Aren't the mountains beautiful?

A steep hike up reveals a wonderful valley capable of being understood. It needs not seek guidance , plead for patience, or win one over as a friend. It exists in total completion.

"Thoreau tells us he is fully capable of living a more than pre-detemined life.

This is my argument again and once more but some people don't seem to get it. Well let us learn something from the author of that famous essay "Civil disobedience" that inspired Gandhi and MLK and anarcho kids in NYC to this day.

I find myself reading On the Road again, this is the third time and I almost never read books more than once. But I have to, it doesn't matter that I know the story, its in the telling. Its all in the telling and Thoreau (yes I'm reading two books at once now that I have more time) tells us that by imagining the course, describing it vividly, we achieve much more than that nagging destination which we are always expected to arrive at-to become-the owner of some tittle or object, not much has changed since the days of the old English Monarchy has it?

I'm rambling- what I meant to say is I love reading about the mad journey and resting temporarily from mine. I have in tow the excited traveler and the quiet recluse-both writers looking to discover something.

I eat gnocchi my favorite and I scavenge vegetables when that market is over-still fresh, I exchange glances with modern gypsies and old Italians, we collect the waste. I watch Preminger movies in black and white at the cinema next door every night. I drink tea with lemon and honey and ginger and study maps.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore toto

I walk down the wide avenue gazing this way and that and I notice a large crowd approaching me is it a popular protest, Saturday afternoon the perfect opportunity to reclaim the streets? No, its end of summer sales, 50% off, and the crowds are flocking, the line to the fitting rooms at HM stretches out the door, where am I?I turn to my imaginary toto and remark,

"I don't' think we're in Kansas anymore" toto says nothing. He won't dignify my comment with an answer, because of course we're not.

We are in Nice, France. I have just finished cycling for Darfur and slowly the world of mornings lit by golden light and beaches and new faces and bakery sandwiches for lunch starts to fade out and garish shoppers, fashionable, noses stuck up in the air begin to fade in to my consciousness. Sometimes my focus is so singular that I cease to see the commuters shrouded in designer fear.

Welcome one and all to my personal blog

Thank you for being such devoted readers of my cycling for Darfur blog. It was a really wonderful trip and I am so thankful for the opportunity that it has been to do something I believe in on my own terms.

If you wish to continue reading and journey on with me i invite you, but I warn you I can not promise where the road will take us. Not all will be nice but everything will be true between my eyes and your ears.

Still coming... well then lets go...up craggy mountains into the caverns of my experiences, next stop=Italy, lets hope it doesn´t rain!

Love Robyn

It's Strange how we get trapped in the past

I've been noticing lately, my tendency to dream about lost times. Moments that in many respects I'm glad are over, still seem to repeat on me. I imaging myself in them with this longing, which is hard to explain. Why would I want to relive pain? Is it the subtle beauty that exists inside of it, or just fear of moving on and finding less faulted beauties to languish in.

Privacy is a state of mind

According to Jan Yoors, insider gypsy anthropologist, the Rom(gypsies) consider privacy to be a state of mind. Something which involves giving other people space, not prying and not discussing unsavory things which might offend others. This statement attests to the idea that people who share tiny spaces, like campsites and wagons, or train cars and the great outdoors, an be constantly together yet comfortably alone. While, I've noticed that people who share houses or in this city sidewalks and roads, can feel continuously irritated by the presence of meddling others. There are always those people who do not observe borders, almost unconscious of there existence these people have a tendency to be intrusive. Surrounded by such space invaders many of us develop the belief that we must hole up in private places, rooms with locks on the doors, deserted beaches in order to find this truly alone sense of quiet and peace. However, why can't we, when in Rom, do as the gypsies do and find inner solace, by creating space around us by respecting the boundaries of ourselves and others?

Cyberspace

This is one of the dresses that I have recently made. Check out more on www.inkblotkelly.etsy.com I've been talking a lot with people who are physically present in the same space as me, about the craziness that is cyber relations. How, people meet online and these friendships, translate into hang out in reality(not virtual) friends, to bar dates, jobs, and sublets. the down side to this is that internet rejections burn ya just as much as to your face ones. Still we learn on places like facebook that pictures are omnipotent. Thus even old fashioned phone calls are pushed farther to the back of the bus- they start to feel too personal,"intimate" if you will, when they break the silence of pictures and text(messaging). unless they're the types of phone calls that proceed as follows: 'Press 1 to make a new booking, press 2 to make changes on an already existing booking, Press 3 to hear these options again, press 4 to go back to the main menu. Do not hang up and call again, it will not increase your wait time.' Is it variable overload or celebration worthy modernity?