“I just spent $70 on breakfast.” “It was room service and it was just for me.”

“I can’t believe there’s no coffee machine in the room.”

“I feel energized, somehow, no matter how early the jetlag has me awake.”

I walked through the casinos barefooted, otherwise dressed to the nines. I signed up for the Tao Hospitality Group app while (and also because) a handsome middle-aged Black man named Shawn gave me step-by-step directions for doing so.

I have never had better service in an uber ever. I almost didn’t want to get out of the vehicle.

These past three days at my third Virtuoso Travel Week have been daydream-filled whirlwinds of want

as in

want to be somewhere else.

Because I hate Vegas, yes; more-so somehow because just shy of 5,000 participants representing 105 countries and each of their most exclusive and expensive hotel brands have presented to me how I can position their product to my clients and drive sales.

My mind wanders and I forget that I’m supposed to be thinking of other people in those meetings

the “clients”

my clients

It’s 11:17am and I find myself in Aria’s Primrose ballroom when all I really want to do is learn capoeira in Bahia. Or go back to Aotearoa because I never really got north of Auckland. And I never saw the hot water beach. I remember, too, the oak trees in Savannah.

James Beard is really something and

Washington seems to be calling to me and

Pine, Cedar, and Palo Santo?

Ah, yes, rosemary, too. with a hint of orange.

What do you know about Korea’s Templestay?

How many different kinds of dates are grown in Saudi Arabia?

What airlines fly from South Africa to Italy, anyway?

I am meeting people who have done the things I want to do and I’m seeing 222 often. The ground is shifting underneath my feet and I am seeing my armor. When I am scared, I heavy myself with food and I either leverage or lament my physical appearance and I check out of the conversation to read the menu and time passes slowly and I spend less of those short hours in bed. I tend toward my masculine when I feel scared. Where is the courage in my feminine?

I want to make movies. Or at least, I want to tell stories in a meaningful way. Or at least, I want to make meaning. Or at least, I want to live a meaningful life.

Meaningful to whom?

It’s preposterous to me that anyone in any of those ballrooms is completely satisfied with their own life, their boundaries, their singular direction, their limited capacity for focus. How can anyone just choose one life? How can anyone see all the world’s possibilities and stand solid in their choice to be in one place with one person, calling themself one title forever and ever.

What if my inability to choose is exactly my strength? What if it makes me a great story-teller? What if my listener can taste my desire? My desire to be the protagonist of every story I tell? What if that desire is precisely my gift?

What if

I should tell stories?

I’m quitting my job today
And everyone’s asking if my boss sees it coming
And what’s next 
I’m putting the cart before the horse
I’m knowing first, choosing next 
I’m leaping from my place suspended
Without ground, I’m hoping to be found 
And not saved 
Maybe loved hard and 
asked to stay

Early mornings do not scare me 
I’m damn good at making my way as long as I can use the uber app 
I want to live one thousand lives within the years I’m granted 
Thank you, Goodness, for those
I’m sorry, Mom
See me shine 
Watch me bet on me 
Get on board or 
Get left behind 

What will I do?
Fight inflammation
Fire with fire
Practice strength build strength 
Not to get to where I was
To get to where I will be 
Wherever that may be 
Maybe box
Surely dance
There are, after all, classes to be studied
Those to be taught, too
Films to be made 
Salads to be tossed
Oceans to be swum
Flowers to be pollinated 
Camps to be managed 
Money to be printed
Voices to be heard 
Grapes to be fermented 
Poems to be wrote 

There are 4 minutes left to
Figure it out 
Plenty time 
I’m not so young as I look

There are two minutes, now 
What is it not? 
What could it have been? 

Until You Know Better

Watch Groundswell, the third of a series of documentaries on soil, the climate crisis, regenerative agriculture, colonization’s destabilizing and enduring force, human health, hunger, economics, politics, why any of it matters at all.

Know that in the AI revolution, your value no longer lies in what you know. That’s not your competitive advantage anymore. It’s not anyone’s anymore. (It’s not what, it’s how.)

Great Artists Steal

Brené Brown gave the keynote again this year. and she asked me What armor do you reach for when you’re scared?

I am triangulating this stolen triangle of devices for purpose and doing: Head, Heart, Hands / What are you good at? What does the world need? What do you enjoy doing? / Harmony Faith Freedom Strength and all their respective elements and chakras