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larykennedy-blog · 13 years

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still hovering...

when will the rain ever end or are those my tears... i cant tell anymore... four days of moisture from wherever left me waterlogged... a bloated mess of matted hair, crumbling mascara, puffed up eyes, cracked heart and bruised ego... my insides matched my outsides... time to look at the current situation, reevaluate my game plan, get my head screwed back in place, figure out my next move and throw some paint on my face... wearing makeup usually motivates me to move freely around the cabin... how did i get here i asked myself, out loud... this is not what i imagined when i started on this trek around the us... this was not what i had pictured at all... broken heart, broken rv, broken tooth, broken bank account... if the trend continues brokeback mountain may work its way into the equation... i did not sign up for this... i rewound the chain of events that led to my unconventional lifestyle change...

i have a tendency to wait until i have at least 3 feet of solid ground in front of me before jumping out of the speeding car as it gracefully drives/dives over the cliff into the great abyss... call me conservative... no job, no income stream, no husband, no kids, no direction, and no clue as to what i wanted to do had left me paralyzed... everything i had accumulated, everything i had worked so hard for was about to disappear unless i found a way to make enough money to keep it all... i was losing ground and rapidly...

about this time an old flame of mine was in los angeles to record the audio version of his book how would love respond... we reconnected via facebook where i found out he had become a successful life coach in australia... last time id seen him he was working as an actor... on occasion id hear a blurb about him here and there... eventually we lost touch... its been said there are no coincidences so i wont chalk it up to coincidence but three weeks after we became "friends" he happens to be in la and would love to see me... it was great to see kurek... he looked great, he was happily married and his motivational based business was flourishing... the words of wisdom that rung the loudest were to get out of los angeles before it metaphorically kills me... little did he know... shortly after that i got an opportunity to see eckahrt tolle (author of the power of now and a new earth: awakening to your lifes purpose) speak in a 3 day taping event held in malibu... i have great respect for eckhart tolle... his insightful, straightforward, and logical teachings have exposed me to a way of experiencing life where joy, love, serenity, peace and contentment become the focal point in life... my priorities shifted once i grasped the idea that i, along with every other human that inhabitants this earth, am on this planet to experience acceptance, abundance, joy, passion, compassion, empathy and above all love... on the last day of the taping eckhart asked the audience if they had any specific questions... i had come here just for this reason... i needed guidance... people started raising their hands and he answered 4 questions from audience members from the first 7 rows... due to the lites shining on the stage those rows where the only ones he could see clearly... he was ending up the q and a from the audience but called out for one more... i was in the 11th row and although id had my hand up every time id not been called... this was my one shot, my one opportunity, the whole reason i came here... my heart was pounding out of my chest... i have to ask him... when he looked out into the audience this time i waved my hand like crazy and stomped on the floor... he looked my way and laughingly said you must really need to ask me something... the squeaky wheel gets the oil he said... everyone laughed as i ran excitedly to the microphone... his answer to my question was roughly follow your passion and the rest will take care of itself... simple, pat answer id heard over and over and over again but i went home and thought about what hed said... images, feelings, memories id pushed away or long forgotten surfaced... wonder why after all these years they suddenly decide to come out to play... id always wanted to be a writer... i just never wrote anything... until recently, when out of necessity id written a daily journal of sorts about the day to day situation with my brother... i literally left in the middle of the night, flew to kansas and drove my dying brother to los angeles in a rental car... having only enough energy to deal with the ordeal of getting lance to safety, i sent out daily recaps so i wouldnt have to explain it to all who where concerned... these recaps ignited my pilot light and the flame has been burning ever since... traveling, exploring and new experiences had always tripped my trigger... with all my financial obligations and decreasing cash flow situation my days of exploring the planet would have to wait till i cash in my winning lottery ticket... selling everything i have and going to india was something i considered seriously... only thing was white carpet and all i had just gotten wolf, flying scares the hell out of me, and living out of a suitcase would be impossible... i need one large suitcase just for my shoes... when i was a kid i thought nothing would be cooler then to see the united states in a winebago... when i was a kid i wanted to be a writer and work for a big time magazine... no matter how many poisonous needles i put in my face i am not freezing time... based on my current rate of decline i was never gonna be able to retire, id long ago given up on the idea of a mister right, and i had no obligations holding me in one place... f--k it may as well see the united states now, live out my childhood fantasies while im still able to be childlike, look for adventures along the way , challenge myself to expand my horizons in every way possible, do the unexpected and at the end of the day write about it... if somehow i can parlay it into a career op, even better... i took to heart all those inspirational quotes id heard and realized they really meant something... they really do mean something... life is short, no one on their death bed looks back and wishes theyd spent more time in the office, cant sweat the small stuff cuz its all small stuff, life is meant to be lived, live life like a song, leap and the net will appear, you only go round once, life is not a dress rehearsal, money aint everything, we have nothing to fear but fear itself... i can go on forever but the bottom line was this... i had put myself through so much stress, anxiety, worry and torment trying to keep all my stuff... i counted the years id been on the planet and i realized that in those years i had actually done very little with my life... its all relative as im sure there are people who would envy all that i have seen and done but on my personal must do list id checked off very few... my life had become trying to pay the bills... where had i gotten off track... my confidence and /or vibrato, false or otherwise, had vanished... what happened to that head strong, out to conquer the world, make a difference, make my family proud girl who charged into los angeles determined to be somebody... when did i let go of the passion, the drive, the chutzpah... when did i all of a sudden become a victim... i am not a victim... that i was allowing myself to fall into that role turned my stomach ... it was time to live my life... not that i hadnt done so in the past its just that chapter in my life is over... time for a new chapter... time to reinvent myself... time to challenge myself on every level and time to see as much as i could possibly see, feel, hear, touch, eat and poop out... i decided to walk on the high wire without a net and just hope to hell i dont have to sneeze... i decided to live life like im dying... i had taken a big hit... cant deny it... for five months id spent every second with cole and expected to spend millions of seconds more... then poof its over... like a tornado that barrels through a city causing swift and destructive damage then exits as quickly as it came... leaving all who survive wondering what the hell just happened... four days was enough time to ask why me, how could he do this to me, what did i do to deserve this, why wont he call me, whats wrong with me, whats wrong with him, when will this pain ever end, why didnt i listen to myself, how in the hell am i ever going to live without him, will this heartache ever heal ... i allowed myself four days to play the victim... now its time to pick myself up by the bootstraps, get my ass in gear and get the hell out of decatur... i had places to go, people to meet and things to accomplish... today's "must have" fun fact... Philippe Petit (French pronunciation: [filip pəti]; born 13 August 1949) is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, on 7 August 1974.[1] For his feat (that he referred to as "le coup"[2]), he used a 450-pound (200-kilogram) cable and a custom-made 26-foot (8-metre) long, 55-pound (25-kilogram) balancing pole. Petit was born in Nemours, Seine-et-Marne, France; his father, Edmond Petit, was an author and a former Army pilot. At an early age he discovered magic and juggling. At 16, he took his first steps on the wire. Petit learned everything by himself as he was being expelled from five different schools. "Within one year," he told a reporter, "I taught myself to do all the things you could do on a wire. I learned the backward somersault, the front somersault, the unicycle, the bicycle, the chair on the wire, jumping through hoops. But I thought, 'What is the big deal here? It looks almost ugly.' So I started to discard those tricks and to reinvent my art."[3] He also became adept at equestrianism, fencing,carpentry, rock-climbing and the art of bullfighting. Spurning circuses and their formulaic performances, on the sidewalks of Paris he created his street persona: wild, witty and silent – a character that will never leave him – forever beguiling all who see him. In the early 1970s, he frequently juggled and worked on a slack rope in New York City'sWashington Square Park. Beginning in the 1970s, Petit began eyeing world-famous structures as stages for high-wire walks, which he executed as a combination of circus act and public performance. He performed his first such walk between the towers of the Notre Dame de Paris. In 1973, he walked a wire rigged between the two north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, inSydney, Australia.[4]

Petit's most famous work was his performance which he executed at the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) in Manhattan.

[edit]Planning

He was first inspired to attempt what he called his "coup" on the Twin Towers while he sat in his dentist's office in Paris in 1968. In a magazine, he came upon an article about the yet-to-be constructed buildings, along with an illustration of the model. He became obsessed with the towers, collecting articles on them whenever possible.

The "artistic crime of the century" took six years of planning, during which Petit learned everything he could about the buildings, taking into account such problems as the swaying of the towers because of wind, and how to rig the steel cable across the 200 ft (61 m) gap between the towers (at a height of 1,368 ft (417 m)). He traveled to New York on several occasions to make first-hand observations. Since the towers were still under construction, Petit and New York-based photographer Jim Moore went up in a helicopter to make aerial photographs of the trade center.[2] His friend Francis Brunn, the German Juggler, provided financial support for the attempt and its planning.[5]

Petit sneaked into the towers several times, hiding on the roof and other areas in the unfinished towers, in order to get a sense of what type of security measures were in place. Using his own observations and Moore's photographs, Petit was able to make a scale model of the towers to help him design the rigging he needed to prepare for the wirewalk. He made fake identification cards for himself and his collaborators (claiming that they were contractors who were installing an electrified fence on the roof) to gain access to the towers. Prior to this, to make it easier to get into the buildings, Petit carefully observed the clothes worn by construction workers and the kinds of tools they carried. He also took note of the clothing of office workers so that he could blend in with them when he tried to enter the buildings. He observed what time the workers arrived and left, so he could determine when he would have roof access. As the target date of his "coup" approached, he claimed to be a journalist with a French architecture magazine so that he could gain permission to interview the workers on the roof. The Port Authority allowed Petit to conduct the interviews, which he used as a pretext to make more observations. He was once caught by a police officer on the roof, and his hopes to do the high-wire walk were dampened, but he eventually regained the confidence to proceed.

On the night of Tuesday, 6 August 1974, Petit and his crew were able to ride in a freight elevator to the 104th floor with their equipment, and to store this equipment just nineteen steps from the roof. In order to pass the cable across the void, Petit and his crew had settled on using a bow and arrow. They first shot across a fishing line, and then passed larger and larger ropes across the space between the towers until they were able to pass the 450-pound steel cable across. Two cavalettis (guy lines) anchored to other points on the roof were used to stabilize the cable and keep the swaying of the wire to a minimum.[2]

On Wednesday, 7 August 1974, shortly after 7:15 a.m., Petit stepped off the South Tower and onto his 3/4" 6×19 IWRC (independent wire rope core[6]) steel cable. He walked the wire for 45 minutes, making eight crossings between the towers, a quarter mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan. In addition to walking, he sat on the wire, gave knee salutes and, while lying on the wire, spoke with a gull circling above his head.

As soon as Petit was observed by witnesses on the ground, the Port Authority Police Department dispatched officers to the roof to take him into custody. One of the officers, Sgt. Charles Daniels, later reported his experience: I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire....And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle....He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.[7] Petit was warned by his friend on the South Tower that a police helicopter would come to pick him off the wire unless he got off. Rain had begun to fall, and Petit decided he had taken enough risks, so he decided to give himself up to the police waiting for him on the South Tower. He was arrested once he stepped off the wire. Provoked by his taunting behaviour while on the wire, police handcuffed him behind his back and roughly pushed him down a flight of stairs. This he later described as the most dangerous part of the stunt.[8] His audacious high-wire performance made headlines around the world. When asked why he did the stunt, Petit would say, "When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk." Although movie cameras were on the roof during the walk, the person who was supposed to film the walk did not do so, apparently due to exhaustion.[9]

#eat pray love #motivation #eckhart tolle #kurek ashley #love #life #rv's #fulltimers #inspirational

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