BOLT: Black Old Lesbians Traveling

Reaching the milestone of my sixtieth birthday seems to call for some sort of wisdom sharing.  One post I saw shared sixty things the writer felt important to share at sixty.   The six things I will share have profoundly impacted my life and indeed make the life I choose possible.  I feel they will be especially helpful to affirm as Kathy and I prepare to embark on our new life of “home free” world travel.

The first truth is this this: THESE ARE ONLY MY TRUTHS.  Kahlil Gibran says “Say not I have found the truth, but rather I have found a truth.”  My perceptions, my ways of doing things, my beliefs are not the only ones nor the right ones.  Remembering this makes me more respectful and tolerant of other’s views.  It also makes me more open to new “truths”.

My next truth is that YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING.  Knowing this makes home free travel sustainable, compromise possible, and letting go desirable.  Kathy and I often remind each other “the first rule of travel is you can’t do it all.”

A most valuable, if difficult truth is that PEOPLE ARE NOT WHAT THEY SAY, THEY ARE WHAT THEY DO.  I have learned to accept that if our words don’t match our actions then our words mean nothing.  Today I try to be a person who actions truly speak louder than my words.  I am learning to watch the actions of others with love and compassion and accept them for who they are and encourage them to work toward who they say they want to be.

A hard learned truth is that PEOPLE PLEASING IS FUTILE. Trying to please people is exhausting and after all that hard work it always fails.  I spent much of my life trying so hard to be liked by everyone.  The problem is that this left me no time to learn to like my self.

This truth logically followed: CHOOSING ME IS NOT SELFISH.  Somehow I got the message that saying no, practicing self care or doing things that I wanted to do was selfish.  Letting go of people pleasing opened my up to the joy of choosing me.  For today I try to say no to events, people or situations that do not serve my highest good.  I spent at least one day a week in my pajamas doing exactly what I want to do.  I move, eat and try to rest in ways that nourish my body and my spirit.

A very wise woman gave me my last truth. WHEN I AM POINTING MY FINGER AT YOU, FOUR FINGERS ARE POINTING BACK AT ME.  For today I am trying hard to judge less and love more.  This includes being more gentle and accepting of myself as well as others.  I am trying to leave judgment to those better qualified (God, the Universe).

So, as I leave you with my truths (for today) I hope you find something helpful.  It certainly helped me getting it out.  After all, if you can’t tell your truth at sixty, when can you?

Marci Halili Akoma 9-6-15

When Kathy and I say we are going on a 30 day trans-Pacific cruise many folks assume it will be very expensive.  The opposite is actually true. For less than $83 per person, per day we will visit 12 beautiful destinations, stay in a lovely cabin with full steward services, have nightly entertainment and enjoy 30 days of delicious gourmet meals.

The ship we will be on (the Statendam) is being moved (repositioned) from Alaska to Southeast Aisa.  Rather than move an empty ship across the seas the cruise lines choose to offer these one way trips at deeply discounted rates.

Kathy and I love cruising.  We met on a cruise (truly love at first sight), and have enjoyed several cruises together.  For getting away from it all and relaxation there is nothing better than cruising.  This will be our longest cruise by far with multiple days (5-6) at sea.  We are looking forward to lots of time for reading, writing, swimming  (me) and using the gym machines (Kathy). We are also looking forward to sharing our cruise adventure with you all.  So stay tuned!

For more information on repositioning cruising visit: http://www.vacationstogo.com/repositioning_cruises.cfm

Since January we have been planning, packing, and plotting.  We have let go of so much: our house, our dog, tons of clothes, art, furniture, and our jobs.  We have been dreaming, talking, and enjoying visits to all our favorite Southern California spots.

In 30 days we will set off on the adventures  we have been talking about since we first met…TRAVELING THE WORLD!

The first leg of our journey will be a 30 day repositioning cruise (more details about this type of cruising in my next post).  Our ship, Holland America’s Statendam, leaves Seattle on September 21st.  We will be crossing the world’s largest ocean, the Pacific.  We will have lots of time at sea (five days in a row, twice) with stops at some amazing and beautiful islands: Vancouver, Kauai, Hawaii, Majuro, Chuuk Island, Saipan, Guam, the Philippine Island of Puerto Princesa,  and two islands in Malaysia.  Our final stop is Singapore.

We want to share our adventures with you and hope to inspire you to create adventures of your own.  Thus, this blog is reborn.  Our intention is to post a weekly blog with pictures of the beautiful places and people we know we will encounter, the humorous and exciting highlights of our week and helpful tips about this type of travel.

We hope you will follow this blog and leave us your comments, insights and questions.

Marci and I sold our things today. We had a great big garage sale and sold most of the things we owned. Except we didn’t. Turns out we own much more than we knew. So after a day of selling items for twos and fews, we still had several (read hundreds) of items left. So we will be at it again tomorrow.

There is a lesson to be had here. Maybe more than one. The most obvious lesson is when you are planning to sell everything you own, schedule more than one day to do it. Another lesson might be: Have garage sales periodically instead of at the very last minute before taking off and traveling around the world.

But the thing that was on my mind the most is: How much our things tie us to a life with no longer want. I notice this periodically. Anytime someone asks us “what will you do with your stuff?”, I stop a moment. Then I smile because one of the first lessons I learned after the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight-Fold Path was how our possessions handcuff us. The lesson was not that our possessions tie us to a life we may not want anymore. The lesson really was that our possessions handcuff us. bracing image of a person imprisoned by boxes of expensive electronics and new cars was the point.

The lesson goes like this. We do not go out and buy a bunch of useless things. We actually go out and buy things we think are very useful or fun. But after a while we have bought so many useful and/or fun things that we are longer agents in our own lives. We are indeed prisoners of our things. The car makes a noise on the way to work, we must thing about getting the car fixed. The washing machine floods we must clean the mess and have the washer replaced.

Our things are the prison bars, the prison guards, the handcuffs that keep us in place. How lovely it would be to not think about repairing the car or replacing the washer. Not to mention all the work (be it at a job or not) that goes into actually finding the money to first purchase the item, then to maintain the item.

Today, Marci and I let the things in our lives go to people we have no grudge against. Indeed most of the people who bought from us are our neighbors. Some are very good friends. We did not make a profit so to speak. But with each item we packed off to someone else’s life we freed ourselves a bit. For that we are grateful. Our neighbors and friends got great stuff at rock bottom prices. Sorry about that.

Ok. First let’s admit that the lifestyle we are embarking on is a true privilege. Most people are not able to leave their lives (jobs, family, friends, houses, cars, debts, etc.) to travel. Also globally, most people are not blessed with a passport that allows them to travel to most corners of the world. Marci and I have a lovely friend who is married to a lovely American who cannot come to the US because of where he is from. So let’s not get too far away from how lucky we (North Americans, Western Europeans, Australians, Koreans, Japanese, etc) are to be able to even consider this type of travel. I used to tell people that because we are so lucky to have this type of passport we should at least consider international travel. But BOLT is about inspiring like-minded people to travel in any manner, whether that is spending a month in Bahia or doing a four hour walk in San Francisco. Do remember how blessed you are to find the time and motivation to try. If you are fortunate enough to have the means to travel in relative freedom you should try to. Of course travel is not free but it does not have to be expensive. Marci and I have saved up for this trip but we are also traveling in such a manner as to not spend as much as we might had we called this a three week vacation. We are using coupons and credit card points to pay for some flights and some housing. We will exchange our talents for housing and may be a few coins. But mostly we will travel slowly. Very slowly. We expect to spend thirty days or more in each country. Less if we want or more if we fall in love. The next few posts will share some of the tricks and practices we are trying out.

Every year the weekend of March 7th or so is the annual celebration of Bloody Sunday. This Saturday March 7th saw President Obama, Michelle Obama, their family along with Mrs. and President Bush, and Congressman John Lewis attending the 50 year anniversary on the very bridge where Representative Lewis almost lost his young life after having his skull cracked by a policeman wielding a Billy club.

This year being the 50th anniversary, Marci and I decided to walk the 54 miles in the footsteps of our ancestors who braved Billy clubs, tear gas, dogs and a racist governor who empowered a racist sheriff to do anything he could think of to stop those unarmed, non-violent people from walking to the capital of Alabama for their rights.
The reenactment is sponsored Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) just as it was 50 years ago.

So every day for five days Marci and I are getting out of our beds and walking about ten miles. It has been harder on me than her (she walks everyday and does various forms of exercise. I don’t but plan to start).

Everyone has heard of Dr. Martin Luther King and how he worked along with his friends and lieutenants Ralph Abernathy and Andrew young to coordinate the court case which granted permission for the Voting Rights March which ended on the Capital steps on March 25th 1965. But this walk is not in celebration of the already celebrated. For Marci and I this walk is in honor of those people whose names are not holidays and bridges but without whom we would not have the lives we enjoy today. We plan to interview the foot soldiers of that time and those who like us are walking the first time.

The next few days will be tough. I will keep you posted.