California Dreaming

One of my favorite things to do when it comes to writing is to take every day routine things that are happening in my life and weave them into a story that represents what I’m learning about myself at this point in the journey. I guess that in someways would make me the Seinfeld of blogging and storytelling. 

This morning, I’m on my way back to Chicago from Los Angeles after a whirlwind 36 hours. I didn’t even know if I was going to go on this trip until the night before. Mind you, it was planned in advance, but certain twist and turns of life can change plans. I’m so grateful I was able to go. 

This is the first time I’ve traveled by plane in almost seven years. The adventure gave me numerous opportunities to check in with myself and see what’s changed for me from a mindset and emotional standpoint as it relates to travel. The following is a collection of a dozen "snippet stories" from my adventure. I invite you to grab a cup of tea and read them all at once or to read a few at a time over the next couple of days. When I write, I process my thoughts, I connect with the emotions of my experiences and I create a chronicle of my life. Many thanks to those of you who follow along for the ride. I am truly blessed.

Ventura Highway 

The last time I was in California was nine years ago when my wife Christiana and I went to speak at an infinite possibilities conference in Ventura led by Mike Dooley. We were actually on the presentation team that recorded Mike’s online certification program for Hay House publishing. It was an amazing opportunity as a speaker, and in many ways, it launched me even further down the path that I’m on now.

That particular conference in Ventura was the inception point of many relationships that are exceptionally significant in my life right now, including the one with my friend Tom, who I travel to meet in LA for his 70th birthday on Monday.

On my flight from Chicago to Phoenix, I listen to the playlist that I made for my trip to Ventura in the summer of 2015. Listening to the songs brought back so many vivid memories of what was going on in my life and how it felt to be at that conference. The song that I put first on that playlist was a song called Ventura Highway by the band America. Listening to that song reminded me of how empowered and untethered I felt back then. I’m gradually leaning back into that feeling, in no small part because of this trip and that song. 

No Wine-ing in Air Travel

A big part of my trip to LA was going to the Dodgers game on Monday night, which was Tom's actual birthday. In the movie A League of Their Own, which in my mind is one of the best baseball movies of all time, Tom Hanks utters the iconic line, "There's no crying in baseball!" 

For me, there is no wine in air travel anymore and I am no longer whining about it! When I arrived at O'hare airport on Sunday morning to begin my adventure, I walked past the wine bar that I have sat at prior to every trip I have taken for decades. Having a couple of glasses of wine before I begin any flight, no matter what time of day, was standard operating procedure for me in the past. 

This is the first time I have flown since I chose sobriety two and half years ago. Not only do I not miss it, I actually realize how much not drinking does to enhance my air travel experience. As a daily wine drinker, in the past I had a tendency to build everything in my life around having access to wine. I am also keenly aware that with air travel in particular, I used wine both as a coping mechanism and a celebration tool, which is a dangerous combination in my mind. Not drinking while flying offered me a level of energetic freedom that I have never experienced in terms of traveling. 

Gut Check 

Many of you know I’ve been on a very specific eating protocol for the last five months. In fact, I started to get some test results back the morning that I left from some bloodwork I did last Friday. It looks like the changes I’m experiencing as a result of this long term nutritional cleanse are extraordinary. I’ll write more about that in the weeks ahead, but one of the things I noticed on this trip is how much different my belly felt while I was flying.

Most mornings in the past when I would fly, I would get a bagel sandwich with ham, egg and cheese and then add cream cheese to that. I would also eat a piece of fruit and have a cup of coffee or tea. Overall a really healthy and complete breakfast, but usually an hour or two into the flight as I experienced the pressure changes in the cabin, my gut would start to turn upside down and I would also feel amped up from the caffeine. This time around I had a smoothie and I packed some cleanse friendly snacks to eat on the plane. I had no digestive discomfort. I felt clean,  light and relaxed for the entire flight. 

We were voyagers! 

One of my daughter Emma‘s all-time favorite movies is Moana. There is a moment in the movie where Moana‘s grandmother shows her the giant catamaran sailing vessels that her people used to use back in the day before they became land-based islanders. 

For those of you who are less familiar with the movie, the Young character Moana wants nothing more than to go to sea and has no desire to spend the entirety of her life living on one tiny island in the south Pacific. When Moana finds out that her people used to go beyond the reef she comes out excitedly screaming “We were voyagers!” 

I haven’t traveled more than 150 miles from home at any point in the last seven years. This trip reminded me that I need to have adventures. Not only is it hard for me to thrive when I feel like I’m suffocating, my ability to actually thrive is contingent on me journeying, adventuring, and exploring. I realize that I am a husband and a father so I’m not about to drop everything and become a nomad, but I will most definitely prioritize building adventure back into my life on an ongoing basis after this experience. 

Just What I Needed

Whenever I hear the song Just What I Needed by The Cars I am taken back to my senior year in high school and all the feeling that one feels as they transition from teenager to young adulthood. That was a time in my life when I felt invincible and sought a life of excess in every possible way. On my first flight on Sunday morning, when the flight attendants came around to ask if I wanted a beverage or a snack, my initial response was to take a can of soda and a package of cookies. When I realized that I neither drink soda nor eat cookies at this stage in my life, I thought to myself “Why should I take this stuff?” 

In the past, I would’ve taken it just because. I would’ve taken it because it was there. I would’ve taken it because it was free. I would’ve taken it because my perception was that it would somehow had value to my experience even though I didn’t need it in any way shape or form. I had my decaffeinated tea with me. I had healthy snacks with me. I had a bottle of water with me. I needed nothing so I took nothing.

On Monday night when we went to the LA Dodgers game, we had access to the Owner’s Dugout club with our tickets. The spread was an all you can eat buffet, including lamb chops, roast, turkey, carved beef tenderloin, and many other things. I took a small portion of food and enjoyed what I ate, and that was enough. In the past, I would’ve eaten until I wsa over full and then lined my pockets with snacks to take with me for later. What a huge measuring stick it was for me to realize that I don’t do that anymore  just so I can feel like I got the “most” out of my experience. 

Got a Light?  

Why do they still put ashtrays in plane bathrooms? 

The planes I have been on in the last few days were clearly built since smoking was completely banned for all air travel in 1990, yet they still have ashtrays in the restrooms. I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s ever noticed this, but on the surface, it makes no sense. 

Furthermore, why did we ever think it was a good idea to let people smoke on planes? I remember back when I was a casual smoker, my first wife and I would request seating in a smoking section so she could smoke on the plane. I would occasionally have a cigarette as well. At the end of the time that they allowed smoking on planes, there was a very small area where passengers could still smoke. I recall people would come up to my ex-wife and I and ask if they could sit in our seats so they could smoke a cigarette because you had to be sitting in a seat to actually smoke. The whole thing seems completely unbelievable to me at this point! I remember my first ever trip to Paris back in the late 1980s when I arrived hung over on nicotine and champagne feeling as awful as I could possibly feel. What a difference it is to fly and arrive feeling refreshed, hydrated, and fully alive.

Lucky Charms

Back in the old days, I was a superstitious flyer. I would bring things like the rosary made from the roses that were on my dad’s casket at his funeral. I brought numerous spiritual books that made me feel connected to source. Crystals, favorite stuffed animals, memorial cards from departed loved ones, aromatherapy oils, you name it, I would find a way to bring it on the plane with me. This time around, I brought nothing except for the things that I needed and some healthy food to snack on. When I got to my seat on my first flight, part of me felt like I was missing something, but then I realized that I no longer needed those external symbols to calm me down. In spirit, my sense of peace comes from within. 

Music in the Air

If you have ever walked the streets of any big city, you have probably encountered musicians who are trying to give you a copy of their CD for "free" as they try to promote their talents. Frequently that offer is followed by a request for money to support their craft. Most of the time I try to politely avoid these types of interactions. On Monday morning in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater though, I found myself in the middle of a trio of enthusiastic musicians who managed to engage me in conversation. 

When one of the men asked me what I do for a living I responded by saying, "I'm a writer" which has increasingly become my default response these days. That led to us talking for about ten minutes about the importance of sharing our stories which then led to us exchanging contact information for potential future collaborations. Who knows if anything will ever come of it, but I'm glad I was open to making a connection in a situation where my default setting might have otherwise been to set a boundary instead. 

Later that night, an amazing vocalist named Kevin Williams Jr. sang the national anthem at the Dodgers game. I ran into Kevin in the concourse between innings and told him how inspired I was by his range and vocal talents. It turns out that Kevin and I have a mutual contact in the Gospel music industry in LA so we snapped a photo and texted it to our mutual acquaintance. It truly is a small world and it keeps getting smaller and smaller when I get out into the matrix and open up my frequency to all the possibilities. 

Displaced Texan 

Since we only had 36 hours in Los Angeles, my friend Tom and I decided not to try to do too many things. We got a parking space down by the Hollywood walk of fame first thing Monday morning. We walked around the walk of fame for a couple of hours which was a terrific experience. I couldn’t help but notice that I decided to take pictures of certain stars, but not every star. I’ll be curious to go back and look at the stars that I chose to take photos of and think about what that means to me. That too will probably be a longer piece of writing at some point in time.

After our time on the walk of fame, Tom and I set out to go to Griffith Park. Tom predicted it would be about a mile walk that would take about 20 minutes. After about 45 minutes of winding through the Hollywood Hills, Tom said, “I’m not so sure that we’re on the right path?“

That would’ve been very unsettling to me in the past. This time around though, we saw a man who looked like he knew what he was doing and asked him where we could find access to a good picture of the Hollywood sign. He immediately said “Well if you’d like to walk with me, I can get you to the best view of the sign in the Hollywood Hills.” 

For the next 90 minutes, Tom and I walked with this man named Paul, who was extraordinary. Paul told us all about the architecture of the houses on the residential streets we were walking through. We found out Paul was a IT person for CBS but worked remotely from his home in the hills. Paul also explained to us that there are three states in the country where if you grew up there, you were considered a resident for life. In his mind, those states were California, New York and Texas. Paul described himself as a Displaced Texan.

Never in 1 million years would I have planned that walk with Paul into our 36 hour adventure, yet it turned out to be so magnificent that Tom and I crafted the idea of writing a book together where we alternate stories about people who have come into our lives for one moment in time only. Who knows, maybe this adventure with Paul is the first of those stories? 

Attorney at Love 

While I was waiting in the Burbank airport for my flight to depart to Phoenix on the way home, I noticed a billboard for an attorney. So many of the Attorney billboards I see in the Midwest reference how much money they can get for you, ask you whether you’ve been injured or remind you that they will not take any of your money unless they win. This was very different billboard. All the ad said was, “ Today is going to be a fantastic day. Think positive! Attorney at law, Anthony Abkarian, Esq."

We need more attorneys like Anthony. I hope I never need an attorney in California but if I do, I know who I’m going to call.

Magical serendipities

Throughout our journey in LA and Hollywood, my friend Tom and I both continually remarked that everything we set out to do turned out to be ideal. Even when things didn’t turn out exactly the way we initially intended, they either turned out fine or in many cases, even better. When I realized I had a three hour layover in Phoenix on the way home, on a whim I reached out to a dear friend who has a place in Scottsdale, Arizona. I figured it was unlikely we could find a way to get together on short notice, but sure enough he drove to the airport, parked and came inside so we could sit and chat for the 90 minutes that I had in between flights. We haven’t seen each other in person for over five years and even though we FaceTime and do zoom chats once a month on the average, there was something uniquely special about being in each other’s physical presence again.

All That You Give 

I didn’t quite finish listening to my playlist on the way to California so when I got on my plane to return home, I picked up where I left off and listened to the last five or six songs. The final song on the playlist is a song by DJ Kaskade featuring Mindy Glendhall. The song is titled All That You Give. 

The lyrics have always been exceptionally powerful to me, but this time around I heard them a little bit differently. I’ve just returned from a 36 hour adventure that I never could’ve dreamed I would’ve taken a few months ago. My friend Tom wanted me to be in Los Angeles with him on his birthday so badly that he offered to pay my airfare, knowing that we are currently being extremely cautious with finances because of our efforts to build our entrepreneurship. The tickets to the game were a gift from a person I met at Joe’s who works high up in the Dodgers organization and it said to me to let them know if I ever needed tickets to a game. They gave us seats in the third row behind home plate and access to the Dugout Club with amazing free food included.

The day before I left for LA, my father-in-law handed me some money and said that he wanted to buy lunch for Tom and I while we were on our special adventure. My mother-in-law came down and helped take care of Emma so I could have some time on the day before my departure to get some things in order for my trip. A buddy of mine picked me up early in the morning on Sunday so I wouldn’t have to take an Uber to the airport. Another friend of mine sent me a Venmo the morning I left with the message “Some fun money for your trip. Do something you might not otherwise do for yourself.” Countless other friends of checked in on me to see that my travel is going smoothly and ask about the experiences I’ve been having along the way. I am blown away and feel so loved and cared for. 

I have now essentially traveled to Los Angeles and back without spending a penny of my own money and I’ve had one of the more memorable experiences of my lifetime. There are parts of me that want to feel shame and to not feel like a “charity case”. The good news is that there are also parts of me that realize the reason people want to do things like this for me is because of All That I Give to them in return, everyday, quietly holding space for others and showing up in people's lives when they need it the most.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last two days, but I don’t think there could be anything more valuable than the fact that I’ve been reminded that I am a really good person, that I often help others and that it is in my willingness to receive, that I allow others to care for me and love me the way they want to care for me and love me back. 

I guess there is something to that old phrase California Dreaming. I had the trip of my dreams. I am brimming with gratitude as I head home. My friend Tom is a huge movie buff and his favorite movie of all time is the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. I might not have traveled to Bedford Falls, but I’ve certainly been reminded that it is indeed a wonderful life. Sometimes you need to mix things up a little bit to see more clearly. I am hoping I can maintain that clarity in the days ahead.

Well, that’s all for this time. Thanks for following along with my words and my life. I love you all,

Jim