Freespirit

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I have finally received a book that I have been wanting for close to two years now, long overdue, and having it in my hands feels amazing, spiritual and surreal. I am not one to just read any book, I find myself interested in true stories, travel, homelessness and poverty or about children and psychology.

We all have those that inspire us or those that we call our heroes, our parents, God, Oprah... 😊 Of course those are all on my list, but the past couple of years my other inspiration is Kinga Freespirit. I found Kinga while browsing the web, perhaps around the same time frame that I found couchsurfing. (www.couchsurfing.com)
(http://www.kingafreespirit.pl/kingaen) I fell in love with the photos and journal entries of Kinga and Chopin as they hitchhiked the world for 5 years. I remember telling my mom about how amazing they are and was devastated that at the same time I was getting to know Kinga she had been quickly losing her battle to a very fast onset of Cerebral Malaria while continuing her journey in Africa. I deeply grieved over this woman I had just discovered and so did hundreds or maybe even thousands of others whose lives she had touched during her amazing adventure with Chopin. I was able to find solstice in the fact that Kinga and Chopin had published a book of photos and journal entries documenting pieces of their 5 year hitch around the world. I immediately tried to order it, paid for it, but never received it. I was on my way to China so was not able to pay much attention to whether it came or not and could not find the site again from where I purchased it.

Immediately after diving in to the world of Kinga I began to share her story with others. The story of Kinga and Chopin provided me with inspiration, motivation and the determination to go on my jaunt around Europe in the summer of 2007. I think without realizing it, Kinga and Chopin embedded the idea of going to Poland in my head. My trip was fairly unplanned, I had a starting and ending point and knew the direction I wanted to go in, however exact cities and dates were up in the air. My start in Poland was at the woodstock festival
(http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/woodstock_festival)
after a slightly long stay in Berlin. I was camping at the festival for about 4 days and from there I went home with my new friend Agnii. I had no idea at that point where I was in accordance to where Kinga was buried or where to find Chopin. Not knowing when I would be where, I had not yet made contact with Chopin. When I in Radom with Agnii I finally got the opportunity to write Chopin to see how I could find him and told him about my book incident. Chopin told me Kinga was in Gdansk (a city I was not about 10 hours from) and that he was closer to Warsaw (where I had also passed) at a Buddhist temple and that if I could get there in a couple days we could meet for tea and he would bring me the book. Unfortunately, I was heading out to Krakow before that time and I continue to kick myself for not just going to meet with Chopin. I still hope I can still meet someday.

A couple of weeks ago I met Morgan, a very mellow and loving free spirit, a novel hitchhiker from Phoenix. We met at a Couch Surfing pancake breakfast in Santa Monica, he had been hitchhiking around California and visited Slab City
(http://www.slabcity.org/) to see where Chris McCandless had spent his time
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless). Morgan created an amazing site for fellow hitchhikers, www.digihitch.com, and perhaps it would be an obvious connection that he too is a lover and follower of Kinga Freespirit and Chopin. We got on the talk of Kinga, sharing her story with those around us and he asked if I had read the book. I told him my story about the book and almost meeting Chopin. Needless to say, I had Kinga on my brain for the rest of the day. The next day I visited digihitch and to my delight, Morgan offers the book. I bought it immediately and sent him a message, thanking him for relighting my fire. As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane (in complete darkness, writing on scratch paper from the flight attendant and using her Marriott pen) headed to New York City, the first destination of Kinga and Chopin's wild ride, reading "LED BY DESTINY" (www.ledbydestiny.com). Morgan included a little note on my receipt letting me know that the book I am holding was sent by Kinga while she was in Poland, just before her trip to Africa. I can not describe the importance or energy from that but I feel blessed, adventurous, curious, undecided and confused, but overall happy.

People continually ask me what I do or plan to do... what is my direction. They say I need to get a career or perhaps settle down a bit. Of course I am yearning to find true love, have a family and stability but I want to continue flying by the seat of my pants. I am ready for every part of that, other than the staying still. There is so much life to be lived, world to explore, people to meet, foods to taste, sunsets and sunrises to gaze upon and stars to wish upon.

There must be a hippie inside of me dying to get out. I want to hitchhike and let my hair down, camp and eat simple food. Of course I mostly want to take pictures of amazing things along the way. I want to be able to teach and impact the lives of others from what I learn hands on in life. If I had balls I would be out in the wild, hitching rides. I mean that literally, in todays life, I feel like it must be much safer for men to hitch alone than for a woman. I do not really discuss my interest in hitching with anyone, it is like an untold secret I am just now sharing, and even more so I might as well spill the fact that I picked up my first hitchhikers about a week before I had met Morgan. I did not want to hear how stupid it was, how dangerous it is, I didn't want others to worry. The experience was great. Before letting the two young guys in my car, I asked them questions while evaluating their demeanor and personality. I let them in my car, because I knew they were at the worst possible onramp, very unused, near nothing and it was scorching hot that day. I was so intrigued by the whole thing that after I dropped them off I wanted to go back and pick them up.

There are so many places to see, that unless I go on an outrageous road trip, I will not see it all. So, who wants to hitchhike with me??? SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! (someone has to come with me to a Rainbow Gathering -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering)

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Comments

[mommy]

hitchhiking
seriously don't do it!!!!

[Lisa]

You are such a hippie
You're the only person I know with such a hunger for travel and adventure! I imagine if this were the 60's, you'd be with the Beatles in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, playing a sitar around a fire or hitch hiking around the planet with a only a rucksack and a passport, which is not very much unlike last summers European adventure. I do worry about the hitch hiking thing though... that does not go unwarranted. There be a lot of crazies out there! Hope you're having a great NY trip!