"What would you say to yourself? Write an imaginary scene between you at your current age and you at a younger age. If you don't want to use dialogue, you don't have to."

"Hey, Erich, the twelve-year-old: give those day dreams some legs and point them in the right direct. Speak more German to Omi and Opi. Avoid taking vegetarians girls to Tony Roma's, no matter how shy you are. You're a good kid--remember that."

Arrows of Chance

"When did you feel the most free? Write about it."

San Sebastian. A night train into the city left me with a traveler's hangover. You go through the motions after a while, just like everything else, except when you're backpacking a stranger in more than one strange land, you must remember how vulnerable you really are once you step off that train. This is not what the travel guides described. This is not what I thought I'd write home about. I suppose this is where I shed the romantic hue to it all. The beginning of the end. There are always fellow backpackers to befriend along the way, but it was somewhere along the transfer of trains on course to San Sebastian that the feeling of solitary existence hit me. Everyone had their separate destination, taking another train to another site. I tried best to avoid the worn backpacker's trails through these destinations, which often led me to the mundane. Definitely not what my family expected to hear about. 'Not all who are wandering are lost' was the axiom that repeated through my head as I scraped the most out of those traveler's mistakes I frequently made. That's what you get when you opt for the road not taken. There's no romanticism to latch onto when you're out of money and still feeling unsatisfied.

But San Sebastian lay there. I tumbled out of the train like a drunkard looking for the next den of indemnity. There was nothing that this morning in this sleepy port town could offer a weary traveler. I sought refuge much the same way I had always done as a runner: look for high ground and conquer it. I found the highest point, Urgull, and cut through every small alley to reach it. A stranger wandering through Basque neighborhoods at 6:30 in the morning hardly seemed the image I wanted to send the locals. Still, the doors remained closed as I passed through, climbing higher.

I finally reached the peak as the sun began its mark on the day. It was then that I had that Whitman-esque connection with it all. The quiet of the earth, the vastness of the sea, the arch of the rainbow--all left me feeling that it was all worth it. My sense of freedom was born from initial feelings of loneliness and despair. No matter how hard I tried to break away from the beaten backpacker's path, there were always fellow travelers with me headed in the same direction. Not on this day. Not a traveler's soul in sight. I was the only creature awake up on that mountain as I looked over the bay of San Sebastian. This was freedom, even for a moment until the world around me awoke, until the others caught up with me, until I decided to return to the mortal minutia below.

Ten old tricks I can't touch

"When did you realize you couldn't still do it? List ten things you could do when you were younger but can't do anymore. Put one, some, or all of them together in one piece of writing."

I've yet to find a legitimate gray hair on my head. They must be there, hidden between all of the sandy blonds, laughing at me with every abrupt step and awkward bow I take. It must all be so amusing to them, watching this shell of a thirty-two year old attempt that which is more fit for someone ten years his junior. I've never wanted to be "that guy" who doesn't catch on to the fact that he looks about as out of place as an Eskimo luau.

Yet with age shame has less of a tinge. I know my limitations, perhaps to the extent that it may stifle any great experiences I may consider venturing on, but I still recognize what qualifies as folly. However, it's more than stuff of mere embarrassment. There are some on the list that cannot be done, or at least done as well, because of physical or mental limitations. Ten sounds nice, but here's my list of five.

1. 16 x 400-meter sessions
Really, I'm not the monster on the track I once was. Sixteen miles, mostly at breakneck speed, was once something I could do without even blinking. All of my grueling ventures as a runner are now unfathomable. It's not that I necessarily think my body is incapable (though, I'm sure that I can't recover like I used to) it's just that other responsibilities in life have left little time to regain my physical prowess.

2. Bilking The Man
I suppose there was justification for this when I was a starving college student. I certainly found enough reason to rationalize my choices that involved paying as little or nothing at all. It certainly depends on who you ask when defining stealing. However, I would never consider thievery in the classic sense. Just the typical slacker behavior. You know, theater hopping, lounging at Soup Plantation for hours, pirating software, DVDs, and/or music. Softcore Abbie Hoffman. I could never really steal this book. Hell, I bought the thing from Barnes and Noble for crying out loud. I'm a little more understanding of the fact that others are trying to survive too. I just choose my businesses more carefully rather than patronizing the big corps (No more McDonald's, never Walmart).

3. Lateness
I don't know how my first boss put up with me habitually arriving five minutes late to work. Hell, I would fire me. I guess I had other redeemable qualities. Still, it's not that I don't still arrive late now and again, but I've learned to be considerate of other people's time as well as my own. It is the commodity worth more than money. A lucrative salary can never compensate for lost youth (i.e., physical prowess lost is never gained in retirement).

4. Three days on nothing but Coke and red vines
Man, I was a machine in my youth. Six years of never missing a day of school and never even missing a day of practice. My body could withstand most anything. I never really had my first major illness until coming down with Mono while surviving in Japan (I say "surviving" because I believe it was in Japan that my body first was thrown for a loop). Now, I can no longer consider ventures such as "Three Day", the nebulous agreement in college to go without sleep for three days straight in order to see the psychological effects. Less a tank, more a trembling temple, my body cannot withstand another typhoon.

5. Subverting the dominant paradigm
The daydreams of revolutionary upheaval of the system have even greater relevance now that I've become a working stiff, but I also recognize the repercussions of such ventures. This is not to say that questioning authority is not out of the question. But now I am the authority. To adhere to such a philosophy would lead to things falling apart, the center being unable hold, et. al. Perhaps I took a page from Tyler Durden's destructive approach. Now I must work with the broken shards, the mangled pieces to build something worth keeping. Less about me, more about those who come after me. Still, there are the little battles of subversion worth fighting. I can work incognito. Project Cage Rattle. Cue the Madagascar penguins: "You didn't see anything."