our homes. It isn’t people who arrive illegally who take a person’s home away, it’s a very late mortgage payment and a bank that takes away that American Dream. Not one illegal Mexican repossessed an American citizen’s house. What is this freedom? Freedom is not about purchasing power it is about being able to make honest daily choices about how you want to live your life, raise your family, and how you want to love, it should also include where you want to live. The world is filled with plenty of successful unhappy people who believe they are free.

Marek got married while in a prison in America. He told me that he and his wife placed their hands on the glass that separated them, and he promised her that they would have a beautiful wedding once he was free. Marek obviously was free, and he came out of his 70 day’s in prison a new person with a new perspective on life. Life is precious, short, and can easily be stolen from you. He made simple promises to himself to spend time in the mountains, to appreciate life, to make the most out of it. To live now.

As I gathered up my belongings and paid my bill Marek showed me a picture from his wedding. The bride in a beautiful strapless white gown, and Marek in a dark suit kissing on a bridge with the Krumlov castle in the background, and a gorgeous pale blue sky. A fairytale wedding, as he had promised. Not everyone behind the prison glass gets to keep that promise because they are still waiting behind the prison glass.

At the point of writing this post, I still have time on my tourist visa, and if it was up to me I would have cut through the red tape, but it isn’t up to me, and the clock ticks as the days pass. It doesn’t matter that I’ve paid the required amounts to begin the work visa process all that matters is that the visa is approved before my time runs out. That is not up to me but, as far as I know, they are not arresting Americans for being illegal.

“There should be no boarders. We migratory creatures. We should be free to wander and free to stay. These “others” the corporate gods who live in the banks and government buildings high above our heads, they care nothing about us.They want to keep us in pig pens and call them boarders. They want to control our food, our water, who we love, how we love and live, and then they tell us to have pride while they make our pens smaller and tighter till we claw at one another. That’s not freedom that’s a factory farm.” – Annabelle, Zizkov

Eat Dragon Tongue in Cesky Krumluv

Published on October 26, 2014March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of
the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
Walt Whitman

The name of the restaurant escapes me. Names escape me but memories flood. It can be the smallest rainstorms. Perhaps a long frozen winter, a warm spring day, small rain, and then a flood that washes out the reality of your current moments and takes you back, drifting into your past. Anything can do it: a sound, a touch, a taste.

***

Zezo had recommended the place, and I remember it began with the letter L. It was down a narrow pathway like every place in Krumluv. All the roads are cobbled and all the roads are winding. A beautiful maze.

I sat outside under the bright light of the moon, and ordered something called Dragon Tongue made from tempeh. I had bulgur on the side and a small green salad. It had seemed a year had passed since I had eaten anything so healthy. It bordered on bland; low on the salt, and very clean and healthy. It sounds by my description that I didn’t like it, but I did. It reminded me of the eighties when the first of the vegetarian places were popping up here and there. You could get carob, and vegetables, but not much variety in flavor. Again, it sounds like I didn’t enjoy my dish, but I did. It was simple and relied on the natural flavors of cranberries, and tempeh, and bulgar with very little salt or spices. The way vegetarian food used to taste when it was just food and not a cuisine. It was quite nostalgic. My first experience with vegetarian food was when I was in seventh grade. I don’t think I had ever heard of anyone not eating meat. I was more in awe of the idea then anything else. I had a fairly typical response in my head: if you don’t eat meat then what do you eat? My mom and I would go many days without meat, but only because we didn’t have any money. Then it would be pickle and condiment sandwiches which I never equated as vegetarian. Oddly enough, my first vegetarian food experience was mixed with getting saved by Jesus. I’ll end the suspense right here and now, and let you know, I’ve been saved more than once, but it doesn’t seem to stick. When I was twelve The Heinkes (yes of the California fruit juice family Heinkes Fruit Inc.) made one of many attempts. This time they had sent me off to a Seventh Day Adventist church camp. Cowboy camp. I had slept in covered wagons; rode horses; learned that I was way behind in shaving my legs (and subsequently something was wrong with me because of that); had prayer meetings every night where secretly a newspaper article of Simon Le Bond’s sunken yacht was passed around and cried over. As we were meant to pray to Jesus for forgiveness the girls’ begged god to save the lead singer of Duran- Duran. Their prayers were answered, but I’m not sure how many of the girls were saved. I learned that some people do not eat meat, and I also learned who was Simon Le Bond (I pretended I already knew just like I pretended I could ride a horse). Seventh Day Adventists’ do not eat meat, and so it was my first experience with fake chicken nuggets, and fake ham served at the fake luau where I learned I would have rather had been in the fake surf camp then cowboy camp, because there was a real blonde boy in the surf camp who was real cute, and I didn’t like riding horses. In all honesty, camp was a kind of hell, except for the food. All that bullshit rounded out into pure curiosity towards vegetarianism. All these random thoughts triggered by eating Dragon Tongue under the light of a full moon. This is exactly the kind of thinking that can happen when you are traveling. You are in new places, and yet there you are with you. You in your past and you in your future. Look up from your meal, and hello, it’s you. It is also very hard to lie about knowing of Simon Le Bond and knowing how to ride a horse- you will be found out.

It amazes me the power of the sense memories.

As I sat silently eating my meal, the Vltva continued it’s ceaseless flow around the base of the castle’s bluff, and my mind continued to flow into strange and far away places. The tempeh began to taste how I imagined a dragon’s tongue to taste. The more I chewed the more I imagined I was eating the actual tongue of dragon. I suddenly felt ill, and slightly crazy, since it was impossible to eat a real dragon tongue. I blamed it on the castle, and The Game of Thrones, and my freakish imagination, and of course the moon.

I had ordered mead which was served very hot, and I drank it erasing my image of chewed tongues. The waiter had warned me that the mead could be very strong and to let him know if I needed to add more hot water. It was strong. A hot honey alcohol that made me feel a little tired. I really just wanted the mead to go with the dragon tongue because it made sense to me. Very Beowulf, I had thought to myself. I sat and listened to the river roll and drop into rivulets and swirling pools. I stared up at the castle lights that threw a blonde shine over the small medieval village. It was already ten thirty and I contemplated walking to the castle since Zezo had said it was open 24 hours. I wasn’t sure if it was safe for me to walk alone in the night to an empty castle. The village seemed safe, but I was trained by the very nature of being born a woman to be cautious.

The restaurant cleared out and I ordered a cappuccino. The waiter was extremely friendly and his English was very good. I suspected he had lived somewhere native English was spoken because he had even said one or two colloquial sayings, like ‘gotcha’, and ‘you know’. Could he have lived in America or Canada? I wondered. His name was Marek, and as the evening slowed he stopped and chatted with me. The usual small talk that you make with customers, but the more we spoke the more the conversation drifted from polite fiction into real life.

And how easily we can get to know something about people, when we are open to truly meeting them. And how much we can learn about ourselves. And what did I learn from Marek? The beginning of an ongoing gratitude, because while people may have traveled similar paths with similar intentions you quickly learn that governments can control the path you are on, and not every government is so kind- and my birth country has many boarders.