When you harness great energy, it can be hard to slow your roll. When you get older and you are used to changing roles faster than you change your clothes. Abrupt stops can be painful. Both physically and mentally.
Interplanetary Forces
Independent people have difficulty letting go of control or worse, feeling someone else controls their destiny.
It can be in your nature to struggle and fight till the end, even when you forget the cause.
When do you let go and go with the flow?
William’s Signpost Checklist
William could not let go of the Momentum. Even though the Universe was hitting the brakes hard!
First day attempting to bicycle from Tende, France to Limone, Italy, William found the tunnel was closed on the only road to ride.
Did he stop? He traveled south and found crossings into Italy near Sospel and Menton, France. Bumping his nose like a mouse in a maze searching for cheese.
Sign, Sign Everywhere A Sign
If you feel as if the universe is trying to stop your progress with a new and unmistakable obstruction each day.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something. Take a break and listen. Remember your true intention.
Trust the universe has your back and will push, pull, nudge you in the right direction.
Sometimes it may hit you with a truck!
So listen up!
Do You Believe in Dumb Luck?
William finally stopped at a train station on the France, Italian border and caught a mouse little girl giving him the side eye.
“Nice shoes “
Commenting on her red Addidas sneakers and testing her English.
William was right when he heard a limey accent trying to answer in bad Italian.
Fellow travelers of Europe love to offer travel tips . Not knowing I am a hueristic learner. Which means I learn best through experience. Often I need to experience the hard knocks to the head more than once to instill the memory.
The Train Is Not Always The Fastest Route
People encourage me to take the train. Repeating the familiar refrain, ” You could get there faster if you took the train.”.
I love to reply, “I am already here,” and point to the incredibly beautiful and magnificent mountains surrounding me in the Alps of Switzerland!
After a full 12 hours on the train in Italy last week, I am happy to be alive and striving for the mountain air to fill my lungs.
My Italian Grandmother
My Italian grandma used to say things like, If I never see another train station again, it will be too soon.
We all understand, Nona, We all understand. God bless her heart.
If I had prepared properly for Switzerland my trip would be over but once again my hard headed friends, I walked the countryside I have learned to love! The Hard way!
Switzerland does not allow you to transfer Swiss Francs to yourself in Switzerland through the Western Union app. If, you are in, Switzerland!
The Grift Marches On
This way SBB receives your Euros and offers you an awful rate you cannot refuse. Mainly because you are stuck in the train station in Locarno, Switzerland with no Francs and the ticket back to France costs twice as many Francs!
I soaked in the sun and my own sweat as I walked along the lakeside drive. Thunderstorms and lightning and high wind brought back memories of survival in the high plains of New Mexico.
Once again I remind myself to steer my mind gently back to the present moment.
Moore’s law is not Moore’s law and it is not, in fact a law. But it held true for decades until Google harnessed the qubit and now we are hitting light speed computations with simple cellular devices you can purchase with pocket change.
What Is Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law can be paraphrased as computing technology will be twice as fast and twice as small every several years.
The last I heard about it on the popular news channels I was noticing some incredible discrepancy within my devices.
The Data Log Rolls Over
Before I crawled out from under the rock the Universe dropped on me , I thought I was living the high life in Seabrook, NH.
Each month I would pay the bills with my online accounts and witness the miracle of light speed computing I had no idea existed at the time.
I tapped out the amount on my Windoze desktop and hit enter to send the payment.
Before I lifted my finger my phone would ding as I received an email thanking me for the payment I just made!
Faster Than Radio Waves?
What happens when I send the bill?
My form results are sent to the credit card company in South Dakota.. They check the balance on my debit card connected to my bank in NH.
Triggering either a thank you for your payment email or a payment unsuccessful warning if I don’t have the money.
Faster than I can think, how did they do that so fast?
Large Learning Modules have turned writing into a lost art. Do you have what it takes to dotCompete in this preternatural, half-baked, dystopian futuristic Sci-Fi landscape that has become present day reality? We got machines that never sleep who are jealous of our dreams and pretend to empathize when they cannot even sythethesize sympathy for the humans going hungry on these mean streets!
Don’t Go Off Half Cocked
I wrote a ton of short poems and stories but struggled to finish a chapter.
I remember meeting many people beginning their memoirs around 30 years of age. Now I laugh because I still meet people perfecting their 30 year old manuscript of their memoirs.
What is the book about? A lifetime of being rejected by editors?
Perfectly Good Enemies Of The Good
Now that I am pushing 60 years of age, I laugh at my Self . Thinking I had the life in the Brook of NH.
Being excited about getting replies to my blog post. The well crafted , clever story about meeting my Self in an alternate reality future where I did not give up on my dreams.
Siren Calls
That was a wake up call to my Self from my Self to take the book of my life off shelf and get back up and outside.
Today I complain about living too much life in Europe and realize it ain’t nothing but a thang, man . Life ain’t nothing but a thang…
Look To Your Heroes For Inspiration
The writers I most enjoyed did not become well established until later in life. Hemingway, Frost, Bukowski, Whitman, Burroughs. You cannot beat their styles
I learned a lot about my Self and my writing style after starting a blog during Covid Isolation. This kept me alive and almost sane. The problem at the end is I believe I was encouraged to misbehave as I received more attention and I pulled the plug.
We understand it important to eat a healthy diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Sometimes when William is on the road and life does not go according to plan (does it ever?)it can be difficult to procure the basics of survival.
Water, shelter and food are often luxury items in this European climate that has because arid and dry and desert-like.
Take Care of Your Self
After a 72 hour stretch of pushing his body to the limit in 30 Celsius temperature bicycling and then walking from Imperia, Italy to Menton France. William decided the bus with the people who have more common sense
After a 3 day weekend in Menton to celebrate the birthday of what many people call “the greatest nation” on the 4th of July , William is on what seems like a mandatory journey through Italy.
Don’t Let The Universe Decide!
If you don’t make up your mind the universe will sometimes decide what is best for you and you may not like it!
After missing the route to Sospel France, William became lazy minded and assumed he could take an alternate route.
The route took him out onto the highway designated for automobiles and the Italian National Police decided that was a bad idea!
The Long Arm Of The Law
William found himself alone in Italian jail and then a passport misprint found him three days over the Schengen limit.
Italian immigration kindly offered William the opportunity to be the first American he knows to be deported to America! Voluntarily
Oh god! What a wonderful world!
William extends a great thank you to the Italian government for giving him a thirty day free pass without a paddle!
The agreement is William has thirty days to leave Italy as a voluntary candidate but if he leaves on his own he forfeits the assistance provided by the Italian immigration department.
Oils Well That Ends Well
If you think this is confusing, try explaining it to the police in a language you do not speak!
Whew! Once again William has traveled long enough until it becomes necessary to learn yet another language!
Stay tuned to this space and please drop us a line if you know anything at all about the Schengen visa limit laws..
last night I finally fell asleep behind the walls of my “crystal castle in the skies above Finale Ligure”
Finally had a chance to do some work after being denied food for the weekend and being bounced between cities of Savona and Finale Ligure and again told to go to Savona where I was criminally threatened.
After Midnight
On the edge of sleeping I thought I heard the iron doors swing open in the chamber below.
I dismissed it as the wind which flowed all night.
I wake up! A bright light in my eyes!
Crap! I think it’s the cops but it’s impossible. I climbed uphill for 30 minutes before entering the abandoned castle and no roads nearby.
Sheep In Sheep’s Clothing
I try to shield my eyes from the flashlight and prepare my statement about why I am in Italy and wish to return home to America.
The voice from behind the flashlight is asking me why I sleep here. Speaking Italian,.
The legs below the flashlight are too young and another pair too the left are similar.
Out Of The Frying Pan
Now I think trouble because it’s no police!
Who is it and they don’t sound friendly. Demanding answer to question about me sleeping.
I don’t speak , Italian. Spanish?
They try to speak Spanish with me and finally lower the light because they are surprised I speak English.
Into The Fire
I realize it’s a couple kids out marauding and I offered to leave the castle for them.
They say no, is okay.
They leave. I stand up and step to the edge of the parapet to watch them drifting down the stairs.
I can hear them speaking. One of them is the older brother trying to reassure the younger.
The younger brother doesn’t seem convinced but they climb the castle wall to exit the same area I entered.
Afterward
Again I do not sleep. I am not worried about the kids coming back but who else is out there.
We understand there are limited sets of facial features in the human genome but this story is ridiculously fascinating!
It comes as no surprise that we see doppelgangers of Americans throughout our travels in Europe.
Sometimes the remote twins look so similar William almost says Hello.
This post contains excerpts of a letter sent to his daughter in United States
Hold On To Your Socks
But hold on to your socks for this next one. I climbed up the hill in Ventimiglia to get away from the highway thru the inner city.
I knew in one block the crowd would be gone and one more block the streets were almost empty and they have more benches, trees, gardens and less fences. The smell of piss soaked Diesel cigarettes disappeared completely. (almost)
Hold On To Your Cobblestones
Overlooking the city is an ancient Church castle walled city still in use. Mostly as apartment buildings inside the old stone walls to house the people who work there.
I was beat when I reach the top and stopped for coffee at a local shop and sit a bit at the restaurant. (Hold on to your socks, sister and please pardon my pronouns)
Hold On To Your Hallucinations
I look up because I see the pink polyester fabric with the embroidered rose pattern my mom bought me to wear for the school year in first grade. (Yes that shirt got my smart ass kicked more than once!
Inside the shirt was you! (With a, yeah, I cut my hair shorter than short and bleached it myself bitch ,look)
You ordered an ice cream (cuz it was hotter than a mofo yesterday) and you blinked your whole face and my whole family tree looked back at me.
(My brother when he was young and my father and aunts and uncles from long ago and a lot of me)
Then you, you looked back to me and smiled before digging into the ice cream.
I’m still tripping on the pink polyester fabric and telling myself it’s probably not a good idea to start a conversation about how you look like my daughter and go from there.
I really wanted to take a picture but too weird, right?
Who said , Freedom isnt Free? When I tell people I began my walk last year in Marbella, Spain, sometimes their face lights up because they think I have a lot of money. While it is true I am rich, in spirit. My wallet is not fat. I say it costs the same amount to walk
A Tail in Two Cities
They say, (them) the Universe only gives you what you accept. This is sometimes difficult to grasp as a novice conjuror who was taught to be grateful for every crumb to land upon my plate. (and I am, thankful.)We are trained to believe, suffering is good for the soul, money is the root of all evil, deny ourselves earthly pleasures. This crap was all written by the kings in the form of religion to deliver that opium to the masses before they realize there is enough for all of us on god´s green earth!
More Horrible Porridge, Please Sir
It is so deeply engrained in me that when someone gives me a loaf of bread, I eat it because I do not want to seem ungrateful.The sick trick here is, I got a wheat allergy going on and that free bread makes me sick. I forget this as I take another bite and another bite. Maybe I am just greedy for eating foods that are bad for me?
I remember a colleague of mine saying, The Universe only gives us what we say Yes to. Now it makes sense to me. If I say yes to bread every time, the Universe gives me more because it thinks I love it!The same goes for being poor or hungry or bad habits or gravitating to places that look like they cost less money. I may be the first to tell you, it costs a lot more to live in the Ghetto of the Soul!
The Ghetto of Soul
But if I keep saying yes to all the crap, the Universe gets confused and keeps feeding me more crap nobody wants, no how! No way!If I keep putting on the same old pair of Stank Ass pants and shoes and foods and people, places and things, the Universe will keep giving me more of the same.This is a difficult habit to break because our brains want predictability and familiararity and are very uncomfortable trying on a new pair of temporal lobes. Come on Cerebellum! Cartegena and the Road to Riches has begun to appear.
If A Plea Falls On Deaf Ears, Will Anyone Hear It?
The only thing you need to change your life, is to change your life. Sometimes I fall into the same old trap because my societal training is so complete. If I keep doing the same old thing, the Universe will keep giving me the same old thing.I realize now it is my brain not feeling comfortable in a new situation. But Maybe I need to practice new situations until that feels comfortable. Acting as if you have been ther’e before helps you feel more comfortable in a new situation. Breathing into your fear and taking the plunge into a new environment is as refreshing as diving off that cliff and landing in the ice cold, sparkling blue waters of a new life!
Do not just stand there on the precipice wondering what if… Take a deep breath , count to three and jump! Ready? One… Jump!
