Hi!!!
I’ve never written with the likings of Carrie Bradshaw’s inner monologue in the background, so forgive any over-dramatic comments or illogical advice, (I love Carrie but seriously). Or maybe those things aren’t at all shocking or nothing new if you’ve been here before. Whatever, I’m glad you’re here regardless, we have a lot to catch up on!
Last time I posted on here it was an entire almost-satirical outpouring of my heart for The 1975 and music in general. It was one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever written. I think a lot of that stems from having the idea and workshopping the words in my head for months, occupying all of my shower thoughts. It’s one of those things that words will always fail to describe, so for years, I didn’t even try. I have the same sentiment for this summer. It’s paralyzing to try to unpack it all or truly describe it. I’m not a talented enough writer to do it justice.
But as I sit here on my nine hour flight to New York from Prague, knees crammed into the seat-back in front of me, I can’t help but to put pen to paper. As you all know, it’s always been how I connect; with myself, my experiences, and others.
And by the way, that is in fact just a fancy way of saying I love to overshare on the internet. I sure do know how to make a bad habit sound noble!
Anyways, there’s so much that happened, that I learned, and that I felt this summer that’s worth sharing, so I’m going to do my best to do poetic justice and give you a glimpse into all the magic!
Just start somewhere, I’m telling myself.
Seemingly fate, I randomly selected the movie “Almost Famous” on my plane ride over to Maui. For those familiar with the iconic main character, Penny Lane, she has a go to line that she replies to nearly everything with that I wrote down while watching.
“It’s all happening!” She’d say. “What does that even mean?” I’d think.
Well, looking back on the past three months, it all happened and I finally get it.
To finally give some context, I worked for a company called Moondance Adventures, an adventure travel company. I owe so much of who I am to them, all of the good parts at least. When I was fifteen I went on my first trip. Luckily for you all and my own digital footprint, I didn’t have a blog back then to share about it, so you are spared from all of the teenage jargon and grammatical errors (for the most part).
However, to give you a small glimpse, I wrote this in my journal during the trip back in 2018:
“I’ve never felt this level of intentionality. This trip matters. I don’t know what it means yet, but I know I’m changing. This is the best thing I have ever done.”
It completely changed my life. It gave me space to show up to a place where nobody knew me, without the crutch of my phone or family, and see what I was really all about. The relationships I made on this trip and the feeling I got from seeing the world in the most pure form lit a spark that has marked my life ever since. The following year, I went back. This time, instead of doing service projects and scuba diving, I was trekking across the Pyrenees Mountains and the Alps! I had quite literally been on like two “hikes” before. Those three weeks rocked my world. Moondance had done it again. It inspired me more than anything had at that point in my life, so much so that it's the reason I made this blog. Read my first ever post about the trip here: The Connection.
Point is, each time I kept coming back to Moondance, the more it gave. This summer was no different. Except this time, it meant even more.
So, back to the plane, the first one. The Penny Lane one. I’m on the way to Maui to lead a trip with my co-leaders. I didn’t get to choose where I went for the summer, but anyone who knows me knows that Maui seems like it was written in the stars. serendipity at its best. I don’t think anyone wants to see me after the fourteen mile hike at Mont Blanc in 2019 again. I would insert the photo of me crying on the trail with a sea urchin stuck in my foot, but believe it or not I do have some online boundaries and that wouldn’t be doing either of us favors.
As a trip leader, you are responsible for the well-being, safety, and experience of twelve teenage kids for two weeks. We do it three times. No, we never sleep. We hardly ever have cell service. Showers are few and far between. Air conditioning is completely out of the question. And yes, it is the best job in the entire world.
I could sit here and give you the play by play of every funny story, every awkward situation, explain each activity, what we teach the kid, or, I could tell you what they taught me.
For starters, I learned what brain rot is.
I’ve never been more confused in my life.
We won’t go into more detail there.
But what I really took from them is that:
You lay in the grass. Face first sometimes. You go to bed dirty. You use half the jar of Nutella on your pancakes. You burn the entire batch. You don’t even bat an eye. You fail miserably. All the time. You laugh it off. You laugh so hard that Sprite comes out of your nose. Everything is said in an accent. You butcher it. You’re not quite sure of anything. You say what’s on your mind. You never go to bed on time. You do before you think. You learn your lesson. You jump in the water every chance you get. You want to race to the top. You scrape your knees. You get embarrassed.
You feel it all. You feel alive. You feel whole. It all happens!
They showed me the fullness of life, an effortless reminder of how good it can all be.
I come back to these two quotes a lot. I think they speak beautifully to this experience.
“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but oh my god, you’re alive and it is spectacular.”
“You’ll ache. And you’re going to love it. It will crush you. And you’re still going to love all of it. Doesn’t it sound lovely beyond belief?”
Moondance rips you into being alive. You pull up in the fifteen passenger van that you just learned how to drive and before you know it, you have these kids in the palm of your hand. And they have your heart.
“It will crush you. And you’re going to love it.”
It all happened,
MM
Comments