Revisiting the spirit of Fiji

It's coming up to one year since my trip to Fiji. I've been working on my Fiji movie and it's shaping up nicely. Or, to restate that using the language of ownership - I am well pleased with where I've been taking it.

Why am I making this video now, almost a year later? I had previously made a short video last year that I had posted to my Facebook account, and a couple of slideshows using iPhoto, but none of those projects encapsulated the full scope of the video that I envisioned making while I was there. I've just really really really wanted to do it, and I've been having a slow period with regard to client projects, so I just started doing it.

While I was in Fiji I did the pole-climb. I also took over 400 photographs and recorded several hours of video. I had it in my mind that I would make a movie out of all that and I started thinking about what my soundtrack would be. One song I kept hearing was Faith of the Heart. That's the theme song from the series Star Trek: Enterprise, performed by Russell Watson.

I was really hearing that song, I was really hearing the words, and they seemed totally, completely, appropriate for the experience I was having in Fiji.

It's been a long road
Getting from there to here...

It certainly was a long road getting from Toronto to Fiji. I took something like five planes, crossed the International Date Line, crossed the equator, and crossed so many time zones that I'm not even sure how long it took me to get there. I think it was about twenty four hours.

Physically, it was a long road getting from here to there, but also metaphorically - my life journey has been a long road.

Some of the other lines I was hearing...

I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star...

Those words - I could just hear those words and they completely went with the images I had, climbing the pole. It's what the pole climb is about - I can do anything, I can reach any star.

It's now, almost a year later, I'm going back to that video and man, I need that inspiration now. For a couple of weeks now I've been feeling down and discouraged about my fund raising efforts for the trek in Machu Picchu for Joints In Motion. As I'm watching the pictures of me climbing that pole and hearing that music and listening to those words, I feel a reconnection with inspiration.

I've had some kick-ass wins recently so it seems irrational that I should be feeling down and discouraged. I should just focus on my wins and feel positive, right?

Maybe, but I don't believe in so-called Positive Thinking. I equate that with putting on a mask. I think I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge my negative feelings to myself and pretended I didn't have them. I think that sweeping them under the rug allows them to gain power over me. I've learned that I become stronger in the end when I acknowledge and respect my negative feelings and know that I won't stay in them for too long.

They're not gonna hold me down no more, no, they're not gonna hold me down.

I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.

Aerial Tramway Adventure

6:57am "Wake up at dawn, it's a brand new day, so many places to visit, things to do".

Today's mission: take a ride on the aerial tramway. But breakfast first.

8:07am I had the complementary breakfast at the hotel here.

What next? I inquired at the front desk about how to get to the Aerial Tramway. The lady at the counter started giving me a data dump of driving directions. I told her that I don't have a car and asked if I could get there by transit or taxi. She gave me a business card for a cab company. I suppose my next step will be to call the cab company from my room.

The Aerial Tramway - it is described as the "world's most spectacular aerial ride" according to the literature I've found in my hotel room. The Mountain Station is located at an elevation of 8,516 feet and has 54 miles of hiking trails.

I've called the Aerial Tramways information line and learned that the round trip fare for the tramway is $23.25. It is a 10 minute ride up to the top of the mountain and trams depart every half hour. There are two restaurants at the Mountain Station. There is also an area where they show movies about the tramway. All of this sounds reasonable to me. The catch is that the taxi fare is $55 one way only. It could cost me over $100 just to get there and back! Perhaps I'll look into a car rental instead.



2:42pm It's almost three o'clock before I get to the park where the tramway is located. I've rented a car for the purpose of making this side trip, having that decided that the cost would be about the same or less than what it would cost to take a taxi, plus it would give me a bit more flexibility. It will give me a bit more logistics to work out as well since I will eventually have to drop off the car and still get to my hotel from the drop off point.

Joe, the guy from the car rental agency, gave me a map so I had no trouble finding the park even without GPS. As I drove in on the long road that led to the parking lot for the tram car signs warned that this was private property that was monitored by TV, that the climb was steep and to turn off air conditioning. The climb may have been steep but it was deceptively so. I drove past a sign that claimed an altitude of 1,000 feet. Several minutes later I drove past another sign that claimed 2,000 feet. The intervening road felt mostly flat to drive on and the only physical sensation that I had of any ascent was the feeling of pressurization in my ears, like being on a plane.
















3:01pm I'm at the top now at Mountain Station, elevation 8,516 feet. It is cool up here and there is snow on the ground. The trip up the mountain on the aerial tramway took eleven minutes and it seemed like a short ride. We climbed from about 2,000 feet to over 8,000. We are not quite at the top though; the peak of the mountain is actually over 10,000 feet high.

4:29pm I step out on the deck and take a few more pictures from the other of the station. The cold temperature discourages me from undertaking even a short hike. I thought I was overdressed for the Palm Springs weather but I am actually under-dressed for the mountain top weather.

The battery in my iPhone is down to 50% so I question the wisdom of relying on it as my primary camera on future travels.

9:34pm I'm back from my Aerial Tramway Adventure. I had a late lunch while I was at the Mountain Station. After I finished lunch I stopped in at the theater room and watched the two documentaries about the park and about the building of the tramway. By the time I finished watching the movies it was dark already and I decided to head back down. The descent - in the dark - was a whole different way to experience the ride.



Would I recommend this adventure to travelers to Palm Springs? I would. I would recommend making a day trip rather than a half-day trip as I did, and take some time to explore the hiking trails. I also recommend dressing for the weather at the top of the mountain; it can be much cooler up there than it is down in the valley.

A Fiji reunion

I have been feeling under the weather this week and I left Toronto hoping that 30,000 feet of altitude would be enough to get me above the weather.

My first flight was Toronto to Dallas. I had a one hour stopover on Dallas which was really no time at all. Enough to find the departure gate, buy some water and snacks, try to access a wi-fi network, and then the boarding call comes.

I'm about to get on the plane when I hear someone call my name. Now what is the chance that I would bump into someone I know here? Surprisingly high, since I can't be the only one traveling to Palm Springs for Date With Destiny. The more I network and get around the higher the chances of bumping into someone I know as I travel around the world.

Christine L., whom I met in Fiji, is on the same plane. I also meet a few other people on the plane who are bound for Date With Destiny.

And who did I see when I arrived at the airport in Palm Springs but Annette F., my buddy from Fiji who helped me put together the class roster! Annette has rented a car here and she was kind enough to give me a ride from the airport to my hotel. I also learned that Glenda and Wilfredo are here also, and noticed on Facebook (which I can access on my iPhone thanks to free wi-fi access at my hotel) that Tracey L. is coming too. This is going to be like a little Fiji reunion!

I'm looking forward to seeing them all again, and I'm not feeling so under the weather anymore.

My next dream trip

I had a phone conversation last week with Lori, from Extraordinary Learning. They're the company that offers the Twenty First Century Leadership program that I attended in 2007 and again in 2008, in Seattle.

After thinking over my conversation with Lori I've decided on my next dream trip - go to Calgary in May 2011 by train and attend the Twenty First Century Leadership Tune-Up weekend while I'm there.

I am putting this out there much in the same way that I put it out in July that I would move to a place of my own. That it, as a leap of faith. I'll let the Law of Attraction work for me to help me get there.

What an adventure it will be.

Perspective of a year

What a difference in perspective a year and a half can make. A year and a half ago I broke off my four year relationship with J. I felt frustrated and disappointed, and after I left I felt grief and a sense of loss.

Only half a year before the break up we had travelled together to Vancouver and Seattle to attend the Twenty First Century Leadership workshop. We had both taken lots of pictures and shot lots of video and done lots of journaling during that trip, and I had a vision of bringing all that content together to make a travel videologue. I hadn't got a good start at that project when I broke up with her, and a year and a half ago if I looked at any of the images from that trip I felt depressed. They reminded me of failure.

Today I look at those videos and I remember with pleasure and fondness that trip. I am looking at those videos now because I have decided I will make that documentary after all, as a portfolio project for my business if nothing else.

J and I have become friends again. One of the tenets of leadership that 21CL teaches is that as a leader I tell myself the truth. I frequently ask myself, "What am I pretending not to know?" I know what were our relational dynamics that often led to the fights we had. I know that she behaves in certain ways and I know that I have a choice in how I respond. I know that if I respond in the way I would naturally respond, then that leads to the same kind of friction that neither one of us enjoyed in the past. For me to continue to respond in the same way that I used to is to pretend that I don't know what I really do know, about her and about how we relate.

Ride the Ducks!

Today we did a touristy thing called Ride the Ducks. This is a tour on an amphibious bus; a tour of downtown Seattle combined with a sea tour. Our tour guide was a wild whacky woman who went by the name Claire Boyant. She sang, she danced, she made us laugh.

We also made it to the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum, and the Science Fiction museum. I saw William Shatner's tunic, the one that he wore during the filming of Star Trek - The Original Series. I also saw scripts, with notes on them, handwritten by the cast; I saw the captain's chair, and helm console, as they were used in the filming of the series.

At the EMP, I saw Jimi Hendrix's handwritten diary, with some handwritten letters. Cool, cool. We also experienced an event called On The Stage, where we made our own rock video! It's too bad that cameras were not allowed in the two museums.

Although we were around the Space Needle, we didn't quite make it up. There were just too many things to see and do in a short period of time and going up to the top of the Needle just didn't make it on the list. Maybe next time.

Seattle

Today is the first day of my vacation time in Seattle, with J, having completed the 21st Century Leadership program. I could say (and will say) that today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I feel like I am having a functional, productive, above the line team experience with J.

J does what she does, which is doing the research - finding out what attractions are around, finding out what the possibilities are, and essentially outlining the agenda. I really appreciate this because I like knowing I have a structure in place and like knowing where I am in the context of my structure.

I know that once we have our agenda, I will do what I do, which is defender of the agenda, or executor of the agenda. It is being the Chief of Staff, being the guy who takes care of the details and makes sure the agenda is followed and executed.

Today is a day for taking care of business - taking care of laundry, checking emails, getting in touch with our people back home. I really want to have my laundry cleaned because I only brought enough essentials for one week away from home and am now on my second week. I have been recycling for a couple of days, so this is bordering on emergency.

I noticed that the people of Seattle are so friendly, so service oriented, so humble and willing to engage.

After dropping off my laundry we took a bus to Pike Place Market. We had lunch at the Sound View Cafe. After lunch we wandered around the market and met a man named Michael Yaeger. Michael is the self-titled honorary mayor of Pike Place Market. He delighted in showing me a video he produced about the market and in talking with us. Inside his shop I found a book - with his name on it. I was impressed. Clearly this is a multi-talented man.

21st Century Leadership

So it's been two and a half years since I became engaged to J (see "It's a nice box"). During these two and a half years, a lot has happened, and a lot has not happened. We have had a lot of fights, we have had a lot of arguments, we have had a lot of conflict. We have had a few short-lived breakups. That's all dirty laundry which I have generally kept out of this blog.

The six day workshop that I attended with J, 21st Century Leadership, was the laundromat. Can't quite call them the dry cleaners; there was rain, there were tears.

There was stubbornness, there was determination. There was intensity, there was tiredness, there was irritation, there was hurt; there was friendship, there was challenge, there was fun, there was laughter, there was learning. Extraordinary learning.

And so in the midst of this environment, I learned what I had forgotten. I learned the answer to a question that a mere week ago I could not answer: What is good about my relationship with J? I did not actually find an answer to the question What is *good* about it, but I found an answer to a better question, What is *great* about it. What is great is when I remember that J is gentle, sweet, caring. When I remember that, it is great. And that smells fresh and clean and warm like clothes that have just come out of the dryer.

Adventure in Capilano

Today was an adventure! We went for a walk this morning, got up early and walked around the harbour, then went for breakfast. J has discovered, or rather re-discovered, the world of journaling for herself.

After breakfast and a couple of hours changing our travel plans to Seattle, we finally got under way to Capilano. We took a bus across the Lions Gate Bridge to Capilano, paid the hefty admission price and went in. Now I remembered why I hadn't crossed the suspension bridge last time I was in Vancouver, which was about ten years ago - because of the admission price. But anyways, we were already there, what were we going to do, go back? Besides, it might be another ten years before I'm back this way again!

So we did the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I crossed it the first time, and I was pretty nervous. By the time I got across I was sweating! What made me nervous was not so much the swaying, because I usually enjoy that. It was that there were so many people on the bridge ahead of me and they kept on stopping. I was so nervous crossing that I didn't even want to use my camcorder; I was holding on to the railing the whole way across.

My return crossing was a different story. There were fewer people on the bridge so I could walk faster, in the centre, with a wide stance. I held the camcorder in front of me, waist level, for most of the way back, recording. At about the three quarters of the way point I noticed it wasn't recording anymore - the battery must have drained.

We also did the Treetop Adventure at Capilano. It was a series of walkways suspended from trees. Several hundred feet above the ground! It was fun, and we took lots of pictures, videos, and voice recordings, and J wrote more in her journal. So we have lots of material with which to produce a travel documentary!

When we came back from Capilano, we took the SeaBus across the bay. Then we decided to take the SkyTrain for a ride. When we returned to the hotel we were both tired but happy. It was a great day, and a great way to start off for the upcoming 21st Century Leadership program.

Morning in Vancouver

J got up this morning while I was still in bed. She looked out the window and said, Oh my God!. I thought that some disaster had befallen, but she was simply expressing her admiration for the view. She said, Let's get up and go for a walk. I could have used a couple more hours of sleep, but what the heck, I got up anyways. In a couple of days I will be at 21st Century Leadership, getting up for the morning ritual - The Mile.

While I was getting myself up and ready, she wrote in her journal, describing the view she was seeing. My goodness, she was actually writing! I have encouraged her many times to journal, and I was impressed that she was actually doing so.

We go for a walk. J puts her journal down on the sidewalk while she takes pictures with her cellphone. I offer to carry her journal in my camera bag and she declines. What if I need to write something down?. You see - she *is* a writer! Thinking like a writer. Always carry a book, always be ready to capture a moment of inspiration.

I wait patiently while she writes, just as she has waited so many times while I've been tapping away into my Palm Pilot. I think her creative spirit has woke up.

We walk around the Bayshore and make frequent stops so J can add to her journal. (Later, she would count that she had written six pages in her pocket journal). We walk along and stop again to look at the float planes. Two of them take off during the time that we watch them. I shoot some footage with my camcorder but by this time I need to go to the washroom badly and I cannot stand still enough to get those good long shots.

Finally we go to a hotel and I go in to use their washroom. Afterwards, we walk a few blocks more to a breakfast place called The White Spot. We each have Belgium waffles and fresh orange juice. We also read to each other from our respective journals, and thus a seed for a new bonding ritual is planted.

J is amazed with her own rediscovered writing abilities, and realizes that I saw the writer in her. It looks like J has finally started her journey, it looks like she has finally started her own 21st Century Leadership.

She beams when I read out my observations about her, and I take a moment of silent pleasure about something I've done for her that she doesn't know about yet. She didn't bring a CD for 21CL, so I have secretly picked one on her behalf. I will surprise her with it later. The CD I picked is by Louis Armstrong, and the song I picked for her is When You're Smiling. The line that speaks to me that I want to gift to her, is When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. I think of this as I look at her beaming face and I know I made absolutely the right choice.

Black silhouetted mountains

I do in fact enjoy travelling, once I actually get out. It's the preparation, the packing, that puts me off. The stress of getting all those things done that ought to be done before leaving on a trip. Knowing that I always pack too much and end up using only a fraction of what I bring with me on a trip. Playing the guessing game of what the weather will be like at my destination for the duration of the trip; playing the prediction game of deciding what clothing to bring and what not to bring so that I am prepared for all outcomes.



Once I'm at the airport, luggage checked in, security cleared, and I'm just waiting to hear the boarding call, I start to relax and get excited about going somewhere.

Saturday July 14 - I am in Vancouver with J. We are here for a couple of days, on a stopover on our way to Seattle. We have a room here at the The Westin Bayshore, overlooking a marina, black mountains silhouetted in the background - the view is gorgeous! This room was arranged for us by a friend with help from J's brother. Thank you both! I greatly appreciate it.