10 days ago I accompanied Aimee and Kellen to a weekly drum circle that occurs on the beach in the town that I live in.  Kellen had been the previous few weeks, and I had been busy on Thursday’s since returning from my summer travels, so I was excited to finally get to experience it.  I won’t spend many words describing the drum circle, as it was a drum circle, and I feel like that is self-explanatory.  The drumming was great. The company was great. The weather was great. A great time was had.

While there, I met a chef who had just finished her second day of work at the nicest restaurant in my town.  It should be said that my town is small but saturated with people, and considering it’s size, it has many food establishments. Over 100 food establishments for a town of 30,000 in 6.5 square miles. That’s quite a bit, especially compared to the last small town I lived in which had around 15 food establishments for a town of 10,000 people. She had had a good second day, all things considered, no complaints.  She had been on the island for just over a month. She had been camping on the beaches of Oahu for most of the time she’d been here. She was a chef at the nicest restaurant in one of the nicest towns on the island and she was homeless.

Needless to say she’s been staying in my ample-sized house since that night, on some nights accompanied by her friend/travel-companion/co-chef as well.  Why did 1 minimalist man with 1 dog buy a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom house last September? Because if you have room, you will find things to fill it. If you have an aversion to ’stuff’ then you are left to fill it with little else but people.  A year ago I lived alone, 1 of 1 (and Maxine), in an attempt to distance myself from everyone and much of what I knew. Today I find myself 1 of 5 (and Maxine), full of great food and exhausted from good times and the energy of great people. I’ve got so much to give.

There is no after-life where I will be rewarded by good deeds in the here-and-now. There is no tax benefit to allowing dream-chasing transients to live with you under your roof. There is no call from a long-dead prophet that I feel the need to answer (or even consider). There is however the guilt of knowing that you didn’t do something when you could. There is that nagging voice that whispers to you in the middle of your sleepless nights that the terrible world in which you live could be so much less terrible if everyone put their words into action. There is the truth that you get what you put out. Be generous in ways you can, put out your heart, and you just might get one back.  If not, coconut curry risotto with sauteed tofu/eggplant/sweet potatoes/asparagus is a close second.

One Of Many Karma Meals

Tonight I was chatting with Amanda on IM about what we’d both been up to lately. It’s funny how busy we are that even though I do much work for her, we lose track of the other things happening in each others lives.  It’s a far cry from the days we spent crammed into the same office, but the price we pay for having our own pursuits.  She has three wonderful pursuits which she can only take partial credit for, those come in the form of her amazing husband and amazing 2.0 children.  She also has some wonderful pursuits for which she can take even more credit for, like DailyWorth and Soapbxx.

We were discussing these pursuits of hers on IM, and she asked me what I had been up to, since clearly she knew I hadn’t been working. I answered that I had been at the beach, the cousin of a friend who was visiting had called me up and so I went to chill, and I intended to spend the remainder of the night on two projects that I am currently working on. To which she replied:

Amanda: sounds like a typical simon day
Amanda: friend, beach, code
Amanda: repeat

We then finished our conversation and she went to get some much-needed sleep.  So I was left reflecting on her words while listening to the song that I have chosen to accompany this post (it happened to be playing on my iTunes which is often just set to shuffle).  At the right time of day, with the right soundtrack, the simplest of statements can resonate so loudly with me.  With some loose interpretation, the essence of my very being can be refined down into that simple but eloquent observation. Friend, beach, code. Repeat. These are the three most important things in my life, in the order of importance.

On most days, my friends are my friends.  Everyday, my family are my friends.  Not because I don’t have the choice as to who my family is, but because I choose to spend time with them when I don’t have to.  I hang out with my family on a Tuesday afternoon, or on a Sunday night. I go to the beach with them, or out on the boat, or to a new restaurant, or to one of our favorites.  No matter how often we do things, the day/night never goes by without someone saying we don’t see each other enough. Of course my friends are my friends not purely by circumstance or genetics, but by choice. My friends are a finite pool of haves and have-nots, and some how in some way we manage to mutually benefit from talking/singing/listening/loving/hating/breathing/watching/eating/being with each other. If you put all my friends in a room together and asked anyone in the world to tell me what they had in common, no one would ever guess it was me.  Whatever that is, there is no substitute, and so it stands to reason that there is no substitute for my friends. I love my friends.

The beach is the best place on earth. Whether it’s the over-crowded Jersey shore on 4th of July weekend, or an uninhabitable island in Fiji, the beach is an iconic place of respite and/or joy.  The sun, the water, the sand/rocks, the waves, the birds, the winds, the heat, the smell. The feeling of the beach is unparalleled.  I’ve chosen to spend my days living in a home several blocks from the beach, in a beach town, on an island chain that is furthest one can get from any other land mass on this planet.  Next to the company we keep, the environment in which we choose to spend our time impacts our enjoyment of our lives the most.  This is why I’ve chosen to spend my time in a place where most people dream of spending a week-long vacation at most. I love the beach.

I live by the code and I will die by the code.  On the surface, the code is the various programming and database languages that I use to build applications for non-profits all over the U.S.  On the surface, the code Amanda was referring to is the code that I spend all of my working hours and a good portion of my non-working hours pouring over, soaking up, and even thinking in.  I see 1’s and 0’s.  But dig a little deeper and it’s evident that everything I do, and most things I feel, are part of a larger non-web-specific code.  It is a continuously evolving code, a code not bound by any traditional boundaries, or a moral/ethical compass pulled from any ancient scripture or influenced greatly by any popular culture or western society.  It is a code that has resulted over nearly 26 years of eating, traveling, living, loving, losing, witnessing, feeling and bettering.  It is a code that is intended to be hackable by anyone who cares to, and is guided gently by a ghost in the machine.  I love the code.

Amanda ended our conversation with:

Amanda: programmers aren’t supposed to write well

No need to be stumped Amanda, I am not a programmer.  I just happen to love the code.  Cause the code got me to 25 years of age.  The code got me to day-after-day of loving where I am, the beach.  The beach got me to being okay being alone, and more importantly got me to knowing how much I love my friends. My friends, the beach, the code.  I should be so lucky that this record stays skipping the rest of my life.