The decision to take action with our lives and trajectories was intended to:
1 - allow us to freely travel
2 - give us time to focus on our business
3 - give us time to focus on us and get hitched
4 - meet new people, have new experiences
5 - feel uncomfortable feelings and grow from them
6 - grant us perspective to show us what we want from our lives
We succeeded in all of these hopes.
Our last volunteering jaunt led us to Ojai, where we met up with some fantastic folks from the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy. Tania & Tobias welcomed us into their home before even meeting us (wow) and gave us the space we needed to feel comfortable. We are grateful for their generosity, kindness, advice, and laughs - and special thanks to Topa for being adorably friendly with us.
We hiked the trails of Ojai and got a sense of the interdependent community there. While on a walk one day, we met a South African gentleman who served in WWII, worked on secret military projects in Southern California, and ended up retiring in Ojai. We met another kind man who worked in Hollywood for many years, eventually settling for a different lifestyle and pace in the Los Padres mountains. Everyone had a story, with a little lucky, that landed them in their version of paradise. They all care deeply about protecting the land, there. Developments are shameful, and the preservation of hiking trails is a virtue. The recent fire, though frightening and disheartening, was seen as a chance to grow anew. There is a lot to learn from the folks of Ojai.
Leaving Ojai for Berkeley, we decided to take highway 33 through the Los Padres up to the 5. When I was growing up in Fillmore, I'd look to the mountains and imagine how deep they go. I'd try to picture their ups & downs, their flats and peaks, and the animals roaming them. I was intimidated by their wildness, and curious if I'd ever have the courage to find out. Taking the highway through them finally resolved that curiosity for me. I saw the land from behind my home, reconciling unfinished memories of my youth. It was wild, it was empty, it was vast - but more importantly, it existed beyond my imagination.
After a work trip to visit a client in San Diego, Brendan and I realized we wanted to move back there. This was the perspective we gained. While only gone for 6 months, we felt something pulling us back. We had done so much in 6 months that we felt successful. It wasn't anything specific pulling us back to SD, but rather, an amalgamation of sensations, memories, and logistics. The sea, air, desert, pace, people, layout, diversity, food, affordability, neighborhoods, sunshine, hiking, whimsy, history... there's so much to this place that makes it feel like home.
I began looking for jobs in San Diego. While our business is doing fine, to move back we knew we needed additional income. I didn't have to wait long - a position perfect for what I needed (a challenge) and what I could provide (creativity, artistic perspective, fundamental digital cultural understanding, and more) opened up. We quickly ran down to meet them, and after a couple days of interviewing, I was hired as a Senior Content Specialist at Red Door Interactive. It's a bright, independent agency in downtown San Diego. Two months in and they've invited One Apparatus to work as a vendor! I'm proud to embrace business-Caryn. I fought against the concept of surrendering to capitalism for a long time. During our hiatus, I realized how to work with the system rather than against it - to surreptitiously change it from within. To change something, you must first embody it, become it; see how it digests and morphs and eats and excretes to know how you could change the process.
The balance is remembering to be here now. I've been doing lots of thought-experiments to help me better understand how the instance of life falls into place, and how to gently nurture it through action. If I go here now, I'll be there later. It's all here and now; the sheets of particle interaction are ruffling into place each Planck-time instant. Here. Here. Here. Now. Now. Now. Folded into existence by all the instances before it. Each Planck moment contains all others before it.
Small-town Caryn is floored at where she ended up in life - with my husband, my art, my music, my professional life, and my philosophy - and all versions of past me feel that this is right.
I feel whole. I am challenged. I feel my brain activating in ways it hadn't for a long time. I feel enlivened, and welcome the spectrum of sensations that come with growth - including disappointment, fear, and stress. We don't build homes if it doesn't rain.
Here are some photos from Ojai, the San Diego Bay, and Berkeley.
