|
Hola mis amigos! Please forgive the lateness of this late night letter. I began writing on a red-eye flight as the great electric grid of Phoenix receded. However, words gave way to perhaps two hours in and out of sleep. We landed in Tampa and I jumped on another jet to Miami as the sun rose. A four hour layover in Miami later, a huge Boeing 787 soared out over the prolific blues of the Caribbean across the South American coastline, where among verdant mountains, we landed in Medellin, Colombia. I wrote sporadically throughout the trip, but exhaustion, wondrous window seat views, and anticipation of landing in a country where I hardly speak the language kept the letter from achieving cohesive wholeness. I awoke this morning in this gorgeous little room I’ve rented in a flat for a month smack in the heart of sprawling, green Medellin and will now put the final touches on sending these words about connecting with you wonderful people to you wonderful people. Here we go! One of the greatest gifts of writing online about things that matter to me (and rank well in Google searches) is that others interested in those same things end up finding me. It took a while before any arrived, but it started with interesting or heartfelt notes landing in my inbox now and then that totally made my day. Some offered deeper dives and new tangents to explore about things I’d written. Others explained how something I wrote inspired a leap, offered new awareness, or helped someone in one way or another. I had inadvertently found a way to put article-based beacons out into the world wide web that more or less functioned to say, “if you dig these things too, connect with me.” This got even cooler when connecting with people through the blog jumped the bounds of the internet and I started meeting people in person. With just about everyone I’ve ever met through writing, I have had this internal moment of going, “wait, you read what I write?” The people I met through this blog were shockingly, why-did-it-take-so-long-to-find-each-other cool. Noting this repeated resonance, I started dropping these P.S. offers at the end of letters: “P.S. I’m going to be driving up the Pacific Coast Highway over the next month. If you live along the coast and want to meet up, hit reply!” led to meetups in San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Each time, these casual “let’s grab coffee” hangs became discussions and adventures of such depth and quality that they went on for four, seven, and even something like ten hours (serendipitously, I received a letter from one of those remarkable people this morning). “P.S. I’m heading to Nepal for a month to hike the Annapurna Circuit” led to reconnecting with a legendary Swedish exchange student from high school I hadn’t spoken with in a decade. I also met a local dude from Kathmandu who remarkably handed me Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Italo Calvino’s Difficult Loves. We sipped coffee at the dim-lit Snowman Cafe on Freak Street that night, walked Durbar Square, and met the following morning in the rain before my flight out at the Pashupatinath Temple where they cremate bodies out in the open. A true intellectual resident of a country opportunistically opposite my own, he engaged me in one of the most eye-opening, beautiful, perspective-warping conversations of my life. Everyone I have met through this blog, and I, want to find and be part of community and communion with more people like the people I meet through this blog. Something about what I am doing here seems to attract the sort of people we all wish we could find, but have trouble finding. I don’t know what it is, but suspect I feel what it is, for it is this feeling I find and love in you people too. I eventually realized that, as the author of the blog, I was the only one who could connect us all. As a natural born introvert, doing so required traversing some fears around leading people, many variations of the “who do I think I am to _________?” question, and a first attempt that embarrassingly didn’t receive enough applicants to cover the costs of the event (though I did learn the vital lesson to schedule out further in advance). After a good deal of attempt with a side of inner turmoil, this has magnificently culminated as WONDER WANDER — a spectacular place in time and space where the incredible people I keep meeting through this blog get to hang out, vibe, and share their greatest gifts with each other. With the right intentions and setting, as I feel we particularly nailed the second time around for WONDER WANDER 2021 this November, the totality of the experience was something ineffably special, a gathering that many of us post-gathering could only describe with a word like “magic,” “wow,” and “one of the best times of my life.” I’m still writing up a post that details the wonder of the thing, but for now, I’d just like to say thank you to the people who showed up to a cabin in the desert to hang out with a bunch of strangers. I’m quite excited about the future of the WONDER WANDER, and in a more true and holistic sense, to continue spending more time with you people. Til next month! With love & stoke, Ethan
P.S. I’ll be heading out to Colombia’s Caribbean coast on December 26th to meet a couple friends for the New Year and my 30th birthday (a sentence I cannot believe I am writing after finding myself saddled with flight school debt, living with my parents, endlessly working on a then fruitless real estate photography website amid the heart of a global pandemic last year (I silently sobbed tears of joy as the plane crossed over the South American coastline yesterday)). I am so grateful to again interact with the world, and with you all. On the off chance you’re free and want to really send it and come celebrate, hit reply.
|
