It’s Only Hot If You Are In A Hurry

It's Only Hot If You're in a Hurry

I sat down tonight to pick a fight.

I'd told myself I was done making controversial posts. But that's just who I am and it's what I do, and I love ruffling feathers. So there I was, winding up a whole rant about the surveillance cameras going up around here and the people complaining about them — the same people carrying a tracking device in their pocket with forty apps on it, who clicked "I agree" on the fine print for their TV, their refrigerator, and in my case, a robot lawnmower that flat refused to cut grass until I signed over access to its camera, its microphone, and its location to a company on the other side of the planet. That's not consent. That's a thousand-dollar brick unless you say yes.

I made peace with all that years ago. I used to drive myself crazy toggling location services on and off, trying to disable everything, fighting a battle that can't be won. Privacy in modern America is not a thing that exists. Once I accepted that, I stopped worrying about it. But watching folks scream at a camera on a pole while feeding their whole lives through the phone in their hand — that was tonight's rant, and I had it loaded and ready.

I'm not posting it.

Not because it's wrong. Because I learned something the last time I posted receipts. I put up a simple public safety post a while back, backed with a news story and a state trooper's own words, and the venom that came back at me proved the exact point I keep making: most people do not care about facts. They don't check. They take what scrolls past them as gospel and swing away. You can drop the primary source right in their lap and it doesn't matter until it does. And somewhere in the middle of dictating tonight's rant, I realized the rant was never about the cameras.

Here's what it was actually about.

I've been a protector my whole life. Before the military ever got hold of me — third grade, on a playground, I got kicked out of school for fighting a bully who was picking on another kid. That was the last straw that got me homeschooled. Some things you don't forget. That instinct never left, and it never will. But I finally figured out the math on it: I cannot protect anybody by burning myself down in a comment section. I can't protect anybody by stressing myself into a heart attack at forty-eight because I get so worked up about what this country is becoming. The best thing I can do — for the people I love, and for people I'll never meet — is protect my own peace first, and do my work from there. For me, that means the mountains of Colombia. Not running from anything. Running toward everything I've ever wanted. If you've read anything else on this blog, you already know that part.

Tonight the universe decided to show its work.

A post I put up in some expat groups last week started paying off all at once. My ride from the airport for the September trip is already handled — a young guy with good English who I'm looking forward to meeting. An artist from the Netherlands living in the exact little town I've been circling on the map offered to show me around, and her work is unbelievable — not the kind of thing you find in the States. And I got connected with veteran groups down there, guys who made this same jump years ago, already reaching out, already answering questions, already holding the door open for a man they've never met.

One of them moved down in 2015 and told me Colombia became home. He gave me straight answers about healthcare and visas, told me the recon trip and the contacts were exactly the right way to do this, and ended with the words every veteran recognizes without needing them explained: whenever you're ready, I'm here.

There's an unspoken rule between veterans. It crosses every line — political, religious, racial, all of it. It doesn't ask questions first. A simple text, a call, a look, and it doesn't matter if you were right or completely fucked up and wrong — I will come running, and I will go through anything standing between you and me. I've been on both sides of that rule. I've made the call and I've answered it. And tonight, before I've even set foot in the country, that rule reached across an international border from a total stranger. You want to know why I'm not scared of this move? That's why. The tribe is already there.

And then, because the night wasn't done with me, my shuffle pulled up an obnoxiously loud trap remix of "Don't Worry Be Happy" over a thumbnail of turquoise Caribbean water, and my heart showed its hand.

Because for all my well-laid plans — the mountain plateau, the university towns, the workshop, the spreadsheets — I can't lie about where my heart has always been. Island time. A line in the water while I'm sitting in the sand. Copper chasing his ball with the waves rolling in. A little tiki bar where people come to listen to obnoxiously loud trap remixes of Marley and Buffett. If I believed in an afterlife where I was a good person, that would be heaven. And I've got a sneaking suspicion that for all my planning, I end up on that beach and just never leave.

But that's a November decision. That's the beauty of the plan I built: one suitcase, one dog, no lease, no rush. Stand on the plateau. Stand on the sand. Let the heart vote after it's been both places.

And here's the thing about Colombia that people back home can't wrap their heads around: I don't have to choose. A workshop in the mountains where the wood is cheap and the weather is eternal spring, and a little cabana retreat on the Caribbean — that's a millionaire's life in America. Down there it's a retired artist's budget. Connect the two with an old FJ or a Patrol and a comfortable three-day drive with the dog's head out the window, and tell me — what's the rush?

Somebody pointed out the coast gets hot in the afternoons. You know what they invented for that? The siesta. Work the cool mornings, sleep through the swelter, fish the golden hour.

It's only hot if you're in a hurry.

And somewhere between the siesta and the tiki bar, I suddenly put words to a feeling that has been skirting and avoiding words my entire life. What makes me, well, me. What people are drawn to without understanding why I'm their favorite person.

Am I a good artist? Yes. Am I at least a decent bowl turner? Yes. Can I read the grain in the wood, or see the polished stone waiting inside the rough specimen? Yes. Am I a good soldier — can I hit an objective with overwhelming violence and claim a win? Unfortunately, yes. Am I the best in any of those areas? Absolutely not. "A jack of all trades" — everyone knows the first part of that saying. They forget the second part.

So I'm good at many things, to the point of frustration. But the best? What am I actually the best at? And tonight the answer just hit me. I am an unparalleled dreamer. That's the only reason I'm so good at so many things. I dream. I dream big in a way most people can't fathom. I see the entire log turned into a spectacular creation. I see the rusty heap in a field turned into not one version of what it could be, but every version of what it could be. I see a place I built — a place where anyone and everyone can be safe, regardless of what they have done, what they have seen, what has happened to them. I can dream in a way very few people can dream.

And that place I keep seeing? Look back up this page. It has a thatched roof, obnoxiously loud music, and a dog in the waves. The safe place and the tiki bar were the same dream all along.

I started tonight wanting to burn something down. I'm ending it at a tiki bar that doesn't exist yet, on a beach I haven't stood on, in a country I fly to in seven weeks. Somewhere in between, a stranger told me he's got my six. I'm writing all this down tonight for one reason: I don't want to lose these feelings in my rush to get down there. The anger I can find again any day of the week. This — the quiet thing underneath it, the thing that goes still when I picture that dog in those waves — this is the thing worth packing.

A suitcase and a hope and a prayer.