Time flows like glaciers or like rapids.
Over moments, over memories.
I feel like so much life has passed me by.
I haven’t fought off sharks in the ocean but I’ve raced down Death Roads. I’ve rafted down the Amazon River. I’ve churned sugar cane with tribespeople. I’ve hiked a pilgrimage on the trail of the Incan Sun Gods, surrounded by ruins and the highest altitude lake in the world.
I've ridden donkeys across the pampas and drank and sang with gauchos by firelight. Gotten trapped in blizzards hiking into the Andes.
I’ve had magic happen to me and around me in Paris, living under a windmill, in secret gardens with Alan Watts’ old friends, in secret bars, at secret performances by the river. I’ve watched a wall of fireworks off rooftops in Hong Kong. I’ve sat for dinner and private piano recitals in Havana with leaders of the Cuban government, and swam in the ocean, sleepless, with the first rays of sunlight, godly.
I’ve driven across America, meeting cowboys and drinking with rickshaw drivers, hiking out of darkness and by starlight from atop mountains and out of canyons. I’ve slept and dreamt at the palace from The Sound of Music, watching performances on the same piano Beethoven's father played, while firewood crackled and echoed.
I’ve danced in ancient cellars, and explored abandoned manors by violet twilight. I’ve been chased by fire-breathing demons in a small Spanish village, lay down with an entire crowd to watch them on high wires.
I’ve had the most popular show in South Korea dedicate an episode to me. I’ve fallen in love in a speakeasy in Seoul, and had old fortune-telling machines tell us about it. I’ve ridden waves just below the surface of The Mediterranean. Hiked with Old World sculptors named after Greek philosophers, slept in the studio of an artist-saint in Vienna, and had him tell me about his secret conversations with Rembrandt, and the meaning of chasing the sun.
I've watched, incredulous, as the creator of the Midnight in Paris soundtrack showed up unannounced and played it for us in a small room — at midnight, near the steps themselves. I’ve pulled into Las Vegas on a Friday night, blinding lights rising out of darkness, surrounded by glamour, covered head to toe in desert dust.
I’ve skated the Rideau Canal at 3am, path freshly cleaned and reflecting every dim lantern light, with old friends and no another soul in sight, just our wide swooping strides, blades crackling against ice. I’ve watched triumphant, arms-raised gold medal finishes front row at the Olympics. I’ve been caught in black sky thunderstorms riding the world’s largest tidal bore, and ducked into active lithium mines in the world’s highest city. I’ve gotten stuck in the Bolivian salt flats and slept in a salt hotel. On another continent I’ve played soccer with locals in the world’s most cavernous former communist salt mines 30 stories underground.
I’ve helped paint old cottages on Lake Como, and partied with Paloma Faith and the xx in a rooftop loft in London. I’ve had Keira Knightley stare into my soul. I’ve controlled the lights on top of the Empire State Building, and stood alone on top of the Eiffel tower. Listened to jazz front row in the living room of a Harlem music legend. I’ve hosted five weddings, and been a Best Man twice. I've been in the right place at the right time to wander euphoric, swarming, celebrating streets the night they became NBA, MLB, and World Cup champions, high-fiving strangers.
I've schemed with space hotel architects and TED speakers in a 250 year old victorian mansion on Halloween. I've been caught between coyotes and LA riot police, circled by the spotlight of news copters. I created technology and filed a patent to fix the Internet and try to save the world. I raised a million dollars from the first investors in Twitter, media barons — the ones Succession was based on — and White House deputies.
I’ve eaten enough for 5 people just to reveal an old myth in Provence, with a chef literally out of the pages of Peter Mayle. I was a student council president orchestrated through a battle of the bands. I won a national competition not intended for me by predicting the future of work in the year 2040.
I did pushups to save a groom at a Majorcan estate, and closed the dance floor with fire breathers and belly dancers in Marrakech. I’ve heard thunder echo for a whole minute while walls shook. I’ve arrived at an international airport 45 minutes to departure and made it after racing through traffic from a Studio Ghibli island.
I’ve developed black and white film in dark rooms. I’ve been invited to convince one of North America’s top design studios to recreate the metaverse. I’ve been chased by police during G20 riots and hidden in the attic of a pet shop, while an earthquake happened and the caged birds sensed it before we did. I had a ghost touch me. In sleep paralysis a woman quietly and calmly told to me how the rest of my life will go — and when I moved she became static like a radio. I’ve had movie scripts and short stories appear in my mind, fully-formed. I've seen planes float like boats.
I’ve stood in top secret ephemeral factory hangars to critique full scale clay models of cars 5 years before the world knew they existed, stood in towering noise isolation chambers, and hitched a ride with strangers to get home. I've seen machines taken apart piece by piece like a real-world exploded diagram spread over 50 metres in underground halls where phones weren’t allowed, and walked along cavernous factory floors as fully formed vehicles rolled off.
I’ve found myself presenting to Germany’s leading news anchor, and being served a secret pasta recipe by the godmother of the German news service, and touring the New Yorker's headquarters. I’ve packed rooms at the world’s top journalism conferences and had Google executives spy on me.
I’ve had the founder of Second Life make me tell the story of Canadian engineering rings in the Stanford faculty lounge. I’ve had a world class circus juggler, from a touring circus family, try to teach me in MIT’s infinite corridor, and send pins flying millimeters from either side of my head.
I’ve been threatened with jail by crooked State Troopers. I’ve had absinthe out of an ornate crystal fountain in one of Paris’ oldest bars, just as Hemingway did, while the grandmotherly owners sang La Vie En Rose, waltzing with patrons around us — and then watched a drummer transcend in an old dungeon near Notre Dame.
I've found myself partying elbow to elbow with the President of Microsoft at a personal set by Kaskade at a Chalet in Davos, while being served truffle pasta on the dance floor, with a Prince Harry doppelgänger. I’ve read poems from this blog, on stage, at one of New York City’s most revered open mic music and poetry nights — and danced through the streets of Manhattan for hours as part of a silent disco flash mob pub crawl.
I’ve lost a game of Werewolf to the founder of Wikipedia. I’ve had drinks with 3 of the Five Guys. I’ve played a tennis tournament final on the next court over from Federer. I’ve taken a colour sensitivity test at Renault’s design studios. I’ve danced, unprepared, in front of an amphitheater of people wearing a king’s outfit at a historic Korean folk village. I’ve jogged for 10 minutes with wires attached to my chest and then had to hold my breath for a minute while my heart was scanned — and told it was beautiful.
I tried to convince NBA players to give me money. I’ve acted as a tour guide in 3 cities, including for one of America’s dynastic families — because a stranger invited me to their executive box at an NHL game in another city the next day. I’ve had lightning strike the highway in front of me. I had waves crash around me at dusk at Giant’s Causeway, and listened to Enya float over real Irish cheddar while rain battered the windows in Galway. I’ve seen iconic MC rap battles in chip shops in London and partied in hidden rooms behind a sandwich shop in DC.
I’ve hidden postcards from the universe all over the world.
I’m 35. A New year is almost here.
There is so, so, so much more to see and do.
Heartstrings vibrating, eyes smiling.
