Hello Again Jimi

"All I'm going to do is just go on and do what I feel" - Jimi Hendrix

I have one memory of Jimi Hendrix. I was ten years old and trekking with my family in Nepal. Now that may sound pretty rad already without throwing Jimi Hendrix into the mix but yes folks, believe it or not, it does get better. This particular day we ended up at a lodge called the Jimi Hendrix Hotel. Calling this place a lodge is a bit of a stretch for the received accommodations but this was Nepal and in Nepal anything goes. My sister and I climbed up the rickety stairs and entered our even more rickety room. This particular room consisted of two beds, (once again for lack of a better word), a side table and a pair of the dirtiest, [once upon a time] white pair of pants; the type that soul searching hippies favor purchasing from Thamel (tourist district in Kathmandu that consists of shops, bars and guest houses). These pants weren't just randomly splayed on the floor as a forgotten souvenir by some lazy tourist but were tacked to the wall with a signature on them. The signature belonged to Jimi Hendrix.

At the time I had no idea who Jimi Hendrix was. Surrounding those pants were the scrawled messages of hundreds of fans. I remember reading the messages, questioning what the word "cock" meant or wondering how come "cum" was spelt wrong (even back in the day I was a precocious speller). I remember wishing I could write on my pants without receiving hell from my mother. I remember thinking this is more than just a room.

This was my first experience with feeling connected to someone or something famous. And even though I had no idea who Jimi Hendrix was just being in that room was somehow enough to sense greatness, achievement and, although I didn't realize it at the time, failure and hardship.

I came upon the quote at the beginning of this post eating the world's best nachos with some friends at Foundations. So far removed from my first memory of Jimi Hendrix it brought about a rush of emotion and, alas, a rush of uncertainty. To do what one feels. To go on and just do what I feel. Can I trust what I feel? Could I trust what I felt that day? An innocent ten year old with no idea of a world beyond the haven she had built for herself in a remote part of the world? I have spent my adult life making decisions based on feeling, based on idealistic notions about how my life is supposed to turn out. I have had success but I have also had bitter failure. How do I go on doing what I feel when every time I think I have it figured out, that this is the direction my life is supposed to take, everything changes? I doubt what I feel daily and yet here I am still making choices and failing to be sure of anything that I choose to do and still thinking "what if?"

I wish I could return to the Jimi Hendrix Hotel. Stay in that same room, look at those pants and hope that inspiration hits me (and this time understand the innuendo). Perhaps, however, just being there would be enough. Enough to learn to trust in the twenty five year old me that is not so far removed from the ten year old me after all.