Category: Travel


All Secrets Sleep in Winter Clothes

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December 10, 2019

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Today, I mourn my mama on her birthday, and I celebrate what she has inspired in me.

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Tomorrow, I go back to work for the first time since my move. I imagine resuming a routine schedule will add an additional layer of “real”ness to this place where I have ended up. This place I now call “home.”

This house feels so new and old to me. I haven’t lived in a multi-story home since I lived with my mom and family, and it’s alarming but somewhat comforting to experience acoustic memories. The echos of doors closing on a different floor. Low rumbling conversations from the kitchen. Footfalls on staircases. Dog barks.

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I can barely remember the journey we took to get here. It’s all been a bit of a whirl. The house sold quickly. Much quicker than we expected, but still somehow perfectly timed. And then there was a road trip to Maine, via St. Louis, Chicago, Oberlin, Flemington…and a few other points in between.

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We went looking for a house and then we found a house. We lost that house and found another house, which we also lost, so we found another house, and in the midst of deciding about that house, the second house came back and that is the house we chose. The house that chose us. The house that circled back.

 

We headed back to Texas with fingers crossed, slowly packed the POD with the random crap we couldn’t bring ourselves to part with, including 2 cats and 1 dog (the other dog went, with the car, with the other (adult) child.)

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All of the states and places between Austin and this place in central Maine where we currently reside are a jumble in my memory. There was good food, and fun adventures. Wilbur, the Great Pyrenees, learned about elevators and mastered hotel rooms.

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We sadly lost one of our cats at the end of the journey. She disappeared inside the new house. We miss her. There is talk of future kitten(s).

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And chickens

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And the building of chicken coops

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And gardens

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(most of this talk is coming from me)

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But I didn’t want this to be a play-by-play. I just wanted to say…I am home. I am very satisfied. The right house wasn’t at all what I was expecting it to be, but now that we’ve been here a month, I know it is the Right House.

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It is the right place. And I am quietly and continually overjoyed.

 

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Lend me some sugar…I am your neighbor!

Filed under: Art & Literature, Being Mom, Journals, Love, Musicness, Politics, Travel — 1 Comment
July 15, 2014

This song seemed an appropriately celebratory little number for my end of weekend celebrations. Not that I WANT the weekend to end, necessarily…but it’s been a nice weekend, as weekends go. Also, surprising. The biggest surprise, by far…is Lulu.

Pensive Lulu

Sweet Lulu

But I also had some fun adventures with a surprisingly…familiar…new friend. You know? One of those kinds of people who just makes sense, and to whom you just feel like you also just make sense. Buddha the Grouch, when he learned of my platonic hangout, said “Oh, so you went on one of those faux Lainie dates where you go out and look at birds.”

birds...spiders...same diff.

birds…spiders…same diff.

    I laughed so hard, because he’s pretty much right. And it feels good to have someone in my life with whom I can just go out and look at birds. Or at milkweed floating in the wind. Or armadillos. Or the way the pond scum rejoins itself after a rock passes through the film. Someone with whom I don’t have to rush through the getting to know to get to “the good stuff” because the good stuff is the getting to know. I’m really enjoying the getting to know. This weekend was also a little cooking (more cooking to come) a little cleaning (more cleaning to come) some walks and talks…and lots of chilling in the backyard. My friends who are staying with me (who I need to think of a clever name for, as I’ll doubtless be referring to them a lot) have kicked so much ass at getting the yard in shape for planting. They’ve cleared and tilled three huge beds, we’ve all schemed a less-conventional succulent / hummingbird / butterfly bed, and they’ve made good with my neighbor, whose little garden was being overshadowed by some weeds in my back yard. There’s talk of chickens. There’s talk of greenhouses. There’s endless talk of gardens and gardening. I’m still slowly rearranging my time to begin to accommodate, but it’s difficult to begin! We’ve created a sitting area outside that has been encouraging me to just sit and watch the sun (or moon) move across the sky. The dog only adds to this notion of sit and stay. Especially since, being new here and nervous, any move I make is shadowed by her. The more I sit and relax, the more relaxed she becomes. And, thankfully, the energy level of a Great Dane, as Lulu is, is much much lower than that of a boxer, which my last nervous dog was…so there’s plenty of sloth and relaxation.

Slothful, and relaxing!

I feel like Lulu is going to have the sweet temperament of Twyla (the boxer) with the gentle lazy hound-dog attitude of Cash (the pitbull). Once we get her acclimated…and everyone gets acclimated to her.This Crack Star This weekend also included a meditation/remembrance of the passage of Texas HB 2 – the bill that has been responsible for the closure of over 61% of Texas clinics that provide abortions and other healthcare services, leaving many people – particularly those who are already poor and marginalized – without access to safe abortions. We sat in mediation, did a walking meditation – I walked in circles around the middle of the rotunda floor, did another sitting meditation and then had discussion. It was a beautiful memorial. It was very healing…and it got me thinking about reclaiming spaces. I’m still thinking about reclaiming spaces. I need more time to think about it, I think. And journal about it. Before I write about it. Publicly. But I am thinking about it. Reclaiming. I’m also thinking about how hard some people have to seem to work to get the rewards that so many people take for granted. And I’m not even referring to the least among us. I’m talking about everyday people you might see and think “Hey – that person does alright.” and really they are pinching pennies to buy gas, or riding the bus not to be a hipster but because they had their car impounded because they couldn’t afford to renew the registration. And I just feel like if people that I know who are employed, employable, hard-working, able-bodied, intelligent, and genuinely good and decent people are struggling, then I can’t say anything in negative judgment of anyone else who is struggling. I imagine most of them are equally all of the above and equally just totally screwed by circumstance. And that’s all I got to say.

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Overdrunk On Power

Filed under: Art & Literature, Being Mom, Food!, Musicness, Nerdgasm, Politics, Travel — Leave a comment
July 7, 2014

Catching up on some links…

The Supreme Court’s baffling tech illiteracy is becoming a problem

“Granted, the justices are behind the times. Twenty-first century technology has come to the Court, but the Court hasn’t come to the twenty-first century. Justices still communicate by handwritten notes instead of email. The courthouse got its first photocopying machine in 1969, six decades after the machine was invented. Oral arguments were first tape-recorded in 1955, nearly a hundred years after the first sound recording. At those arguments, blog reporters are denied press passes, tweeting is verboten, and justices thumb through hard copies of court documents. At the Supreme Court, every day is Throwback Thursday.

This might explain why the majority of Americans oppose life tenure for Supreme Court justices. Life tenure shields judicial independence and pays homage to the Founding Fathers’ vision. At the time the Constitution was written, however, the average life expectancy was about 40 years. (Or 60 years if controlled for infant mortality.) Today, it’s nearly twice as long. Clearly, life tenure meant something different for the founding generation.”

 

The Rise of the DIY Abortion in Texas

One woman I interviewed at a Mexican restaurant in Brownsville told me her good friend nearly died after taking pills that her husband bought in Mexico. Instead of ingesting four of the 12 pills every three hours, as is recommended by the World Health Organization, she took two pills under her tongue, then four pills vaginally, then two more under her tongue, then four more vaginally. She began to bleed profusely, doubled over in pain. But because she was undocumented, she was afraid to seek medical help at a nearby hospital or clinic. Instead, she crossed the border to Mexico with her five children—all the while hemorrhaging—in search of medical assistance. She has since recovered but is still in Mexico with her children because she can’t cross the border back into the United States.

Carreon says she sees many patients who have taken improper dosages. “A lot of patients said that they would take the whole bottle and they would tell me they took 28 pills,” she said. “They’re taking maybe four vaginally, two orally. Then an hour later, four more. I hear different ways of using these pills. It’s shocking each time.”

But strict internal clinic protocol bars Carreon and other employees at Whole Women’s Health from answering questions about miso and abortion. And the drug’s other distribution channels are similarly mum. Mexican pharmacists can’t provide information about the drug and abortion, since it’s only sold there as an ulcer medication, and many of the vendors selling miso at flea markets know very little about correct dosage.

 

Massachusetts SWAT Teams Claim They’re Private Corporations

Requests by the American Civil Liberties Union for open records on Massachusetts SWAT teams begat refusals to comply based on the premise that the forces are private corporations rather than government entities.

 

9 Facts Shatter the Biggest Stereotypes About Fat People

People are allowed to make their own decisions regarding their own bodies, but we need to start treating people of all sizes with respect. We can start by providing some actual information about being fat.

 

Lately, I’ve been watching The Wire, and I’m having to lean on episode guides to make sense of everything.

I never remember this stuff, so I’ll probably refer back to this video about different display connectors often.

Will Detroit’s Water be Privatized or Recognized as Commons?

“We are not saying that the services of running water should be free, we are saying it should be affordable and accessible by all, and we have put forth the Water Affordability Plan to that end, which was approved by our city council,” says Priscilla Dziubek, of the Peoples Water Board. This plan is self-funding and graduated much like the tax system where no one pays over a certain percentage of their income on water.

 

Nation editor destroys Bill Kristol: “You should enlist in the Iraqi army”

“If there are no regrets for the failed assumptions that have so grievously wounded this nation, or politics and media accountability,” vanden Huevel continued.” We need it Bill, because this country should not go back to war. We don’t need armchair warriors. And if you feel so strongly, you should, with all due respect, enlist in the Iraqi army.”

When the Tao of Bird comes home from his dad’s, we’re totally going to do this Texas Pie-Eating roadtrip

For your summer music list pleasures, NPR has listed the top 50 songs of 2014 (so far.)

For those of you trying to stay awake without heating up…a recipe for cold-pressed iced coffee.

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That Which Is In The Way

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June 8, 2014

I’ve been working. A lot. And thinking. A lot. Mostly about the whole “kids getting older” and “decisions I have made” and some setting of intentions. Preparing for another change of seasons.

I finished the journal I started in March – right before my journey to Colorado. Seems like a good point to reflect on things I wrote in that journal…

***

@Bottomless Lake State Park

As it turns out

Happiness is ALL of Texas

In my rearview mirror

Sitting still, listening

to the sounds of

No sounds

Until

the wildlife

forgets I’m here

& resumes its chatter.

***

Attentive. Tender. Inhale ——> Ex

Hale.

Breathing In & out.

(An) interesting

Proposition.

Never mind-

It’s only a small

Incision.

Tender

Ills

Hook me

Sucker

Punch.

***

1000 miles later – I’m oddly not tired.

Relying on the light that comes from shadows.

***

I was raised in a road trip family. Some of my earliest/most vivid memories involved listening to that reassuring sound of tires grasping pavement in revolutionary inertia. The feeling of hurtling through space while sleeping in the back seat. The smell of gasoline, dead skunk, and endless cattle pastures of the Midwest to West passage… (This might actually become its own blog post…)

***

Me: What’s the weather been like?

Tao of Bird: The weather

Me: Yeah.

Tao of Bird: Hot.

Tao of Bird: Also, cold.

***

It’s as if at any point, I could be dying, die-ing, died

it only makes sense to

shrug

and go on living

***
SLOW MOTION

APOCALYPSE

at the

GROCERY STORE

***

Breathe in – I can still feel that hurtling feeling.

Singing – Dancing – Scribing – Eating. Enjoying the last day of my vacation, for tomorrow is back to work. Tonight – I clean and cook. For now, I dance. And write. And eat. With windows open to the breeze and my slightly scattered room full of all of the implements of my creativity. I am holed up here. Holding forth a festive atmosphere. Coming undone to reintegrate.

Forecast/aftcast.

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seein’ shapes in the chipped paint of my frame window

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April 28, 2014

Lazy Sunday, Lainie Style:

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Asparagus, Pea, and Smoked Gouda Frittata…

First…I like to eat a good breakfast, and feed my mind. Sometimes that means fancy egg dishes and non-fiction…sometimes it means donuts and comic books…or any combination. Usually I cook breakfast for the kids when they’re both here. Sometimes I go out and get something.

It’s still mild enough to sit on the front porch and listen to the birdsong. They’re all going at it out there. It feels perverse to eavesdrop on their mating rituals, but it sure sounds pretty.

Usually one or more of the cats come to visit me while I’m on the porch. One of our cats likes to have her belly rubbed, so if she visits me, she’ll usually flop over on her back and wait for me to do my duty. Another cat likes to approach in friendliness or recline as though inviting you to scratch her belly, but she’s like the venus peopletrap of cats and will clamp down on you HARD if you take her up on her faux offer of belly rub-ness. The last cat…the male cat…just kind of meanders up like, as my son says, the guy whose just crashing on your couch, and says “‘sup?” Whenever that cat comes home, we all say “Cheezee is here!” like it’s some great celebration. Or like the folks at the bar on Cheers greeted Norm. We all kind of speculate Cheezee has another family who he lives with, though he’s been our cat since we rescued him from a foster situation, and is the brother of the tiny cat who loves belly rubs. He’s just that casual. But that’s another story…

Obligatory bluebonnet selfie

Obligatory bluebonnet selfie

On this particular Sunday, after breakfast, I drove my eldest son (aka buddha the grouch) up to a friend’s house in Round Rock and took myself out for a hike. I wanted to go to the Balcones Canyonland National Wildlife Preserve, but the GPS led me on some wild adventure through some backroad skirting the park, but not actually at a place where I could enter. Still, it was lovely. I saw hawks circling. It smelled awesome outside and, though hot, it was lush and green in a way I will be missing mid-summer. And I thought a lot about land “ownership” as I passed miles and miles of PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING NO HIKING KEEP OUT signs in front of some of the most beautiful land in Texas. And it pisses me off that people can own property and disallow people from entering…not even to hike or just have a picnic…and yet we continue to also cede our public land to private use. In other words – it was really sad to me that I had to drive for over 20 minutes or so actively seeking somewhere that I could just walk around in nature without trespassing.

But I found a place. Meager though it was, it allowed me the exact experience I needed. I don’t even remember the name of the “Recreational Area” I ended up at, but it had a boat launch and a picnic area, and it was LCRA land right alongside the Colorado River. So, I parked, I threw on my backpack, I put on my headphones, and I started walking. Then I took off my headphones, because I realized it was absolutely silent, save for the birds and the chirruping grasshoppers. Also because it was really fucking hot and my ears were sweating.

I had no idea what to expect. I just wandered around until I found something that looked like it might possibly be a trail. Encouraged by a lack of “No Trespassing” signs, I meandered off for awhile until I found the shoreline and, surprise! Beautiful wildflowers everywhere.

I was vaguely amused by the fact that someone in one of the gigantic houses across the water was blasting Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on their no doubt multi-thousands of dollar sound system loud enough for me to hear it crystal clear across the water. I never understood why people build such huge houses so close together. I would want to build a tiny house on a large plot of land.

I hope his neighbors like the devil rock!

I hope his neighbors like the devil rock!

About 3/4 of the way back in what I hoped would be a loop (I wasn’t even really sure if I could get all the way through the way I was going without encountering some impassable obstacle) I found a shady tree under which to sit and write a few things down and just catch my breath and enjoy the sounds and the stillnesses. But I knew if I sat too long, it would be difficult to get moving again. I made a mental note to bring a blanket next time. A nap would have been really nice there. Out in the open with air warm enough to feel like a hug from a good friend.

I decided to “traipse through the woods” to get back to my car the more direct way. So I picked my way through the underbrush, up and down a few little hills on either side of what was apparently once a pretty major waterway, judging from the abundance of shells.

Back to the car – and home. I picked up my younger son (aka The Tao of Bird) and took him out to dinner at his favorite chinese buffet place. I had to stop after one plate, but he ate an astonishing amount of food by any standards, even more by his…as he’s never had a very large appetite.

And home again, where I took a refreshing shockingly-cold shower & stretched out for a nap, feeling sated and pleasantly exhausted…

How was your Sunday?

 

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The clouds have come inside, but I keep passing through…

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April 21, 2014

I just realized I never got around to writing about my return trip from Colorado. And, to me, that was almost the best part. I took the long way home, choosing to travel south through New Mexico, rather than angling southeast. My intention was to pop in on my friend Raymond before heading back to Austin. No big whoop, right?

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Well, I left Denver super early. It was gorgeous outside. I resumed my steady stream of “No fucking way” I had continually uttered at the sheer gorgeousness of everything in the universe. First, it was the moon that I began my journey beneath. I snuck out of the house before Pansy and Scott could wake up and drove south – hoping to drive as far up pike’s peak as possible. Unfortunately, Pike’s Peak tollway doesn’t open until after 9, and I got there well before.

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I took the opportunity to, instead, take a nice stroll through the garden of the gods. Excitedly trying to snap pictures of the (to me) pretty black and white birds I saw everywhere. I’m sure to people from Colorado, these birds are as interesting as grackels are to us Austinites, but I just adored them.

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Oh, and there were also some pretty rocks to look at.

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After wandering around for a bit, I got back into the car and drove around the little town until I found a restaurant with the word Omelette in its name. Hoping to get a decent omelette, but ended up getting this monstrosity stuffed with canned jalapenos and nothing else. It was pretty gross. Thankfully, I apparently have a stomach made of steel, because I suffered no after-affects of that culinary atrocity on the journey.

I spent much of the day traveling along what I perceived to be the Pacific-Coast Highway of the Rio Grande…I THINK it was 285, but I’m having difficulty mapping it now, and it might have been a smaller road than that. Snaking through Taos and Santa Fe alongside the river. I love and fear traveling near water. I get the same kind of feeling I always get when I’m in a high place. That feeling that I might just be overly tempted to throw myself over the edge or drive right into the water, and not be able to stop myself from doing so. I felt the same delight traveling next to that river as I did when I found myself accidentally driving through Clearwater National Forest, as well as the multiple times I’ve driven up and/or down the actual PCH. An approximation of the feeling I’ve had standing on the shore of Lake Michigan…coastal Florida…The Pacific Ocean…This. Is. Where. The. Land. Ends. What lies beyond is made of the stuff of drowning. You can walk to the edge of me, but once you cross that line, you are altered physically.

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And it’s these little surprises that happen along the way that make me prefer road trip travel (particularly when I am able to be loose about schedules and therefore choose (or not choose, and let randomness choose) the path I take. I tried to take as many obscure routes as I possibly could (which isn’t difficult to do with my meandery GPS system that seems to be programmed to send me off on the least direct route possible.) And while I didn’t have enough time to actually stop and enjoy the water, I did take the time to pull off the road a view times and take pictures, or write, or just sit in silence and wonder.

I was listening to the last half of Nick Cave’s _The Death of Bunny Munro_ on CD, having heard the first half on my way up, and trying to decide if I liked it because it was by (and read by) Nick Cave, or if it was because it was actually a good book (I’m still not sure what the answer is to that.) The day was perfectly temperate, clear, sunny. There was more traffic on the way home than there had been on the way up to Colorado, where I barely encountered a single car the whole time I was driving on open roads. And it took me a very long time to get to Albuquerque.20140316_174214

But I got there, and got a tour of the gallery from Raymond, and stayed a little longer than I should have but not even a fraction of the time I wanted to stay, picked up a gigantic pizza to feed the boys when I got home, and left just before dusk, determined to somehow drive the remaining 10 hours straight through, all the way home – losing an hour at the border, and getting me home at around 4 in the morning. hahaha.

I’m nothing if not ambitious. Particularly when it comes to driving.

But I’m also practical. And, after once again marveling at a fucking gorgeous full moon slowly emerging first as a giant plasmatic orb peeking just over the tops of distant landscape, and inching slowly to the top of sky – beaming triumphantly. It hypnotized me, and I realized I was getting tired already at 11 AM, and this is my VACATION, damnit…so I decided to stop at a hotel near the border of NM/TX and get some rest and enjoy the rest of the journey daylight even though, like regrettable sex, the drive through Texas is almost always best done in the dark of night.

And with that…I’m going to end this section and write the last leg another time.

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The Serenity of a Clear Blue Mountain Lake

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April 4, 2014

IMG_8912 The second day of my trip (the first day off the road) I had a bit of solitude, during which I wandered around feeling so alive I wondered if perhaps I had maybe died. I remember thinking to myself “I think I’ve died and gone to Colorado,” then admonishing myself for even thinking that and forcing myself to promise myself that I would never ever write that. (oh, hi.)

I wrote in my journal: Relying on the light that comes from shadows.

In all, I must have wandered around for an hour, trying to decide at what point on my journey I might have died, if I had died. And what part of the journey was my afterlife, if there is an afterlife. And then I started thinking about the fact that I don’t know anyone’s phone number. Like NO ONE. Not even people back home. Nor did I have the address of where I was staying anywhere except for on my phone. And without my phone I was basically helpless in this strange city in which I was currently wandering around lost.

But I managed to not lose my phone, and I did manage to wander back to my friends’ house, and we had a nice walk together to the cemetery nearby as the sun went down, and we went to the pot shop where giant marijuana buds filled rows and rows of candy jars along the counter, and I felt like I was experiencing history – like the end of prohibition – and it was a little weird being such a noob in that environment, but it was pretty cool.

And then we went for Pho, but I had vermicelli.

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The next day was Pi day, so we had to get pie.

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I noticed a conspicuous absence that the weird allergy headache thing I had in Austin that was causing me to feel like maybe I might possibly have an incurable brain tumor and just maybe might be on death’s door (and I’m usually not a hypochondriac, but I had honestly never had a headache like this one before – it lasted for weeks and weeks, went away immediately went I went on antibiotics after my doctor and I agreed I might have an ear infection, then came back a couple of days after I finished the antibiotics.) This made me feel a little less…well, old.

 

 

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Before pie, though, I had the best salad I have ever eaten in my entire life (avocados and honey mustard and…BANANAS! OH MY!) and did some more wandering. Snapping pictures of cool houses against the perfect blue sky.

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And then Casa Bonita. But first we watched Southpark to get in the mood.

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And the next day, breakfast snacks in a cool diner in Denver and a road trip to Nederland. I tried to write in my journal on the way but it was just a scribbly mess, so fuck it.

I actually did very little writing while I was there. At some point during the trip I just decided I would have to gather the sounds, sights, smells, and textures of the trip like Leo Leonni’s Frederick the mouse, and hoard them for less spectacular times. I busied myself with the gathering and the experiencing. Watching and listening. Feeling and thinking. And, always, moving.

Nederland, where we got to see just enough snow to be delighted, but not enough to be annoyed…

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…then Boulder, where I bought postcards and notecards from local artists and candy and pop from local companies.

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And ate in a pub. And wandered. And met some new and interesting people. And my hosts convinced me to climb the zillion and one steps and visit Red Rocks, which I did not regret one bit…And we talked about having drinks at Charlie Brown’s, where Kerouac and the Beats used to stop on their mad cross-country adventures, but we were all pretty tired after all of that climbing, so we retired to the house to watch a horror movie and I planned my return journey before bedtime. Good night.

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(to be continued)

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Will you come to me…incarnate in the body of a willow tree

Filed under: Art & Literature, Being Mom, Love, poetry, Time Management, Travel, Work — Leave a comment
March 27, 2014

I want to write more about my vacation, but today was an exceptionally good day, and rather than write about the then, I’d prefer to gush about the now.

I’ve been struggling lately. I mean…I’ve actually been struggling for awhile, but I do a pretty good job of managing my own personal struggles I think (I hope!) – but lately I’ve been struggling in a positive way – overcoming, is the word. I’ve been overcoming some of the residual imprints of struggling.

Overcoming seems to involve a lot of self-reflection. A lot of heavily guarded alone time. Sometimes to an extent where I wonder if it might be unhealthy for me to spend so much time alone, without really desiring the company of anyone else in particular. Not that I don’t love and adore my friends and loved ones…it’s just lately I seem to adore spending time by myself an awful lot more.

I sometimes worry that I don’t have the ability to deal with ever surrendering any tiny scrap of my autonomy to be in a relationship with another person…but I’m too busy not caring to worry about that for very long. Though I do have a corollary worry that my inability to surrender any tiny scrap of my autonomy will cause me to end up being bitterly alone when I’m too old to find someone who wants to surrender a tiny scrap of their autonomy for me.

Who knows. Maybe it’s just a phase.

What I haven’t been struggling with lately is being ridiculously appreciative of the gentle rhythm of my days, which is possibly WHY I’m feeling reluctant to risk losing control over them. I notice that I really seem to enjoy my job on a soul-nourishing level. It’s nice to help people all day. To be able to talk to them as a human being and solve their technical issues. I really enjoy people treating me like an authority on something. One of the first things I had to learn to do to succeed at my job was to eliminate my tendency towards humility when helping people with technology. I’m used to approaching people in an exploratory way, which works pretty good for training, but generally when you are calling tech support, you want someone to be a bit more authoritative. I’m really enjoying mixing both so I don’t come across as a know-it-all and intimidate people who just need a little nurturing. It’s actually not a bad way to spend 10 hours a day.

I’m also really happy with the habits I’ve formed around preparing and eating healthy, homemade meals all week, reading, getting some sort of exercise, and writing in my journal every day. It’s been awesome to have time to spend on myself. And while I have had weeks of getting sucked in to one TV series or another (most recently, Eureka, which actually gave me some of the most amazing dreams and, in spite of the fact that it was a pretty damn cheesy show (or maybe because of that) has me mourning the little world I lived in with all of those characters for a month or so.

I guess this is all sort of related to my vacation, because part of all of this is the fact that I’ve also been able to travel more – take more road trips – get out of town more. It’s something I feel I’ve been somewhat deprived of over the past few years. It’s really nice to be able to pick up and leave town for a bit. The endless rhythm of the tires on asphalt with trees and signs and other cars whishing by. The places my mind goes when there’s endless novel monotony all around me. My face focused forward, but watching the world peel by on either side. Tracking time by moon and sun and moon again. Driving. Driving. Driving. Being driven.

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On the road, and hangin’ by a song

Filed under: Art & Literature, Nerdgasm, poetry, Travel — Leave a comment
March 22, 2014

I want to dance…I want to write…I need to dance…I need to write. I know! I’ll do the dance/write/dance ritual. Perhaps that will bring forth the words I’ve been meaning to write.

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I can’t think of a non-cliche way to start a blog post about road trips. Do I talk about how my family used to drive around in our big blue van, and I fell in love with the rubber-to-the-road endless airplane runway sound, and the dreamy haze of entire towns whisking by windows on either side? Do I mention the long-distance trips to visit friends across the country…road trips within road trips…about taking my young children on the road across country and seeing them begin to understand the vastness of the country, much less the world in which they live…the feelings of invincibility after my newly-single self traveled across the entire west/northwest/southwest in a gigantic loop that began in Texas, peaked in Portland, swooped through Los Angeles, and drifted through sleepy southwestern deserts with two young children in tow…over lonely railroad crossings blinking mutely in the middle of the night as I pass through yet another 1 stoplight city in the middle of a vast nameless field on either side of some forgotten highway?

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This particular journey began with this Radiolab broadcast – most notably, “Goo and  You.” Most MOST notably, this closing quote:

“It’s not just what of me carries forward into the future, it’s like – what of my future self is in me right now.”

Give yourself 14 straight hours of travel time, with no one else in the car or, really, on the highway, but you, to ponder that. As you drive through parched Texas/Eastern New Mexico flatland by day, and only approach the mountains as invisible barriers to your destination at night…then wake up to find yourself surrounded by them and the thin, nipping air that accompanies them. It was one hell of a way to kick off a road trip. Perfectly timed, and not timed at all.

Like conversations about giving too much and not giving at all, and about art and the art of paying attention. In my silences, I replayed these thoughts in this context. I have observed that all things transpire in context with the things that transpire adjacent, with a little help from throwback memories. I am interested in how things interplay to form a new thing out of the combined things and a dash of timing. Like two books you read at the same time that have nothing to do with each other, but somehow end up syncing up. Like seeing the same car at multiple gas stations along the journey, and never interacting. The lives of the people in both cars intersect at that moment, then continue on in meaningful meaninglessness. Unintentional intention.

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In the car, I play road games with the navigation system. First, I use both Google Maps on my phone, and the navigation system in the car. I sync them up as much as I can, and make decisions as I go. It keeps me awake, and leaves me open to adventure, or curtailment thereof…depending on my mood and/or level of energy. As I travel, I focus only on the next leg of the journey – only recalculating the total time of the journey and ETA when I embark on a new leg.

This keeps me alert.

Also, math.

(Not meth, you weirdo. Math.)

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Some road notes:

this charming man

tears of a clown
baby it’s you by the Beatles
Shanghai shuffle by fletcher Anderson
give it to you by Blackalicious

I believe in me by trenchmouth

radian by air

boil by the handsome family oil by the handsome familyI’ll buy the family

wagon wheel restaurant Red Bud inn and everything’s fucked by dirty 3

Christianity is not a religion it’s a relationship with God

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153 to 7o there’s like a 20 square-mile wind farm. I don’t even know how fucking huge is is, but it’s beautiful.

so beautiful

it’s so beautiful I burst into tears and had to pull over.

(…to be continued…)

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