Hola Colombia

Colombia has been a great mixed experience. Some frisbee, some holiday time with team mates and friends, some looking at stuff. I'm really grateful to have been here.

As always frisbee comes first. The team was good, our connection was strong and everyone seemed really happy to be a part of the unique experience. We played pretty well and won the silver medal. aussiecrocs.net is the place to get all that info.

Having the World Games in Colombia definitely added an exciting level of interaction to the event. Four years ago in Taiwan it was obvious from the decorations, facilities and city wide organisation that the games were a big deal in town.

This time in Colombia it was obvious that having the World Games in town was a significant event because of the way the local people interacted with us. The level of interest, engagement and excitement that came from the Cali locals was massive. They seemed to love having us in town and I don't think we exhausted their enthusiasm for photos, autographs and pieces of our apparel and equipment.

It was a remarkable experience of interacting with locals who craved our attention because of the Australian team shirts we were walking around in. Sharing this magnificently foreign experience with our small group of team mates was an absolute highlight. The people on this  team will look at each other in years to come and laugh and shake our heads at the incredible experience of being on team Australia at the 2013 World Games.

The frisbee is over now and the fans are gone. We'll they have probably just moved on to Canoe Polo now. My post tournament experience has been excellent too. Jonno and I headed up to Bogota to spend a few days with Manuel and Lilian who lived in Brisbane for a few years and are now back at home in Colombia.

Excellent hosts and a portal into Colombian life that we were not able to access from the police escorted coach we travelled around in at the tournament. Dani from the team has been in Bogota as well and together with our local friends we have climbed Monserrate, explored the old down town area and spent an evening dancing like the Colombians do. It has been a nice come down from the semi ecstatic experience with the team in Cali and a gentle way to face the reality that the mission of our lives over the last six months is over.

Bogota has been a great pit stop and now the journey continues. I'm off to Italy tonight and no one is coming with me. I'm definitely feeling a yearning today as I detach myself from the company of my friends who have been a mighty source of strength and joy over recent weeks and months. Moving ahead now by myself for a while feels a little daunting, i'm not sure what i'll find with an uninterrupted period of my own company.

The course is set now and i'm sure the next piece of my trip will hold some expected and unexpected experiences. I'm pretty sure i'm interested.

Love to you folks out there. Thanks for your continued company on the journey.

Mike

Driving north, feeling lighter

I left Canberra on Wednesday last week. It was a great visit, a real sanctuary for me. I have significant feelings of gratitude to Jonno and the assembled Canberra community, new friends and old for their welcome and hospitality.

None the less it was time to move on, maybe even move up depending on your understanding of the world. Road trip.

Three days with overnight visits to the Delaney connection in Sydney and the Holmes connection in Coffs Harbour.

It was a good trip, these photos fail to do it justice:

Speaking of good trips the next one starts in less than 2 days time. LA, Miami, Colombia, Italy, Montana, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ontario, Michigan, California. Whoa.

This blog will probably be the best way to follow, maybe some Facebook.

To follow the team this site will be solid: http://aussiecrocs.net

To watch actual games you need to get on this now, today!: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/broadcast-of-ultimate-at-the-world-games-2013?c=home

Brisbane has been pretty excellent these last 4 days, I wonder if the world will live up to it?

Happy

Day 115

Thursday 27^th of June

Sometimes I think it is hard to remember how happy we were together. There are events that are possible to remember and highlights that catch the mind. Happiness is an emotion though and not a thought, I think that means it is harder to recall. A thought is something that can be stored and rethought. Brought back out from time to time and thought again, changed, merged, returned to the original and thought again. As such they can be remembered, like a place or a time of year, you can go back and be there again.

Emotions are much less tangible and I think that makes them more elusive. When you are experiencing an emotion it is full power. The emotion can be everything, or just part of a thing, however it is at its fullest in the moment and retaining or returning to an emotional sensation is an impossible feat I suspect.

Looking at these photos from May 2009 I think I can grasp at a sense of how happy Stacy and I were. 

We are on our way to a weekend away and stopped at a beautiful roadside country café. Stacy ordered a burger, as is her want, I ordered Devonshire Tea. The photos capture the moment when Stacy decides she now wants Devonshire Tea as well.

I knew this was going to happen, she knew this was going to happen and we are both so in love with each other and the spectacular relationship we have built that this is something we are happy about. I play the inconvenienced husband, Stacy plays the cheeky and doted on wife. We share my scones with jam and cream and are so happy it comes tearing out of the pictures. 

Out with the pack

Still good in Canberra, Holmes and I are plus one dog and minus one house mate. Frisbee training is going well, I'm getting stronger and staying interested.

I'm doing a little writing as well, it is laborious, however it feels good to do. Here is a sample from the other day. This is set 2 days after I picked Stacy, and 15 other new staff up from the airport in 2001.

Mid lick of my heartily heaped ice cream I lost control and the loaded cone seemed to gently fall through space to touch down intact on the gas station floor. Sanitation level; questionable.  It sat there proudly with the cone facing directly towards the ceiling and with a jaunty tilt back towards the booth where Stacy and I were sitting. Somehow the ice cream had sustained less damage than my rapidly melting ego.

A moment of still followed which seemed to stretch unexplainably. I looked at the ice cream, I looked at Stacy. Stacy looked at me, then she looked at the ice cream. As a woman of decisive action, and with a keen sense of the cheeky Stacy briskly reached down, picked up the ice cream, licked all the way around the edge and gave it back to me.

The momentarily stunned reaction from the booth was convincing shattered by Stacy’s completely infectious and irrepressible laugh and life returned to normal. That is except for my world view which had been shaken up and was only slowly settling back into something recognisable.

One of the most beautiful, funny and contagiously likable girls I had ever met just licked up ice cream that had fallen on a country gas station’s floor. She had done this for me so that I could continue to enjoy my ice cream. 

Canberra, and frisbee

Friends, family, followers. Hello.

I'm in Canberra.

So far it has been a really good move. The place looks great as you can see from the photo. I'm feeling very welcome here with Jonno and Hebs in their place, and also with the Canberra community. Physically welcome and socially welcome, it is a quality way to feel.

It's all fairly casual with a daily schedule that I can modify as I go. I'm filling up my time effectively though with a few good activities. Some gentle exploring and capitoline familiarising, a bit of highly exciting Roman tourist research for my upcoming trip, plenty of hound walking and hanging time, a healthy dose of board game/movie/dinner themed socialising, and a fat chunk of frisbee training, playing and travelling.

The World Games team is preparing aggressively and i'm loving being a part of it. Check this quick video out for a little sense of the action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_ZJHtOTgU&feature=plcp

Also if you are a facebook type of character you should "like" the team page to follow on the happenings:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crocs-2013/215211021944045


I've had some good time for reflecting and recording as well and i'm finding that process to be valuable as an emotionally helpful activity. I'm writing up a general reflection of internal experience type of thing every few days and that is all of a sudden 10 000 words long.

I've also been making an attempt to record the Stacy and Mike story. I'm still on day one and i'm 3000 words into that. It could be a long 12 years to write down. Yesterday I could pretty much picture the interior of the big yellow school bus as I looked back from the front seat across the group of staff we had just picked up to big haired, bright eyed, youthful Stacy. Sitting in the very back row singing The Joker by The Steve Miller Band with the whole bus rocking along.

It's fairly magnificent to spend some time back there in 2001 with the memories.

Some nice casual adventures to come, and some thumping intense frisbee work as well. I think i'm in the right place for now.

Mike

Lack of

I'm off driving today.

There was a period this afternoon that was very peaceful. I haven't felt the touch of responsibility rest so lightly for a long time.

I was coming from nowhere and heading to nowhere. I did nothing yesterday and have nothing to do tomorrow.

My only task today was to keep the car on the road.

Nailed it.

Next

Hi folks

I'm home from Montana with tidings of a strange and snowy land.

It was a great trip back to my northern hemisphere home, here are some images.

                                         Snowing

                                          Birds

                                          Snowing at house

                                          Moon, snow, atmosphere

                                          Big sky

                                          Debi's car, Dave's truck

                                          The road to Santa's workshop

                                                   Tree

Get the picture? 

It was a really good trip, lovely to spend some time with Stacy's extended family and friends. We all loved being together and feeling the same kind of feelings. It was hard to leave, and be left. 

Right now I'm back in Brisbane and it is beautiful. Man I do love it here. I'm feeling weird about not having a home though. I'm back in the parents house which is a great option and a very empathetic place to be. It does however have a strange time warp quality. Did the last decade really happen? I have some memories and yet here I am back in my teenage room. Strange, and a little disconcerting. 

I do have a plan though. On Wednesday this week Dad, the hounds and I are taking a road trip down to Canberra. I'm going to spend 6 weeks or so down there; writing, training for frisbee and sharing a pseudo-bachelor type of lifestyle with good old Jonno Holmes. It feels like a good move. 

After that I've got an international plan that will take me on this well worn path: 

Brisbane

Big Bear Lake (Maggie we are keen for a quick visit, 18th through 22nd July, Jonno and I, cool?)

Miami

Cali, Colombia 

Bogota, Colombia

Rome

Turin

Bozeman, Montana

Denver

Daytona Beach, Florida

Brooklyn

Detroit??? Joey, it better be good mate

Southern California

Brisbane at the end of October

If you are in or around that track, or want to talk me into a detour then get at me, i'm pretty much just poking around and seeing what diffuses, from and to. A time of sharing and connecting, drifting and finding, being alone and then also not alone. 

I'll keep blogging it out from time to time. Also to follow some of the frisbee news get onto the site, 

http://aussiecrocs.net or follow the team on facebook 'Crocs 2013'.

Righto, love

Mike