the astral weeks i'll share

Well hello again, sorry for the delay.  You'd be right to assume my absence from the "blog spot" equals me doing well.  I am QUITE well.

Here's a month full of updates in a few pics and a few words...once you're done you probably won't feel like "few" was the right word.  Ha, lo siento (that's not Portuguese by the way).

...and because I enjoy doing this I will first include this song I've been stuck on for a while to pump another one of your senses with the ambiance of Tanner's Lisboa Adventure as you scroll and read...ooooooooo yesss...

...& no, the song's not Portuguese...but pshh what does that even mean anyways?

Loved Van Morrison before I knew that was his name.  Anyways, March included...

...a beach, my swim suit, but only my legs in the water, a game of cards, some friends, a friend of a friend, and a friend of a friend's couple of roommates, and these kiddos playing soccer on the beach.

...a Bones Chapel in Evora, Portgual and this cool German guy we met while there that we'll hopefully see again soon.

        

...flashin' lights lights lights lights...& Spanish music that Portuguese go crazy over, even though they will roll their eyes at the end of the song and say something about how all the Spanish do is clap

...a research internship with my anthropology professor!!!  He's a cool dude.

...a birthday + gourmet cupcakes at a place called "Tease" for a reason, winewinewine, & a not so legal, but DELICIOUS Chinese restaurant. 

...man truckin' across a square with two huge bags full of bread, a sticky situation, and Easter treats my landlord graciously offered all of the residents (including Porto wine! <3).

...Indian food with my Indian friend who says it tasted just like home, drawings of our homes to leave our mark in a cutsie tourist cafe (there's an arrow in there to help), and good ole foot-butt graffiti.

...two Polish nights hosted by a couple of delightful Poles.

...much needed and long awaited pizza & beer, a family reunion that very quickly became a family reunion for me too, and the journey up a...very VERY large incline/hill/"mountain"to the highest point where a king one placed a cross you can see from Palacio da Pena.

...Douro Valley (where the vineyards are!), some great aesthetics, but poor architecture, a very kind man who sold us some traditional sweet treats from the next town over, and a beautiful outdoor Mass in Fatima.    

Fatima deserves an extra sentence for itself-- some people don't understand how we could have spent two nights in Fatima when so many just go for a morning, but it became such a beautiful retreat for Leigha's family and me.  Very refreshing/renewing, especially at halfway through this time abroad.

...AND March also included my first Irish Car Bomb that Leigha's (American) dad had to teach the (Portuguese) bartender how to pour.



That's what I got.  God is good and this life is good.

Ciao.

Tan

Thoughts on the Road.

Saturday.

Got back from the seven day, six state, five state/national park, four million feet of snow, three major cities, two road trip buds, and one crazy adventure.... yesterday.

It was different than other road trips I've been on.
So here are my journal thoughts.

"On the road to Omaha. I can't believe that it is already Thursday... (insert ramble jargen)
.. This concept of a road trip is soo... interesting. It is funny, to go in a car, drive random places, stay with people I've never met, eat a mixture of SUPER good food or random cooler/on the road food.
Yet this concept of "road trip" we elevate so much.
We go somewhere, like a vacation, but road trips are different. They are more spontaneous and simple. They are long, tiring, and beautiful all at once.
But we go...
in hopes to find something...
peace, beauty, nature, answers to questions within us, people, etc.

It's almost a paradox...
I mean maybe you don't think so, but bare with me.

We "get away" while we "venture toward."

We leave behind the place we were.
Perhaps that's the busy movements of the day or college, homework, work work, weather, people, or conflict...
We leave that. Physically.
In some ways we don't just drive from it physically, but also emotionally.
At 80 miles per hour. (The speed limit in the west is pretty high... no worries po-lice.)

At the same time (the other side of the "paradox" or whatever you want to call it)
We drive toward something that will give our hearts some light,ease. or crazy venture.
We find ourselves in new towns, at old bars, and unfamiliar faces.
We climb mountains, walk across frozen lakes, play music in a plaza, drive obscene hours...

But we come to the same self.
The one rushing to class for taking too long to get out of bed (guilty),
or the one that walks the same few routes to class, home, class, people, meetings, etc.
Everyday.

Sorry getting long. Almost done.

But that same me, that same self. instead of sitting in Dubuque, IA, or Tinley Park, IL, is seeing the same world from a mountain top view.
And man, is it beautiful.

The same me is cutting my knees climbing to the top of a rocky (ha..) mountain.
The same me is trudging through thigh-deep snow in CO laughing at the choice of Spring Bring weather.

It sounds SO exciting. So insane. So dream-like.
And it was. and still is.
But it is also so ordinary.

So comforting to be able to stare at mountain peaks and the Black Hills, and see faces carved into a mountain... while being the same me.

Yeah, maybe I'm changing with the changes of life.
The struggles, the miles on the road, the pages of school reading, or the hundreds of papers of college.

But it's still the same me.
Just from a mountain top's view.
Or from a boring Nebraska terrain drive.

It's still me."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pictures:

Dubuque, IA - Minnesota - Rapid City, SD -  Mt Rushmore National Memorial - Black Hills/Custer Park, SD, - Wyoming - Loveland, CO - Estes Park, CO - Rocky Mountain National Park, CO - Boulder, CO - Broomfield, CO - Denver, CO - Omaha, NE - Dubuque, IA - Rockford, IL :) - TP, IL aka HOMELAND

we were a little excited

"Great faces, Great places"

Black Hills, 

Custer Park, SD

Rocky Mountains 10,000 ft. Tried to go higher. Nick almost died.

Yep, the Rocky Mountains are cool.

Gem Lake , RMNP. Elevation 10,000 ft

"Save the flowers." 

Broomfield, CO.

mk

"Us" & "Them"

I thoroughly enjoy this moment.  

Sometimes I don't like talking about memories in the past tense.  If I am still thinking of a memory then that moment hasn't ceased to impact me and still somehow, maybe, that moment lives on in some alternative way just because I am thinking of it.  Therefore, I enjoy this moment.

After sneaking this picture I planted myself on a bench next to them and ate my usual lunch which typically consists of a sandwich and a carrot or an apple.  I forget which exactly it was for this day.  I do remember the sun was out and it called out to me to let it in, so I unzipped my jacket and opened it wide so my torso could soak up it's heat before the rain began again.

There are many things that separated me from these men that day.  

Physical distance, their bench and mine.  Company, they had some and I had the birds.  

Age, language, gender, etc., but the last, I'll admit inferred, separation between me and these men 

is where we are "from".  

Our nationality separates us.  

They are Portuguese.  I am American.

We take pride in the land left inside the borders, sometimes natural and sometimes drawn by man, that create difference between peoples--that create "us" and "them".  

Why do we do this?

-T

& thank you to Michelle for convincing me to post this unformed thought.

pipe dreams

3/3/16 pre-P&J pipe smoke

Yesterday I was contemplating the idea of pipe dreams... after a nice pipe smoke.
I began to wonder what makes us desire to learn about places we will never walk

and people we will never meet?

What drives us to Pinterest pictures of crafts and DIY's that we will never do... or 

talk about things we actually don't know anything about?

Before I get ahead of myself and keep coming up with more and more questions...

I'm going to throw out a few potential answers...

We are attracted and fascinated with newness and difference.

ever have a rush when standing in a new place, listening to someone else's "crazy"

life stories, making your own stories, or listening to music SO loud it almost rushes 

through you. 

But we aren't just attracted to these things for the instant gratfication...

No, I think we desire something within us to MOVE.

Perhaps we desire to find a new little nugget within ourselves,

or maybe we just want to FEEL something? Could we crave unity to something

or someone? Something to hold onto?

hmm... 

maybe it all comes down to one thing..

Hope.

- for something deeper to satisfy that insecurity that we so severely seek to mask

- for happiness... I mean who doesn't want to be happy.

- for relief: from the daily stresses, from homework, from the internal junk, from 

injustice in the world, from (insert whatever you want).

Ahhh hope....

A hope that brings us right back to those pipe dreams.

Maybe pipe dreams are unrealistic. Yeah I'll probably never meet the refugee 

families in Algreia, Africa that I learned about last night... but I bet they never 

thought they would be mentioned... and would have motivated thought... in this 

American college kid's blog.

I'll probably never sit on a stage in front of thousands of people, play my 

guitar, and sing the thoughts of my heart.... but I could do that for a small 

group of freshman girls last Sunday.

Pipe dreams may be absurd.

But so are most things in life...

just think about it for a second.

I mean really.

Hope is absurd.

But life's better lived in the absurdity.

Yep. 

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

-M Kavy

here's to the bar guy

This post is for the guy I met at the bar last night.
HA... no not like that.
Here's to you bar guy.


Last night, two of my best life buds and I went to the classiest bar in town... aka the one where you can get $1 beers on Thursday.
We were standing in the upstairs,
and I stated it smelled like a "dead sock," due to the amount of sweaty, beer drinking individuals hanging around. Including myself.
I was playing pool, and as I was waiting my turn I was standing near this guy sitting at a table with some friends. Actually, some of you who were there too probably took notice of him.

I started making conversation with said guy, because he had pretty crazy dreadlocks.
I asked him about his dreads, how long he's had them, hear about his life and how people judge him for it, and so on.
Then he started talking about how he makes music...
Which, hey, I write music. So that's cool.
He was talking about how passionate he is to play music, travel, and meet people around the world.
Stop thinking... this dude is a total hippie.
Because maybe he was in his mustard yellow vibing shirt, baggy orange pants, and "drug rug."
Ha.
Whatever.

So I decided to ask him what motivates him to play or write music.
I don't have an exact quote, but he explained to me how he loves creating something that can be an expression of emotions and feelings. He talked about how much love people can experience within listening to or writing music and how much it builds relationships and community.
It was a moment where I wish I could take a picture of him and remember the words he was saying so I could share it with... everyone. Not because he's trendy or musical, but because that is the REALEST bar conversation I've ever had with a stranger, especially a male stranger.
He didn't ask me for my phone number or Facebook or anything,
He just shared with me who he was...
and offered to dreadlock my hair. (Don't worry mom).

So this morning I've been thinking about how cool of a encounter that was, and took some time to find him on Sound Cloud, since he did tell me his artist/band name. Really cool stuff.

So here's to you bar guy.
Thanks for looking different.
Thanks for having dreadlocks,
so I would come up and chat with you while
I was hopelessly shooting pool.
Thanks for giving me your SoundCloud
so I can hear your expression.
I'm prettty positive you'll never know
that the girl that you talked to for
fifteen minutes wrote a blog
thanking you for, well, being you.

Here's to you, bar guy with dreadlocks.
You inspire me to live.



email me if you're interested in listening to his music.

_shelly kav

it ain't nothing like the old school

Just a little Lisboa "character" to inspire your day.

Side note:  More "character" to add to the list would be the fact that they are playing 

"I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men in the café I'm in right now.

Yesssss, I am in ANOTHER café.

And here it is because I know you want to.

Tan

Another Coffee Shop Post...per ushe...

I didn't seek to run away this time, I think I pretty much have that covered since I’m like 4,000 or something miles from home.  I just sought to veer off just a bit and for just a while.  Below is directly from the journal-ing that occurred while I was there last night:

I'm at this place, Pois Café.  Its heavy curtain with the slit down the middle after the entry way sparked my curious mind, so I stepped through.  Today I was feeling kind of down, but just in a human condition kind of way.  This day just happened to be lower than the past few days have been.  It’s rainy, and therefore gloomy, and i also think I may be getting sick or just coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been sick.  **I'll skip the part of this entry when I talk about the state of my tonsils.**  So, today I just was feeling the sigh a bit more than usual.  Now though, now as in like this very moment— yea, it's so wonderful.  I'm going to stop thinking about where I should be or worrying about what could be and be here with all of me, including my mind.  

So often that is not how our moments works.  we are here in the most obvious way and our mind thought about that very place we are in enough to get us there, but that can be the extent of it.  We get our bodies to places, but what about our minds too?  At the beginning of this America's Greatest City book on Chicago I checked out in the sociology section at my school's library **I won't explain why, ha.**  it questions our true sense of community in a global and techno-savvy age.  No longer (maybe, at least I think this book is saying...) is our community with the ones our bodies are "with" or near, but our community is with the ones our minds, and often only our minds, are "with".  This puts into serious question what we consider community to be I think, it’s not so straight forward when we add intentions into the equation.  We text, call, email, tweet, post, whatever to everyone away from us.  So then they are our community more so that the ones physically with us?  Oofta. 

I've been particularly struggling with metro habits as the metro in itself is foreign to me.  Unfortunately, the past week or so I've noticed I’ve begun to take on a particular demeanor in my own metro travel routine.  It goes like this:

Metro, enter, sit, wait, go, hand out, phone on, head down, stop, head up, hand in pocket, up, move, off repeat.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  BLEH.  

Okay, I don’t go “bleh” at the end of the cycle, thank God, but I do go “bleh” when I think about the cycle.  I mean, come on.  I've been craving structure in my days, but not habituality!  I made that word up, but it works, eh?  I'm not sure when the moment was when I mentally shrugged my hypocrite shoulders and decided to conform to this blindness, but I definitely made this decision and it is life sucking.  Now, people do have to get places and people are tired and people think about what they have to buy at the grocery story while on the metro.  BUT what if there was just one person on the metro who did have a question, need a bit of light conversation or even just a reassuring smile and everything about my demeanor said, "Yep sorry buddy, it's not me.  Look past me.  I'm alone."  This is how I feel so many choose to project themselves on the metro ride and, recently, how I have chosen to project myself on the metro.  

Our minds remove us from where we are so snidely.  They want our bodies to put on the show that we actually are completely where our bodies happen to be.  In order to truly be where we are both our bodies and our minds have to be there.  What is community if we are constantly choosing the one that is away?  There is some researched definition of community out there, but here is just my two cents…community is chosen, intentional, and who we are "whole" to not just with our physical presence, but our mental presence as well.  EVEN on the fast paced metro where I see hundreds of faces I’ll never see again.  I don’t think the definition of community has a time limit, at least if I were constructing my own, it wouldn't.  Presence takes patience I think, so I hope I can manage that with people I encounter, even indirectly, and then maybe we could join in silent community for but 2 minutes.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to share and be understood or share in a way that feels satisfying enough to not care whether or not the other person actually understands because I do understand just enough to feel even the slightest amount competent and valid.  

I have a black smudge on my right pinkie from writing like a leftie with the wrong hand.  I finished my beer, this thought, and my ability to suppress the fact that I've had to pee my entire time being here.  Okay, catch me Lord.  I'm asking a lot of You with my stepping without planning and sometimes without considering that maybe reality really should be a factor sometimes.  Just be You, how about, and I'll be me and then I think that pretty much means all will be well...?  Okay, that is all.  

Tan

  

I'll end this post with this song, because it's been floating in my head for a few days and then this man in the metro station was playing it on his guitar the other day and it made me smile.