What now?

I wish I could say that I’ve figured out what the next move is, that I know which direction to go. It’s been two weeks since the fire and I’m no longer laying awake wondering what will happen to me as I sleep. I figure if it’s going to happen, it just will. The lethargy is peeling away at its own pace as half-formed ideas ripen and begin to take root.

At the moment I’m sleeping in the basement of a friend’s house. The same basement where I dumped what was left of my possessions after the fire. My friend and tai chi teacher called me homeless three times in a conversation and the scales simply dropped from before my eyes. I went to the Boulder Youth Hostel to find out that their rate is $50/night for a private room. That doesn’t sound like too much until you think about living there for a month. 30×50 =$1500. The Nylon Condo living situation fell through when the guy got evicted—as of this week, he no longer has a back yard.

It’s not that I can’t find a place to live. It’s that each time I open up a browser window and click my way over to craigslist I lose major heart. The Maxwell House place was $475/month, walking distance from downtown Boulder. I lived with people that I care about. It was a month to month lease.

Each day, with temperatures rising, my To Do list grows. Paul said yesterday that he can see why people are driven to drink. If you don’t have a permanent address, the post office won’t let you get a PO Box. So that means our mail continues to be forwarded to the cafe. Indefinitely.

I won’t list all the grievances because it will sound like I’m bitching and I don’t see what purpose it serves. Since I’ve gotten back to the States I’ve run into a lot of bureaucracy and much of it has been highlighted or accentuated by the fire.

Do You Deal Drugs or What?

Yesterday a woman from the Boulder Fire Dept. called to talk with us about the fire. She does fire prevention. She told us that
the number one cause of fires in Boulder is candles. It’s been confirmed that that’s what started ours. Please, take a second to get educated on fire prevention here. One thing that she said was the cause of fire and age group involved (all of us in our mid-20s to barely-30s) happens most often. We’re not educated about smoke detectors, the likelihood of a fire being caused by an open flame and many of us have flaky landlords. (The irony: the day of our fire I got a package from a loved one- four electric, wireless “candles “set the mood on fire, not the house” the same day. Ask Casey for verification.)

Here’s the question I’m asked most often these days, when I tell people that I’m going to travel again. People ask, “how can you afford to travel so much?” Even though the response I want to give is, “I can’t afford not to,” I want to come clean with you. I don’t deal drugs or do anything illegal. I am a good, honest citizen. Not particularly hard-working, definitely no “work for work’s sake” but love to be challenged and challenge others.

Here’s how it works. I used to work enough to afford to travel and then left the job, having saved up enough to travel for a given period of time. I studied abroad for a year in the UK for the same amount it would have cost me to be at UNC for that year. Exchange programs are an awesome way to see the world. If you’re still in school, do it. Dooo it.

Diversify Your Travelfolio

Now that I’m all grown up, I have multiple income streams. I get crafty and start businesses. Some of them are in America, some of them are abroad, which means that all of my money isn’t in USD. That’s how I diversify my portfolio. I make investments in people, projects and places rather than a portfolio. I am not at all concerned with 401ks or Social Security. In fact, I got a statement from Social Security this year telling me that by the time I’m 70, there won’t be enough money to pay me back for what I’ve put in over the years. Fine with me, but not cool if you’re working for the man 9-5, giving the best years of your life to a company or something you either don’t believe in or half believe in.

I am also extraordinarily blessed. When my mom died my grandparents took me in without question, at my mom’s behest. They’ve bailed me out of a number of situations. Like when I called from Sevilla to let them know my ATM card had been stolen and they wired me several hundred dollars through Western Union. They helped pay for my time in university. They have been calm and unperturbed when I’ve called from thousands of miles away to say I’m falling apart from homesickness.

But I’m no trust fund kid. When I’m broke, I get crafty. I look for needs and figure out a way to fill it. It really depends on the country I’m in. I’m not afraid to ask for help and am quick to offer it when I can. I’m a teacher and one of the greatest gifts I believe I can offer is through teaching, listening and getting out of people’s way to let them grow.

Attention & Travel

I plan to do a series of posts on the Attention Economy. (That last link is to the wiki, but this is to a blog on the attention economy that may be easier to digest.) Because we’re in it and because it will change the way we think about work, leisure and the world. I think it will change how people travel, if it isn’t already. The premise is that the overwhelming amount of information in today’s society has caused a scarcity of attention to the degree that getting attention has become more important than getting money. Because there’s an abundance of material goods and wealth (and we’ve seen a lot of miserable wealthy people), people’s material needs, in the States at least, are more or less met, and people are increasingly spending their time on projects, relationships and websites that draw attention to themselves. Our future will be determined by media that we ourselves create and then consume. I’m still working out how travel fits in to this, but we’ve seen how status can get you better seats on a plane or room in a “fully booked” hotel. It will come to pass, I believe, that stars of the attention economy like Heather from Dooce who traveled with her husband to Amsterdam, most expenses paid by the Holland Tourist Board, will proliferate. We’ll see.

I don’t plan to be one of those stars. I plan to travel even more widely than I have, start more businesses (including Expatriette, as you know), learn more languages, grow in yet unforeseeable ways. I plan to log it, blog it and grow a number of global micro-brands. The fire was an impetus and I know the journey is well underway.