The Man Factor

Why in the world would a guy want his ex-girlfriend to use a fake name for him when she posts personal stories about their relationship on the internet for the whole wide world to read? I have no idea. But for the purposes of this blog (and my future book), the Ex-Boyfriend will heretofore be referred to as "Jax", short for Jackson. I like the name "Jax" because it sounds strong and sexy, it's short for a longer name (which makes it inherently cool), and from what I'm told, there used to be an American Gladiator named Jax and that kind of makes me feel like a superstar. And so, Jax it is. The name may be different, but everything else is real.

Jax and I first met in a muddy campsite on a rainy evening in Ojai, California. I was camping with my girlfriends, in anticipation of a music festival at Libbey Bowl the following day, and Jax was camping with his guyfriends, in anticipation of the same music festival at the same Libbey Bowl on the same following day. By the time my girlfiends and I had set up our tents and popped open a bttle of wine, it was POURING down rain and we had yet to start a fire. But not only had we not started a fire, we did not even have any fire WOOD. Air mattresses? Check. Folding chairs? Check. Wine, wine, and more wine? Check, check, and check. Fire wood? No. Rain jackets? No. Tarps? No.

We could hear drums, guitars, and loud voices coming from the outskirts of the campground and we headed in that direction, hoping to meet a kind soul willing to donate extra firewood to our soggy cause. I remember carrying my long skirts in one hand and my sandals in the other; the mud felt good on my bare feet and I kept slipping out of the sandals anyways. We soon discovered that the music and voices were coming from under a huge tarp hung from an oak tree like a giant umbrella. Smiling faces were illuminated by the light of a raging campfire. Perfect!

Jax was playing a large djembe near the fire, his face shiny with sweat and red with a healthy booze-burn. He paused as we approached and smiled as we made our plea for firewood. Laughing at our muddy clothes and dripping wet hair, Jax denied our request for firewood, offering instead that we take a seat around the already well-established fire with his group. Thus, the two groups became one.

Jax and I had a lot in common, not the least of which was a shared interest in travel; over the following weeks and months, we eventually became a couple. I was still in grad school, but I had established my Travel Fund and was faithfully contributing to it every chance I got. Jax had been backpacking through southeast Asia and part of Europe before, and he still had a strong taste of the Travel Bug. We talked about travel a lot and over time, it just made sense that we would travel together.

We saved money separately, but regularly discussed our progress, aiming to save the same amount of money so we could travel together for the same length of time. Jax and I had different Travel Fund Philosophies. He wanted to save as much as possible and spend it all in one big blow-out trip, not returning home until every last penny was spent on the journey. I liked the IDEA of his philosophy, but I was nervous about adopting it as my own. I wanted to keep a little "nest egg" of my Travel Fund aside, so that I'd be able to get an apartment and have a little money in savings when I returned home from the trip.

I eventually did adopt Jax's Travel Fund Philosophy as my own, whole-heartedly and with open arms. Ironically enough, by the time I got over my attachment to the "nest egg" idea, Jax and I were on opposite sides of the globe and we hadn't even seen each other in more than half a year. But I'm getting ahead of myself - I just skipped over two years in less than two sentences!

Don't worry - I'm only going to tell you about the interesting stuff...

Planning for No Plans

At 26 years old, I had never been issued a passport. To that end, I had also never been overseas. Not that I hadn't traveled, but just that I had never flown across the oceans and walked through foreign Customs. I had been to Canada and Mexico a number of times, and I do remember walking past some pretty official-looking folks in uniform while strolling across the border(s), but in those pre-911 days, you could practically enter a neighboring country with a letter from Mom to confirm U.S. citizenship.

"Dear Sir/Madam, My daughter was born and raised in the United States and is a legal U.S. Citizen. She has my permission to enter your country for a few days, but if she gets into any trouble, you can keep her."

My mom always hated the Spring Break trips to Mexico. She was so certain that I was up to no good and I'd get myself into trouble. I often was, and I occasionally did...but that's beside the point. The point is that at 26 years old, I was half-way through graduate school and preparing to launch an actual career when I got bit by the Travel Bug in a serious way. I was working on my thesis project and looking for a job when it occured to me that I just wasn't comfortable with the idea of a Five-Year Plan. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to make any plans at all...making plans meant making commitments, and taking on responsibilities, and settling down. I didn't want any of those things.

I needed to travel, and I needed to do it big. The more I thought about it, the easier it was to convince myself that if I were ever to travel without abandon, to really do it big, I was in a pretty good position to do so. My career was young, I was single, no kids, no mortgage, and had deferrable student loans. I knew - just KNEW, in the pit of my soul - that I had to travel. Big time.

I needed money, I needed a passport, and I needed a backpack. I needed some maps too, and a bunch of other stuff, but the money, passport, and backpack were most important. So I finished grad-school, got a job as an Environmental Planner with a great little company, moved home with my mom, and worked my ass off for a year and a half to pay off my credit cards and build up my Travel Fund. I also met a man who would change my travels - and my life - in a big way...

Profanity

I've been advised that perhaps I shouldn't use profanity in my blogs, because the use of profanity may have the potential to narrow my audience. I do believe there's some truth to that, so I've removed "no SHIT" from the title of my first blog. However, profanity does play a part in my writing style, and at times I will use profanity freely...perhaps even abundantly.

Dammit to hell, I hope this doesn't narrow my potential audience.

For fuck's sake, no offense intended.

I feel dirty.

Ten Hail Marys.

There we go.

All better.

Happy thoughts and a bucket full of baby ducks,
Aub

Eighteen months!

I returned to the U.S. in September of 2007 and, in light of extreme travel-induced broke-ness, I got back to work at The Office Job right away. In retrospect, I think I went through more of a "culture shock" in returning to the States than I did in flying to Vietnam with a one-way ticket and a blank notebook. No more were the days of waking and sleeping with the cycle of the moon, or exploring foreign countries by foot, bus, and rail. No more were the days absent of schedules, save for those defined by transportation and tourist visas. And no more were the days of writing for hours on end, with no distractions or responsibilities and, most notably of all, no lack of inspiration or motivation. Culture shock, indeed!

In returning to my old job and a routine defined by that job, I struggled with my writing. I could carve out time to write easily enough, but I quickly discovered that having a few hours set aside at the end of the day does not guarantee that the inspiration will come, especially with residual worries and stresses of the day. An obvious solution might be to work on my writing in the morning, but A.M. creativity just isn't programmed into my DNA.

Over the past 18 months, I have slowly worked on fusing my hundreds of travel stories into one coherent narrative that someone (besides me!) might actually take interest in reading. I'm still working, but I'm getting close now. Eighteen months is a hell of a long time - much longer, in fact, than the months I spent traveling, which are now the subject of my inspiration.

I didn't start blogging about my travels or the progress of my book before now because I felt like all of my efforts should be going towards finishing my book, not maintaining a website. But for some reason, this 1 1/2-year anniversary of the end of my epic adventures and the beginning of my return to The Office Job feels particularly significant. Much more time has passed than I ever expected would before I had a real manuscript ready for publishing. Now I've come to terms with the idea that that's okay. This is just how long my process is.

I'm blogging now because I don't want to lose sight of my travels. My book isn't published (or finished) yet, and I need to keep my travels alive by sending them out into cyberspace. I'm not sure yet about which verion(s) of the stories I'll share in cyberspace, in terms of whether I'll post the raw emails I sent out from the road, or the more refined and edited-down stories now included in my manuscript, or even the stream-of-consciousness thoughts scrawled into the notepad I kept in my hip pocket for eleven months and thousands of miles. Maybe I'll post a combination of everything...who knows.

What I do know for certain is that I'm blogging now as one step closer to finishing my book. This is going to happen. It just has to. I am going to finish my book and it is going to be published and someday, I am going to make a living as a writer, hopefully while continuing to travel around the world. This HAS to happen because there is nothing I have ever felt so passionate about or driven by than I do about my travel stories.

Am I being delusional, or self-indulgent? Maybe. But I'm okay with that too. :)

And so, my friends in cyberspace, welcome to my brand new blog, "Just a Girl with a Backpack"! I hope you enjoy, and I welcome your feedback!

Stories coming soon.....