72 Hours in New Orleans

OCD may travel, but she never takes a holiday.

Technically I'm in The Big Easy for a week, but the fun bit before I switched gears into attending a work conference was three days and some change. My younger brother lives here, working as a History teacher in the KIPP charter school system after two years with Teach for America. The great part about having a friend living in the city you're visiting is your adventures aren't limited to the downtown core that you explore on foot. Ryan and I cooked up a few adventures that the average tourista in New Orleans would never have experienced.

He took me to his favorite all-day breakfast joint, Jimmy J's Cafe.

While at dinner the first night I was here, we flipped through the local indie weekly. We found two festivals that sounded adventurous and took us out of the city. One night we traveled an hour away to Luling, Louisiana to check out the 35th Annual Alligator Festival. Thirty-five years celebrating alligators. Let that sink in for a minute. Oh, The South, you're adorable. There was an ironic lack of alligators in attendance at the festival, which was disappointing. There were, however, plenty of alligators on the food vendor menus.

America is the great cultural melting pot, right?

Since we were in rural swampland Louisiana (no seriously, we drove straight through a swamp to get to Luling), the food was authentic and fascinating. I've been to the south many many times, but I felt like an anthropologist reading the menu: Alligator burgers, alligator sausage poboy, shrimp poboy, fried (un-named) fish poboy, alligator sausage on a stick, jambalaya, bbq pulled pork, crab cakes, beans and rice, bread pudding, crawfish pasta, chicken and andouille gumbo, hot boiled turkey necks, crab boudin balls with creole mustard, bbq ribs, sweet potato cookies, praline cupcakes, and you get the idea.

Small town festivals are a blur of Americana and thick accents.

The website promised "HAND CRAFTED merchandise with Alligator images. Massproduced items, including T-Shirts and posters, will not be allowed for sale. We hope to provide the festival attendees with high quality alligator-related souvenirs." My hopes were high. Low-quality alligator-related souvenirs are the worst. Alas, 85% of the "craft" vendor booths were filled with random Made In China bric-a-brac. Oh well. The organic soap maker, you know there's one at every festival market, was legit. Also, this guy was really the only artist (pictured below). He'll paint a custom piece for anyone who asks, just name the animal you'd like hanging on your dining room wall.

Seafood art on reclaimed swamp wood. Because Louisiana.

The next night we drove nearly 90 minutes outside New Orleans to the town of Houma, Louisiana (which we insisted on calling "hummus" with a hard H, naturally). Houma is home to a two-day music festival called The Best of the Bayou. When I realized Better Than Ezra (from Baton Rouge, local boys made good) was headlining I was 15 all over again and rocking out to "Good" on my Discman. I've seen them a few times in Salt Lake City over the years of touring, I still own all their cds, still know every word, and still think Kevin Griffin is pure sex. It was an awesome show. They played two full hours for a happily sweaty crowd packed into the humid Houma Main Street. For free!!

I loved you then. I love you now. Marry me.

The next night we indulged in the quintessential, cliche-for-good-reason, New Orleans evening: Dinner and jazz on Frenchman Street. We ate at my brother's favorite restaurant Marigny Brasserie, a place we visit every time I'm here, and then wandered until we heard jazz. That's one thing I love about the French Quarter, you're guaranteed no less than 20 musical options in a 10 block radius. Just keep walking and stop when it interests you. We ended up at Maison and really enjoyed the set.

Hardworking local musicians passed the tip jar and said goodnight after a two hour set.

Assorted wanderings and memories written with light...

Two kinds of people in this world: Bourbon Streeters and Magazine Streeters. Period. 

Dining in the Quarter...there's nothing quite like those floor-to-ceiling window/doors. Distinct and stunning.

I had a great time adventuring around Southern Louisiana with Ryan and his tan line...but it's time for me to get to work.

My home / office at the moment. The Roosevelt, now a Waldorf Astoria property, was built adjacent to the French Quarter in 1893. It's alright, I guess. I mean, it's no airport Marriott.

More exploring. More architecture. More foodie adventures. More Big Easy goodness over the next three days. Perhaps another blog post, perhaps not. I leave for Europe (writing a Live Voyage Report for Avid Cruiser as I cruise the Mediterranean) two days after I arrive home in Salt Lake City. Join me! Follow my new adventures on the Avid Cruiser website, or always on Instagram and Twitter in real time. 

Love and lagniappes, 

me

Living the Dream: Holland America Press Trip to the Mediterranean

Regular readers will remember that in May I traveled to Alaska on assignment for The Avid Cruiser. I sailed the breathtaking Inside Passage courtesy of Princess Cruises. Through daily articles posted on the Live Voyage Report website, I was able to take for a test drive my life's dream of being a travel writer + photographer. Predictably, I was hooked. It was difficult work, late nights, early mornings, and not at all a leisurely cruising experience. I told Ralph (aka the avid cruiser himself) I would not only do it again, I would do it every day for the rest of my life. He was impressed with my work and invited me to join The Avid Cruiser team with an open invitation to future Live Voyage Report opportunities. Coolest job interview ever? Nailed it.

The view from this office cannot be beat.

Well...I have exciting news! My next opportunity to contribute a Live Voyage Report is as a member of a nine-person press corps sailing the Mediterranean with Holland America in October. It felt surreal enough writing from Alaska and realizing...dude, I'm like living my dream right now. So the sensation coursing through my body as the Holland America PR office continues to refer to me as a journalist...is nothing short of euphoric. Hell yes. Journalist. Me. Travel writer. Good at it. Doing it. Done.

It reminded me of a lesson I learned in preparing for Alaska: You are because you say you are. Jen Sincero makes a brilliant point in her book You Are a Badass. I'm paraphrasing, but she basically says: You want to be a photographer...but you don't take pictures. What sense does that make? Conversely, you take a lot of photos and it's a significant passion for you, but you say you're not a photographer? Why the hell not? What's a photographer then? Someone who takes pictures. So go do that. Say you're a photographer. Aren't you? Then go do it some more. You are whatever you say you are simply because you said it...then did something about it. 

Dear Universe, I am a journalist. I am a traveling storyteller who makes beautiful photographs and will share all of that badassery with all of you in just a couple weeks. I'm rocking an international data plan on my iPhone, so feel free to follow along in real time on Instagram and Twitter, and be sure to read the daily Live Voyage Reports.

However, before I jet off to Italy, Spain, France, and Tunisia, I'm going to New Orleans. Next week I'll visit my brother who's made a home in The Big Easy. Same situation with realtime goodies posted to Instagram and Twitter. I also hope to post about the New Orleans trip on this site while I'm there. Stay tuned!

Love and living the dream,
me

I Failed! Also Titled: Why My First Rejection Letter Is So Awesome.

Look, ma! I got a rejection letter from Porter Fox at Nowhere Magazine. Nowhere is hands down one of my favorite travel writing publications. It's my niche. Ever since I found them, I've felt like I could actually do this. I could travel and write and be me and carve out even a tiny resting place in the galaxy of travel writing. If you've scrolled through more than a thousand "Best Of..." "Top 7 Ways You Know You're Canadian..." "Five Reasons Thailand Is Better Than Seattle..." click-bait links, and you're as bored with them as I am, Nowhere is for you. Literary travel writing. Storytelling. Experiential travel at its best. Light on the overwrought lists. That's Nowhere. I submitted an entry to their Spring Travel Writing Contest and this is the response that I (and obviously countless others in the BCC field) received:

Why is failure exciting? Why am I so stoked to get rejected by a publication I revere? Because a travel writer who failed is still a travel writer. That sting is a far better feeling than sitting in my living room at my laptop wishing I had the guts to knock on Nowhere's door. People that I respect in the industry read my work. They didn't love it more than the work of the 11 people listed in the email, but that's not the point. It immediately brought to mind the infamous Theodore Roosevelt quote that inspired the title of Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly:

"It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is in the arena. Whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

Love and many more failures to come,
me

A word on clarity, declarations, and the power of your voice (part two)

This is the second half of a two-part post. Click to read the first installment, in which I talk about the relationship between clear declarations and living the life you want to live.

Diagnosis: Hashimoto’s Hypothyroiditis. 

The butterfly-shaped thyroid gland in the front of our throat regulates metabolism and energy. I recently learned my body is home to an autoimmune disease that has shut down my thyroid. Furthermore, my immune system creates antibodies to attack my thyroid when it tries to turn back on. There is no cure. It doesn’t go away. There is only lifelong management, daily medication, and a new normal. I don't feel qualified to discuss the medical details of the disease, I’m still reeling and researching, I’m simply here to thank The Universe for the lessons my new reality is teaching me.

By not expressing my fully authentic voice, I was slowly killing myself. Literally and spiritually.

The task The Universe has lovingly handed to me is one of reconciliation with my own voice. The need for this healing sits literally in my diseased thyroid / throat, and sits spiritually in the expression of my fully authentic voice. The metaphysical correlation between the two is real and it's urgent. I felt that correlation wash over me the instant the fourth specialist I'd visited looked up from my seventh round of lab results and said, "Hashimoto's Hypothyroiditis," touching her throat.

I show distrust of my authentic voice whenever I live by rules I didn't create for myself. I neglect my authentic voice when I say yes but feel no. I disrespect my authentic voice when I strive to align my life with people's opinions of who I should be. I abuse my authentic voice when I numb out in any number of unhealthy ways and mask shame with meticulously curated perfectionism. In true perfectionist fashion, I've absolutely mastered all of it. I've carried on for decades.

The disease is genetically inherited (my mom was diagnosed one month before I was), but what I need to forgive is the fact that I am still responsible for much of what fed this disease for years prior to my diagnosis. I've built a successful career in higher education in which I use my voice all day every day; a voice that is intelligent and insightful, expert even. I was traveling and consulting nationally, keynoting conferences in packed hotel ballrooms when I was 24 years old. I completed a Master's degree on my own time and dime, and became a department head by age 27 because I wanted to lend my voice to big visions and change the system. I worked 60-hour weeks for a decade straight because I was driven, obsessive compulsive, and mistakenly thought I could handle it. I've stood my ground and ended relationships with the anemic religion of my youth and the disrespectful men of my twenties. No one who knows me would accuse me of being passive; but while I can cite all that active expression in my life, what I need to forgive myself for is simultaneously frying my adrenals, destroying what little thyroid I had, ignoring my body's requests to slow down, and pushing aside my fully authentic voice, telling her "someday."

No more someday. Now.

My authentic voice is now clear about the life I actually want to live. My authentic voice has unapologetically declared my intention to quit my job and travel the world. My authentic voice knows that living the life I want to live is not irresponsible, it's not selfish, it's not naive or shortsighted. It's brave. Period. My authentic voice knows the work that needs to be done is really fucking hard and really fucking scary. I don't know what it looks like to not have a full-time job providing my salary and health insurance. I don't know what it looks like to travel the world with an autoimmune disease that requires specific medications and treatments. I don't know how my body will react to the piles of new prescriptions pumping through her right now. I just don't know.

But here's the magic of speaking from my fully authentic voice: I don't need to know. 

The Universe is welcoming me with open arms, thrilled that I've made it this far. I can feel it with every chronically fatigued, shaky cell in my body. She'll take care of it. I will live my way into the answers. I will make this path by walking. My new mantra is what Jen Sincero writes in You Are A Badass: "Your job isn't to know The How, it's to know The What." I am crystal clear on my What. My declaration is made. It's happening. Living my way into The How is now my co-creative tango with The Universe.

Don’t you cry for the lost. Smile for the living. Get what you need and give what you’re given. You know life's for the living so live it, or you’re better off dead. (listen to Passenger sing one of my favorite songs)  

Love and lots of healing,
me

A word on clarity, declarations, and the power of your voice (part one)

I've been in a declarative mood as of late. Perhaps it was the sun in Leo's lion providing vicarious courage. Perhaps it's Mars in Scorpio, forcing a warrior spirit to wrestle everything into the light. Perhaps it's the culmination of years of quiet dreaming finally overflowing its threshold. Perhaps I'm now crystal clear about how I do and do not want to spend my life. Most likely it's all of the above in a perfect storm. Declaring to myself and others that I plan to eventually quit my job and travel the world is scary and exhilarating. It's also a game changer, the declaration alone. I've learned a few things, deep deep down in my bones learned, since making that declaration. Namely:

Declare. Do the hard work that clarity requires...then declare the shit out of your dreams. 

Danielle LaPorte is my spirit animal. The Desire Map is without a doubt the most radical paradigm shift I've ever experienced. I was raised in an organized religion, left of my own accord in my early twenties, spent a decade rebuilding a worldview on my own terms; and yet not even that paradigm shift compares to The Desire Map blowing my world wide open.

Every creation the world has ever known, from a lightbulb to wheels to the Mona Lisa, began with a desire of some kind. Likewise, everything you want to create in your life begins with a desire. Every desire must be defined and clarified and refined and seared into a new way of life, a daily practice. It's not casual wanting, or listless hoping that some day something will happen. It's active. This desire is a living thing. It defines you as you're defining it. You're co-creating with The Universe. Woah. Dude, I know.

The reason you need to be crystal clear about your desires is because...

The Universe not only pays attention to your desires, she wants all of it for you as much as you want it for yourself. Probably more. 

I wrote about the energy that shifted the moment I declared that I plan to eventually quit my job and travel the world. What I mean by "shifting energy" is that since making that declaration, it's all I can do to simply keep up with The Universe. She was waiting. Patiently. For years. She knew this was coming. She hoped I'd get here. She hoped I'd be courageous enough to realize admit this is what I want need. By the time I did finally catch up and own the full declaration of it all, she came flooding in. I can actually hear her sigh of relief, "Yes...this. It's so time for this. You have no idea the degree of awesomeness that's about to overtake every inch of your life." She's so stoked that I'm dialed in to the possibilities she sees for me. What does that flood look like? Opportunities to travel*, resources to learn and grow and keep my vibration high**, a serious medical diagnosis that's a terrifying blessing in disguise***, abundant support from strangers as well as friends, financial avenues that three weeks ago I didn't know even existed, and the deep satisfaction of knowing that I nailed it. I'm aligned. I'm in the zone. There's no going back now. Had I not been crystal clear with my desires, I could have and would have pursued any number of paths that might be fine, but not this right.

I'll be back soon with part two of this post, re: the correlation between my diagnosis and the power of our voice. I'll bring a lot of love (both gentle and tough) and permission with me. Stay tuned. Until then, wise words from author and civil rights leader Howard Thurman:

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Love and desire,
me


* Exciting news about the next step in my travel writing career coming soon. 
** I'll share these resources in a separate post coming soon.
*** I'll practice what I preach and speak with courage about my diagnosis in part two of this post.