Friends with Boats

 

 

_Julia, acting the model.   There are so many connections to sailing here,   I feel blessed to be in a circle of people who are excited about travel and the thought of adventurous crusades.    You have to remember that friends want you to succeed..  we are all hoping for dreamers with balls.   

 



Andrew Tipton

The Traveller Paradox

As travel has become an intimate part of my existence,  I've begun to realize as "travellers" we are allowed an incredible gift -   the ability to powerfully and intimately connect with new people.  I feel this is a direct result of our temporary stay.     The traveller's life is a mirror in which people look and experience their own impermanence.. it opens the door to the eagerness that resides in all of us.    Our transience makes us susceptible to the generosity and emotional receptiveness of strangers.        We are permitted to fall in love within moments..  we are permitted to venture into the deep-beautiful spaces within a person that usually take months or years to discover.    As a traveller, I've witnessed the barriers and limitations of normal relationships utterly dissolve.     I think that when we're aware of our temporary time,  it literally alters our level of communication.. creating an earnest longing to experience truth and open-ness. The walls of normal interaction disappear.. and we can address a person at their purest state.
The love experienced by a traveller is unmatched.  

THE TRAVELLER PARADOX; 
As travellers we are allowed a direct connection into the deepest most fulfilling relationships that life has to offer. And ironically, it is our destiny to let them go.
I am discovering this balance.. to unconditionally offer love, and then to unconditionally "release" people from it.    We are given the gift of finding extraordinary friends, and then we must accept that our paths part ways.   It is a unique and often difficult way of living..  as so much of our life is often devoted to "safety" and "maintaining" our possessions.    It seems counter intuitive to find greatness and then set it free..    
yet, I feel that this paradox must exist. 
I believe this is how universe balances itself..  discovering and releasing -  and in neither, holding back.    



Andrew Tipton

Journal Entry, 4/6

Journal Entry,
April 6th.



Spent the last few hours surfing some incredible wind and waves!
23mph steady from the Southeast.  
As the sunset came, the entire surface of the ocean become a mess of vibrant color and magnificent distorted reflections.   The board under my feet, I felt as though I was painting long, sweeping calligraphy through a wet and morphing canvas..
  As I surfed, I sang as loud as I could.. to the wind, to god, to myself..   the words spilled out from a shrouded and wonderful place.  
Once I made it back to shore,   I pulled on my red fleece jacket, and leaned against the catamarans to watch the final colors of twilight fade away.     My shoulders ache, my hair is a tangled mess falling in my eyes..   I am warm, and I feel engulfed by a sublime calmness.
  I feel very much awake.   I feel true.     

there is a path..  it is mine, and I am on it.

 

Andrew Tipton

this story.

some of them leave you
greater
than when -Y'ou arrived. 
be one
of these. Places that
lend
sovereignty through the mouth.  too
the rib's cages,  beneath the tongue.
where you can feel it absorbing.    
like the characters in your books
about discovering
happiness.  
this story drives a
motorcycle.
and
eats cornbread with a spoon.stirs things up
a bit.  at a time
we all need to fall in love with
a desert and then a waterfall. 
just so we know the difference.
this story sleeps on
park benches
 asks
wh?at you're thinking
about, halfway
through the afternoon. and
hears you.listens.before the words fall out.
because we all.hope.
someone might come along and believe in us
just
long
enough
that we believe ourselves.




Andrew Tipton

Boat Song

This song from the Black Angels found its way into my ears a few nights ago..    absolutely rocked me.      I see humanity asking these questions...  I feel myself asking these questions of myself. 

We lose our sense of permanence, we lose our fear, and then we lose nothing anymore - because we realize it is always ours to re.make.. We are the question as well as the fullfilment discovered in our answer.  


-Andrew Tipton


 

Bareness of Being

"..As I get older, I long even more for the wisdom and companionship of other living things; to stay in conversation with all I love, with all I admire, with all who have suffered and given of themselves to stay alive (awake) and to keep life going.   In many ways, our stories are part of one story.  Our pain is part of one pain.  Our surprise at the beauty and fragility of life is part of one chorus of awe.   My passion now is to stay as close as possible to the pulse of what is kind and true to stay in conversation with what happens there and to experience more and more ways to listen. " 
- Mark N. 

Rare Bird.

 

Our journey took us to the heart of Key West,  a place full of poet-visionaries and eclectic spaces. Its streets evoke the creation of music,..  its atmosphere urges you to press beyond your personal expectations.       While seeking out the lullaby echos of steel drums..  I wandered down an overgrown alley and found this man..   an Key West artist whose inspiration left a solid mark of goodness my heart.

 

"You are very fortunate..",  he told us..   "..you are young."

 

     An artist his entire life..  he has been sustaining his body and mind, while living in his camper van..  for the past twenty years.   Creating, envisioning, sharing, cultivating..  this man's life is about experiencing the world through his own reality.   As we talked I kept looking into his sprakling  eyes, and admiring his soft, white cloaked face..       He showed us drawings of eleborate apartments in New York,  abstract paintings of vivid colors, and sketches that can only be discribed as the "energies of music".       Wearing a loose sweater that one of his children knit..   he spoke about musicians, about culture, about the strangeness of becoming old..    and this crazy, warm smile kept making its appearance on my face.         I realized how simliar we both were.   I realized that I could be this man in 50 years..  and that didn't bother me at all..   because we are both simply humans creating our own definitions of life. 

 

I think one of the most liberating things to know about this life is that we are free to make it up any way we choose.   Meeting this artist and hearing his story reminded me of the open-ended sacredness of this non-permanent experience.    It is up to us to define or defend our pursuits..   we may (the choice is open to us) become world leaders, or we may (the choice is open to us)  become island artists living from the sheerness of our van.    It is beautiful either way.. and in all directions.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Tipton