xeperu
Active member
Hey, folks! This looks like a pretty cool forum. I navigated over here from the Vagabond subreddit. I've been lurking here for a bit, trying to soak up a fraction of all the good info here. One day (soon) I hope I can contribute some interesting, useful information, too. This forum seems to have a lot more experienced travelers than the reddit place.
What can I say about myself? I'm a work in progress.
I'm completely new to traveling, but I've lived a weird life so far. When I look back, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
This year I turned 29. Eleven years ago I came out to my parents (as FTM transgender) and left a dysfunctional situation there in St. Louis. A friend of a friend was kind enough to let my squat in his fixer-upper house and help him fix it up in exchange for rent. I did a lot of demolition, painting, electrical work, insulation and rebuilt a whole kitchen. During this time I also worked at a small natural foods store where I was out and very supported by my coworkers and the owner in pursuing my dreams. Another part of the reason my parents and I had such big row is because I didn't really see myself going to college at that time. They wanted me to pursue a "respectable careeer", and I wanted to do something different, something that would make my heart sing. At the time, I didn't know exactly what that was, but I decided to take a chance and trust I'd be alright, be able to find out what that is.
At 19, I shipped off to the Southwest to volunteer, taking a day-long Greyhound to New Mexico. As I was young and full of hope, this turned out to be a magical trip. I met a trucker going cross-country (from OH to LA) to meet family, a woman who emmigrated from Yugoslavia in the 1970s, and a guy who read to me from the Koran and told me about his hovercraft project in development.
I moved to New Mexico to volunteer with homeless/houseless folks, mostly vets, but there are all sorts who end up homeless for a short bit or a long while. This was my first time encountering red earth, the Navajo reservation (a landscape I still miss from time to time), and a lot of other things. New Mexico contained a lot of firsts for me. First experimenting with relationships, started taking testosterone, began accepting that I'm attracted to other men, and did some more interesting stuff.
Some of the things that have happened in my life I might not believe if I hadn't lived through them myself. After my volunteer position came to an end, I got an offer to do some freelancing for a small newspaper and ended up doing that for five years! At first I loved the fact that I got to write about so many different things and see the town in a way I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. I hardly got paid much, but I liked the fact that I was needed and given a chance to make a difference. Only about four people (including me) worked on that weekly paper. By the end of it, I was posting stuff on the web, writing, taking photos, and also helping with a little radio show. What was that strange feeling of dissatisfaction growing larger in me? Most people around me were telling me what a difference I was making and puffing up my (unhealthy) ego in a big way, but I still found myself feeling empty in a way.
Being out on my own was finally giving me the space to look at and create myself (something you can't really do when you're in a dysfunctional place and in "survival mode"). I found myself having a sorta ginsberg-like crisis. I just wanted to focus on working on my creative projects, study things I wanted to study and travel. When I first began making those moves toward that, I found the people I had surrounded myself with were not receptive and supportive to that. I had to rearrange my life again. Eventually I stopped writing (except for myself) and took a shit job to create some space in my life and ponder a few things. I eventually decided to make another big move in my life: I'd spend a few weeks in India (at that point I'd never been abroad) and set up roots in....Phildelphia, where I had a few friends. That was when I was 25.
Fast forward...Philadelphia has brought its own lessons. What Emerson said about the problem of travel end up being true for me: I took myself and my internal problems with myself to Philadelphia; I took my insecurities and dreams of working on music to a totally foreign environment. Eventually I realized that a lot of the problems I was having were related to a lot of unconscious beliefs and unhealed stuff from my past. Slowly but surely I started looking at myself, learning about a thing called self-care and reframing a lot of things that happened in my past, which led to an increase in self-confidence and peace.
Over the last two years I've been saving cash and researching to make a long-time dream of mine true: tramping, hitching and hopping around the United States.
At this point, I'm planning to take another epic Amtrak trip across country and end up in the Monterey Bay area. I hear that bumming around and hitching are somewhat common out west, so I thought it would be a good place to cut my teeth.
Initially I want to stash myself in the woods near Big Sur for a minute, but I'm looking forward meeting other folks with similar interests. Bear with me as I use the search function and probably still end up asking a bunch of newbie/greenhorn questions.
I have a little cash saved up to hold me over for some month, but will end up doing a little seasonal work, busking and selling some crafts to make a little cash as I wander around.
My main goal is to become something like a tramping scholar. I want to read deeply, revive my martial arts studies and work on my music and comics. Big metal fan here, but I like any sort of weird/avant-garge music you don't usually hear on the radio.
Long-term I'd like to increase my bushcrafting knowledge to a point where I can live in and with a wild environment in a reciprocal way. Anyone interested in ancestral lifeways, "rewilding" and becoming a feral human?
I also hope to visit some queer land projects in Cali and further north along the west coast. There's one lady I really want to visit, Finisia Medrano, who seems to be working to revive "sacred hoop" living in the west.
First stop along the way is Santa Cruz. I hear there are a lot of anti-homeless laws in effect now. Does anyone have experience with being in/around Santa Cruz recently? I know I'll have to figure some things out for myself, but I'd like to be aware of what's going on if possible.
Thanks for reading if you got this far.
[END WALL OF TEXT]
What can I say about myself? I'm a work in progress.
I'm completely new to traveling, but I've lived a weird life so far. When I look back, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
This year I turned 29. Eleven years ago I came out to my parents (as FTM transgender) and left a dysfunctional situation there in St. Louis. A friend of a friend was kind enough to let my squat in his fixer-upper house and help him fix it up in exchange for rent. I did a lot of demolition, painting, electrical work, insulation and rebuilt a whole kitchen. During this time I also worked at a small natural foods store where I was out and very supported by my coworkers and the owner in pursuing my dreams. Another part of the reason my parents and I had such big row is because I didn't really see myself going to college at that time. They wanted me to pursue a "respectable careeer", and I wanted to do something different, something that would make my heart sing. At the time, I didn't know exactly what that was, but I decided to take a chance and trust I'd be alright, be able to find out what that is.
At 19, I shipped off to the Southwest to volunteer, taking a day-long Greyhound to New Mexico. As I was young and full of hope, this turned out to be a magical trip. I met a trucker going cross-country (from OH to LA) to meet family, a woman who emmigrated from Yugoslavia in the 1970s, and a guy who read to me from the Koran and told me about his hovercraft project in development.
I moved to New Mexico to volunteer with homeless/houseless folks, mostly vets, but there are all sorts who end up homeless for a short bit or a long while. This was my first time encountering red earth, the Navajo reservation (a landscape I still miss from time to time), and a lot of other things. New Mexico contained a lot of firsts for me. First experimenting with relationships, started taking testosterone, began accepting that I'm attracted to other men, and did some more interesting stuff.
Some of the things that have happened in my life I might not believe if I hadn't lived through them myself. After my volunteer position came to an end, I got an offer to do some freelancing for a small newspaper and ended up doing that for five years! At first I loved the fact that I got to write about so many different things and see the town in a way I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. I hardly got paid much, but I liked the fact that I was needed and given a chance to make a difference. Only about four people (including me) worked on that weekly paper. By the end of it, I was posting stuff on the web, writing, taking photos, and also helping with a little radio show. What was that strange feeling of dissatisfaction growing larger in me? Most people around me were telling me what a difference I was making and puffing up my (unhealthy) ego in a big way, but I still found myself feeling empty in a way.
Being out on my own was finally giving me the space to look at and create myself (something you can't really do when you're in a dysfunctional place and in "survival mode"). I found myself having a sorta ginsberg-like crisis. I just wanted to focus on working on my creative projects, study things I wanted to study and travel. When I first began making those moves toward that, I found the people I had surrounded myself with were not receptive and supportive to that. I had to rearrange my life again. Eventually I stopped writing (except for myself) and took a shit job to create some space in my life and ponder a few things. I eventually decided to make another big move in my life: I'd spend a few weeks in India (at that point I'd never been abroad) and set up roots in....Phildelphia, where I had a few friends. That was when I was 25.
Fast forward...Philadelphia has brought its own lessons. What Emerson said about the problem of travel end up being true for me: I took myself and my internal problems with myself to Philadelphia; I took my insecurities and dreams of working on music to a totally foreign environment. Eventually I realized that a lot of the problems I was having were related to a lot of unconscious beliefs and unhealed stuff from my past. Slowly but surely I started looking at myself, learning about a thing called self-care and reframing a lot of things that happened in my past, which led to an increase in self-confidence and peace.
Over the last two years I've been saving cash and researching to make a long-time dream of mine true: tramping, hitching and hopping around the United States.
At this point, I'm planning to take another epic Amtrak trip across country and end up in the Monterey Bay area. I hear that bumming around and hitching are somewhat common out west, so I thought it would be a good place to cut my teeth.
Initially I want to stash myself in the woods near Big Sur for a minute, but I'm looking forward meeting other folks with similar interests. Bear with me as I use the search function and probably still end up asking a bunch of newbie/greenhorn questions.
I have a little cash saved up to hold me over for some month, but will end up doing a little seasonal work, busking and selling some crafts to make a little cash as I wander around.
My main goal is to become something like a tramping scholar. I want to read deeply, revive my martial arts studies and work on my music and comics. Big metal fan here, but I like any sort of weird/avant-garge music you don't usually hear on the radio.
Long-term I'd like to increase my bushcrafting knowledge to a point where I can live in and with a wild environment in a reciprocal way. Anyone interested in ancestral lifeways, "rewilding" and becoming a feral human?
I also hope to visit some queer land projects in Cali and further north along the west coast. There's one lady I really want to visit, Finisia Medrano, who seems to be working to revive "sacred hoop" living in the west.
First stop along the way is Santa Cruz. I hear there are a lot of anti-homeless laws in effect now. Does anyone have experience with being in/around Santa Cruz recently? I know I'll have to figure some things out for myself, but I'd like to be aware of what's going on if possible.
Thanks for reading if you got this far.
[END WALL OF TEXT]
