Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I’m ba-ack . . .

Posted on by
1

Well, folks, I have a lot to say, but I’m tired so I’ll keep it skinny:

  1. I’m back in Austin for 2 weeks (starting yesterday and leaving on the 30th).  Re-entry is great and weird (more on this later, too).   Why am I back now?  Because my very dear friends just had a beautiful baby boy and they all are in need of some serious support.  In between visiting the little one in the NICU and doing whatever these two amazing people need, I’d love to catch up.  So, I’ll be a few places over the next two weeks and hope you can join me:  Bill’s Singer-Songwriter deal at The Crow Bar on 4/18, Eeyore’s bday party on the 28th, Early Voting on the 30th (you know I had to!) and Barton Springs, Lady Bird Lake and eating my way through Austin with *you* between now and then.  My phone is on, so give me a jingle, willya?
  2. D is continuing on with Will and I am so confident in their abilities to move from Inagua, The Bahamas to Port Antonio, Jamaica safe and sound.  It should be about a two-day trip, I’ll meet them there in two weeks and I look forward to a grand tour of ‘de Island, mon before heading south to Panama.  You can track their progress here.
  3. Last, but definitely not least:  I’m THRILLED to be a finalist for the Amble Resorts Island Intern contest.  So.excited.  There’s more to come on this front but for now let me just say: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who voted & shared in this adventure with me; your support means more than words can say.  Special thanks to Amble Resorts for believing in my potential and wanting to know more – the feeling is mutual 🙂

love, love, love

L

Island Intern? Vote & see . . .

Posted on by

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Hey y’all,

I have a confession to make: I have been applying for a job. I know, I know, it’s a real buzz-kill to the care-free, jobless, shoeless lifestyle fantasy you think I live. But, before you go being all “aww, geez, that Laurie is such a slave to The Man,” keep reading.

Or, if you’re not much of a “reader” but more of a blog “skimmer”, click here to Vote for Me in the 2012 Amble Resorts Island Intern contest. Thanks a ton!!!

OK, for all you “readers” out there, here’s the scoop:

In February I was dorking around on facebook and The Professional Hobo (of course I follow her) posted this interesting link to a resort company advertising an “Island Intern” position/contest. Of course, I clicked. More out of curiosity than anything. And then I got to thinking . . .

The “Island Intern” would travel to Panama (which we love and where we’re already headed) for a month this summer (when we’ll be arriving) get set up Amble Resort’s private island, travel around and share their experiences online through sites like Facebook and the companies’ own blog, The Ambler.

While I’m definitely a bit older that your average intern*, I thought, “I have been wondering what I’d do next, you know, since leaving work full time in November of 2010 and embarking on a transformational sabbatical to Panama”. You know, that whole thing.

The “what next” thoughts have spurred me into trying things on and seeing how they fit. At first, the idea of becoming an Island Intern just seemed like a “sounds like fun, why not?” kinda thing. But, the more I dug into it, the more I started to get excited about the real possibility of combining what I love to do – and am already doing – with my professional skills in a whole new way: as a Travel Host. After all, I already love to travel, meet new folks, go on exploring adventures and tell all y’all about it on the interwebs. Plus, I think my past experience as a political organizer (fearless relationship building, grassroots marketing and online outreach) would be a huge asset in this arena.

But, what’s a Travel Host, you say? And, what’s this Island Intern deal got to do with it? Well, here-ya-go:

1) Travel Host is something I’ve totally made up. For me. I suppose there are tons of folks out there with this “official” title and it can mean many things depending on who you talk to. But, for me, it expresses how I’d love to be able to greet folks coming off a plane, from their (busy?) lives back “home” and give them an amazing experience on their visit – you know like when you visit a friend in their hometown and get the “inside scoop” on all the best stuff.

1-a) How’d I do that? Well, you gotta get in there and get to know a place. Take for example, Austin. Sure, I grew up there, but I also make it a point to get off the beaten path, visit small businesses and ask – like really ask – how someone’s day is. It’s part of the reason I can never just run up to the MiniMart in be back in 5 minutes (because of Abdel) and and why I love going to see Denny at the amazing Arturo’s Underground Cafe (because we’re friends, and his salads are killer!). Having grown up in Austin, I’ve shown a lot of new folks around and I love it. I love thinking of what flavor of Austin they’d really savor and building an itinerary just for them. And, I love seeing them fall in love with the City, I love, too.***

2) So, what’s this Island Intern deal all about and how will it help me become a Travel Host? Well, the Island Intern position is a starting point; they know it and I know it. In fact, they’ve been very forthcoming about how some of their finalists last year who were selected as their 2011 Island Interns have, in fact, parlayed the experience into another, professional experience in the field. And, for the record, I know that changing careers is rarely easy and those with who legitimately sport the Travel Host title have worked their tushies off to make a living – away from friends and family.

Also, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Amble Resorts, “the company behind the contest” (I made that up ;). From my research, Amble Resorts and their founder Ben Loomis are different. And, I like different. I like that the island is being developed in an environmentally responsible way: with passive cooling systems, 95% of the island is NOT being developed, and that an emphasis is being placed on immersive experiences.

You can click here to read all about Amble Resorts straight from the source.  

So, this all leads us to something really important which I mentioned briefly above (to all of those busy blog “skimmers”): the selection process for becoming an Island Intern is, in part, a CONTEST where YOU can VOTE for ME (sorry for yelling but I’m a little excited). I’ve been posting shameless-self-promotions on Facebook and even joined Twitter (swoon) prompting y’all to vote and really wanted to take my time here on the blog to give more of an explanation about Amble Resorts (“the company behind the contest”), the Island Intern contest and why I’m interested. But, all that aside, if you haven’t voted yet, DO IT NOW (please and thank you :). Click here to vote.

And, of course, if you feel so inclined to post/share/invite your friends to vote, too, I’d love that!

Finally, you might be wondering: what about Damon, the dog, the boat? All important questions which we have made up answers for: since we’re headed to Panama anyway, and are so familiar with Bocas, we figure we could leave the boat and Kemah in Bocas with Will (D’s brother who’s joined us for a while) and D could come with me – or not. We’ll see.

So, that’s that. Like I said, I’m trying things on, this feels like an awesome fit for the both of us (me and my new BFF Amble Resorts) and I’d love your help. So many of y’all have been so supportive already and I appreciate it more than you know.

Thanks so much for your help and you can bet your behind I’ll keep you posted with the latest news from this aspiring Travel Host!

Xoxox,

Laurie

*Over the years, I’ve worked with a ton of interns and volunteers: young and not-so-young but always life-saving! The best interns I’ve worked with always share similar traits: they’re hungry to learn (to do it “your way”**), eager to sink their teeth into a meaningful project for which they can be responsible and posses the humility and realism to do the grunt work, which is part of every job.

**When I say “your way”, I don’t mean “my way”, I mean the “company way”. Being able to adapt to the style of the team will always get your far (or cause you to find a more natural fit).

***Shameless-yet-super-cool plug: I was absolutely thrilled to have my feature on Austin included in National Geographic Intelligent Traveler’s I Heart My City blog.  Check it out!

Let’s be real

Posted on by
9

3/9/2012

**author’s note: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and hemmed and hawed about whether to share something so, well, personal.  But, I’m deciding to do it because this is all part of the journey, too.  Please read this as it occurred to me: a moment in time.  I’m fine, really.  Just had to get it out.**

A year and a half ago my life – our lives – looked completely different.   And now, sitting here “snowed in” in Nassau, in all of this change, I’ve had some time to think.

Aside from the beautiful water, beaches, and fun “new-ness” of everything – not to mention not working right now (wo-hoo!)– there is another side, at least for me.

I have doubts.  I have fears.  I have insecurities.

Sometimes I worry about our safety aboard but mostly I worry about money and how we’re going to “pull this off”.  Generally I find it pointless and mentally exhausting to evaluate whether “I’ve done/I’m doing the right thing” on a daily basis.  But, that doesn’t stop the questions from coming and the doubts from keeping me up at night, getting me out of bed and to the computer where I write this post.

I find some comfort in the assumption that most people who are doing something totally new and perhaps radically different from what they’ve done previously have a lot of these thoughts – do they?  I also wonder if my distress is something intrinsically female as I recall words of older women I’ve read over the years: when asked things like “what would tell your younger self?” inevitably they say things like “don’t worry so much”.

I’m generally not a worrier.  To the contrary, I’ve been faithful in my ability to pull it out when needed and this has gotten me through a lot in life.  I hold the same faith now, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hold the doubts, as well – and they seem louder than they’ve ever been.  Actually, they’re probably just as loud as whenever I’ve done big stuff in life – like my first Legislative Session “on my own”.

Speaking of doing “big stuff in life”, I suppose I should share a bit of how I got here in the first place:

We had stable jobs, owned a home in the same town we grew up in, had a healthy savings account and no debt (something we worked many extra hours for years to build).  In other words, we had done the things you’re supposed to do (and these financial choices, have allowed us to be where we are today).

Secretly though (to some more than others), I had longed for years for a life abroad.   And, yearned to stop secretly hating the Tuesday morning kayaker I spied on my commute to a weekly agency meeting – how’d he get away with that!?!

So, we left on a controlled, self-designed sabbatical of sorts to backpack in Central America “For three to six months” – notice the end date already established.  While we were out, everything was nicely packed away:  our home, dog, car and all of our worldly possessions were being well looked after, bills were paid in advance and “for when we came back”, we had the house and our savings account intact (having saved separately for travel).

Fast forwarding through our travels on and off the backpacker trail through Nicaragua and Costa Rica, something happened in Panama.

While living eight miles out by boat from the nearest town, on solar and water catch, we got it in our head that we wanted more “like this”.  And, because of our experiences on sailboat, we allowed ourselves to dream of becoming live-aboard sailors.  Then something even bigger happened:  we allowed ourselves the opportunity to move forward with the dream.   We put pen to paper, crunched the numbers and thought “maybe we can actually pull this off”.

Admitting this to others was more difficult.  Aside from my parents, who are wonderful, supportive and have the appropriate amount of parental concern for our future, my biggest insecurity was the reaction of those in my professional network.

I think a lot of my identity in Austin, in the political scene, was wrapped up in being taken “seriously”.  Was it because I was young, a woman, working in a field where I was constantly challenged by “authority” for my credentials, the serious nature of the work I did, or all – or none – of the above?  It doesn’t really matter; I still felt that way, strongly.  And, it mattered that people perceived me as serious about what I did.

Selling everything (selling out?) to move aboard a boat and travel in the Caribbean didn’t seem like something a serious person would do, so I floundered.  I protected my secret, like I protected my original traveling plans.

For me, part of the allure of the new path we set out to take was practicing ways of being that I had discovered in Panama; it seems cliché but I distinctly remember being anchored off the coast of no-where, stargazing and thinking about how small we all are – and take myself so seriously gained a new perspective.  I knew that I had changed, shifted – or, “crossed over” as another cruising couple calls it.

One thing I learned about myself while “on the road” in Central America in 2011 was how adaptable I am to my environment – or conversely, how much my environment affects me.   And, I knew that when returning to Austin, it would be important for me to clearly define for myself and re-introduce to others shifts I had made/am making which are important to me.  Some weren’t surprised at all, most had a lot of questions and for a few, shifts that were made were deal-breakers.  Of course, in the six months we were gone, everyone else had exciting changes, too, which I in no way mean to discount; it’s just I can’t speak for them, only for me.

Upon return, I was also keenly aware that I was more of the “Tuesday morning kayaker” than the “agency meeting commuter” but without an absence from my professional network, my community – I didn’t have a “kayaking network” – I would have been a lot harder to build muscle memory for a new path within an old context.

So, here I am, getting everything I asked for: a thrilling adventure into the unknown (which is by nature, uncertain).   Funny how that comes with the territory, eh?

xoxo,

L