Friday April 4, 2007 - Long Beach
My traveling days, at least for the time being, have come to an end. After I returned from Madrid, now 6 months past, I was still debating whether or not to go to South America as I had planned. I felt worn out from traveling and really what I wanted was stability again. Although I had convinced myself that LA was a terrible place, I made a compromise and decided that I would live in the area to be close to my family, friends and work. I realize now that for me to label LA in such a way was only a reflection of my inner state of being and that really no other location was going to solve my problems. To make peace with LA would be to make peace with myself.

Without any particular foresight or planning I somehow ended up in Long Beach. In one sense it seemed rather random, but in another sense, a miracle. After looking at apartments all over the greater LA area for about a month, I began feeling hopeless that I'd ever find a place I liked or could afford. I believe though that the universe has a way of providing a person just what they need. As the Rolling Stones said, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you get what you need". In my case, I feel I got both.

My apartment is situated across the street from the beach in an upper scale neighborhood known as Belmont Shore. Practically everything I need is accessible by walking and I have been able to realize one of my goals to become less car dependent, especially with rising gas prices and the threat (or controversy) of global warming. I don't know if my last name being Walker has anything to do with why I enjoy walking so much, but I like to think that it does. It could be too that in my traveling, going back particularly to when I was in Rome, walking was one of my primary activities and I developed a lot of good memories from it. There is something about being outside, breathing in the fresh air, taking in the scenery and the people that makes walking refreshing to mind, body and soul.

Getting back into the material world and having possessions again has been as much as a journey as when I got rid of all my possessions a couple years ago. Although I like to have nice things, I don't feel that I have lost sight of the impermanence of form and I already find myself wondering when this phase of my life will be over. It reminds me of how, in my old apartment, a space which I loved, I used to lie in bed looking out the window at the night sky and would tell myself, "Someday I will no longer be here". Such a statement may seem rather melancholy, but for me it brings out the essence of the miracle of our existence that no matter how much changes or what changes, we continue to experience something new. It is only certain that nothing will remain.

This might be the last entry in my travel blog... at least about traveling the world. I have come to learn that our outward journey is only the unfolding of an expansive inward journey. We are all travelers, traversing time-space-consciousness each in our own unique way. Our inner universe is so profound and yet so inexpressible that many remain unaware of it. For me, this inward journey has taken all priority over the outward journey, and thus I enter a realm which remains untouchable by words.