The Grand Plan

I meant to write in chronological order about my travels but I have to jump ahead for a minute here since I'm sitting on an airplane and having, as my mother would say, a moment. I packed my gigantic backpack (which quite comically tipped me over when I put it on) successfully deposited myself on the plane and had a panic attack when it hit me that I have no idea what I'm doing.

Here I should back up and tell you about the grand plan and it's formation. I have been working at a great nonprofit for the past three years, started a line of handmade clothing and organized a group of local crafters to promote local art in my little Central Coast California town. Generally I was really busy, happy and content being creative and doing good work in my community. Then I had my 28th birthday and somehow it really shook me up and it isn't even some mile stone of a year. In all honesty it was building for a while, this feeling of wanting to do something big and bold and different, of feeling a little too confined. And of course there were boy troubles. In my short romantic career I have been married, divorced, engaged (again), and most recently, happily shacked up with an amazing artist boyfriend. This whirlwind of romance leaves me breathless just to think about, and I have greatly abbreviated here. Recently that happiness with said gorgeous artist boyfriend ended with a gigantic crash and burn and I felt compelled to get the hell out of dodge--fast.

So what does a girl do when she wants, scratch that, NEEDS to get the hell out of town for a good long while and has been surviving on a nonprofit salary for three years? The answer is WWOOFing. It's a program called Willing Workers on Organic Farms, basically a work exchange where you put in a little elbow grease and they teach you about sustainable farming and give you room and board. It's a great big barter, my kind of arrangement. A good friend of mine traveled for a whole year in Italy and New Zealand WWOOFing with her husband and had a great experience. If you don't mind a little labor and can get over the embarrassment of the silly name when you tell people about your travel plans, it's a sweet deal.

So why Hawaii? My logic went like this. "I'm completely miserable. It's impossible to be miserable in paradise. And even if I manage to be miserable in one of the most beautiful places on earth, at least I'll be tan and fit from all that outdoor labor, and looking good is a close second to feeling good." I admit, this was not the most logical way to make decisions about my life, but it was the best I could do at the time.

So I quit my job, sold everything that wouldn't fit in the back of my ancient Isuzu Trooper and bought a plane ticket to Hawaii. Here's the travel outline:
1. Visit darling sister in New York to get a head change and some familial comfort
2. Drive from San Luis Obispo to Portland to visit my blessedly sane friend for a good dose of groundedness
3. Continue driving to Seattle to relax at my dad's and park the rusty old Trooper and my remaining earthly belongings at his house
4. Fly to Hawaii for six months of exhausting physical labor and breathtaking beauty
5. Fly back to Seattle for the holidays and figure out what the hell to do with my life

Good plan, right? Well, like all plans, it's brilliant if you don't think too much about it. Sometimes I make these little bargains with myself to hang on to my sanity. Like for the past two months since I decided to do this, sometimes I will start to freak out about how I just quit my job that I love, moved out of my house that I adore, broke up with my boyfriend that I still am crazy about (did I mention that he's gorgeous and talented and wonderful?) and am moving to a place that I've never been to live with people that I've never met to be a FARMER?!?! (Just to give you some idea of how crazy this plan is, let me tell you that my primary activities for the past three years have been making fancy women's clothing and working for a symphony orchestra.) At these moments I told myself that I don't need to think about it until I get there, and this has worked pretty well at keeping me from becoming a puddle of tears and anxiety on the floor. But, now I'm actually on the plane going to Hawaii and I have not read even one chapter of the many travel books friends have given me, or contacted any of the people I know through said friends who live there, or even read the organic agriculture books that I'd bought to prepare for my work there. Classic denial. And this is my own plan! The only thing I have done to prepare is paint my toenails purple for courage...purple is for courage, right?