Meru

Mt. Meru - Vertical Climb With The Aptly Named "Shark's Fin"

Hello Fellow Travelers!

A few nights ago my Patient Spouse downloaded a film on Netflix that was supposed to be "Inspirational".  "Meru" has everything!  Vertical Mountain Climbing, Vertical Camping, camaraderie, grievous brain injury, death, love, ramen noodles and granite walls, non-stop, vertical, granite walls.  And that's just the first 15 minutes.

"Meru" is the story of three good friends who happened to be world class mountain climbers.  As individuals, they were formidable.  As a team they were unstoppable.  By the time Conrad set up their tent midair, 400 feet up, I was all in.

Did I mention Jon Krackauer?  The dude who wrote "Into Thin Air"?  He's in the movie too.  Meru is reportedly a mountain climber's mountain.  There is nothing to rely upon but yourself and your team.  There are no oxygen tanks, no Sherpa to carry the tanks or anything else.  The mountaineers only can rely on each other and themselves and whatever they can carry on their backs!

These three dudes take that mountain with determination and focus.  It isn't their first try either.  Spoiler Alert:  The climbers reach the summit.  It would have been disappointing if they didn't I suppose ("Aw, s%$#t!  What now?") humorous but disappointing nonetheless!

I'll never climb Meru.  I barely know what country it's in (India) but I'll take inspiration wherever I can find it.  Those mountain climbers are very inspiring.  "I beat cancer?  So?  What have you done lately?"  (Inspirational conversation I have internally)  I don't complain too much about my health (I can't speak) but after "Meru" I don't even think the thought!

Hunger?  Those guys camped midair!

Pain?  Those dudes scaled a huge granite vertical rock and then the "Shark Fin".

See what I mean?  Even my mind is too impressed to complain.

This beautifully shot (Nat Geo) documentary says many things on many levels.  The overwhelming message I took away?  "Buck Up, Little Camper!"

"Meru" inspires this challenged traveler to pedal a few more miles to nowhere and do a few more repetitions than I think I can do.

I can find some kind of inspiration in everything (almost).  On "Meru" I found a mountain of it.  A vertical, granite mountain!

Do You Know What A Hoarder Is? Well I'm The Anti-Hoarder

Glass & Concrete Shack on a Beach with Too Much Stuff -
Not My House But Sort Of My Aesthetic

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I was throwing out yet another stack of papers to be recycled when I was interrupted yet again by my PS.  Is he a hoarder?  Naahh!  I do wonder sometimes, though.  I never really considered it until recently.  Everything I want to pitch, he claims is irreplaceable. I can't throw away enough stuff and my PS is a packrat! Classic! It's really the only thing we argue about.

To be fair, I have a really spare aesthetic.  Sparer since cancer. If you're not eating on it, typing on it,  reading or sleeping on it,  it must go.     Water and stone.  Light and glass.  Fire.  That's it!  Except for a bed, no furniture.  Okay, maybe a table, but only one.  And no chairs.  Stone stools or geods, or chairs that hang on the walls in between meals.  (I saw that once in a movie)  I'm the ultimate minimalist, the antihoarder.

So the PS and I go through this hilarious routine every time I try to throw anything away!  It doesn't matter what it is,  I'll dispose of a piece of advertising paper or a sock with a big hole and it will find it's way back to me along with a lawyer's argument to persuade me why the item I'm discarding all willie-nilly still has some use in it and  should be reclaimed!   Does this ever persuade me?  What do you think?   You're right!  Naahh!  Of Course it doesn't!  HaHa!

When every step is a challenge and all surfaces are potential hazards furniture is cumbersome, decor  meaningless.

I used to prowl antique stores looking for Art Deco/Retro stuff.  Never again.  Small shops make me feel trapped and claustrophobic, like MRIs.

I occasionally am forced to have my brain photographed but no one says I have to ever have to willingly stand around cramped little shops for fun, which I no longer am interested in and, as a cancer survivor, all my priorities have changed anyway.

Some day, when I'm living in my "furniture-free villa-by-the-sea", I'll invite you over for a drink - I'll be the one not talking and you might get impaled on a geod!

Educational and unforgettable!  Yowsa!