and so it started. surrounded by sagebrush and cactus, with the sun rising across this desert, unfamiliar land, we began our adventure.
we got up early to see it rise – knowing it would take some time to come up over the mesa. we held mugs of coffee in our hands, excited to begin exploring with our friends in this other part of the country.
and as we stood there – ever so patiently waiting for this new day, the juniper called to us – “go…have fun…be in this place…begin something new…we – the juniper, the sagebrush, the cactus, the red rock will hold you…start now.”
we skipped back to the airbnb house, mugs empty and hearts full.
“whatever a house is to the heart and body of man-refuge, comfort, luxury-surely it is as much or more to the spirit.” (mary oliver)
we’ll travel a bit soon. a trip that’s been semi-planned – and postponed – for some time. even before setting out, we know it will be great fun, adventuring with friends, moseying the country with them. there is a sweetness to anticipation.
and it’s funny. every time i get close to going away – anywhere – i have a distinct appreciation for our own home. there is something that rises up for me before a trip – a reminder of how really dear home is to me – our old house, our backyard, this amazing lake just a bit to our east, our dogga, our life here. we take walks in the days before leaving and mother earth does her very best at impressing us – a showcase of unparalleled beauty, a display of what’s-right-here.
and it’s no different this time.
even the unexpected worn-gasket-water-pipe-union spewing water into our basement cannot change this feeling. even d’s all-day wet vac duty, carpet that was soaked, stuff that needed to be moved out of the way, the unplanned cost of an expert plumber – even all that didn’t dim this appreciation of home.
we have traveled a lot together and i have become aware of how true it is that you carry home with you. we’ve taken home – together – overseas and all over our nation. this trip will be just the same – a great exploring – while holding home between us.
we are excited to go, to be fed by new places and new experiences, fodder for our muses, our spirits expanding with the time away.
and, at the same time, here i am – smitten by our own home, my spirit filled before we even leave.
this is age-old, like an aesop’s fable, like a timeworn adage, like a proverbial proverb. there are likely even petroglyphs chiseled into rocky canyon walls telling this story for all time: for the most part (and i don’t use all-encompassing language on purpose, for always there are exceptions) packing is not the same for men as it is for women.
as much as i would love to pack light, to pack smart, to pack minimally, it is apparently not in my dna strands to do so. and so i will succumb to the challenge – every time. i will wake in the night and review my list, try on my choices. i will list and cross out and list again. i will ponder and try to imagine every scenario in which i need clothing, try to anticipate every need.
it’s exhausting.
when i traveled a lot – playing concerts and shows – i was much better at packing. i have gotten out of the habit (and into a different body, let’s not forget) and so it requires much more thought, much more ruminating, perseverating even. good grief! it’s a full-time job getting ready.
i’m pretty sure it will take him about twenty minutes to pack. que sera sera.
in the meanwhile, i’ll be over here bearing, climbing and fording my burden, mountain and river. whatever.
i hadn’t been on an airplane for well over a year. i used to fly all the time, but all-the-time has changed and it’s relatively rare these days to find myself zooming through the clouds. that rarity has given me a different perspective and a different appreciation of the whole flying-thing.
we flew to the mountains. the flight-sky was mostly clear – brilliant blue with huge puffy clouds below us. we had the row to ourselves; the flight was not full. we were anticipatory of what was to come once we got there. we were excited to be heading west. i was filled with ready-tears that always overcome me at the sight of the first range i see. in the wee hours of the morning – wisconsin. in the still-early-hours of the morning – colorado. it is still amazing to me.
the way home was equally as stunning. the flight was full. it was evening in colorado. we got back to wisconsin late and drove home – this time, the interstate – going 75 mph to our driveway, having spent an odd time on the airplane – witnessing people who were somewhat rude to others, people hacking, people smushed in with other people. nevertheless, all of a sudden, we were no longer in the mountains and we were in milwaukee – and it is still amazing.
as dedicated roadtrippers, it is almost an out-of-body thing to fly somewhere. there is no time to really process – no time to really look at – study – what we are passing through, no time to properly feel moving from one place to another. but it’s easy and quick and absorbs all the road miles for littlebabyscion with its 274,000 mile odometer.
in a day or so, we will be able to take a little time and sort through it all…everything that happened while we were in those high mountains, everything we felt and saw and celebrated.
we’ll sit back in our adirondack chairs watching the hummingbirds and the chippies, watching the peonies grow and the grasses sway in the breeze, watching breck’s leaves quake and dogga run in circles – lingering – and we’ll be thankful for this trip that feels a little like a dream now.
no matter where i am there comes a point when this happens.
when i was little – and everyone else went to sleepaway camp – i tried it on for size. twice. the first time it was ok. we went to camp koinonia in upstate new york and i was with my best friend susan. we stayed in a screened-in cabin with bunkbeds and there’s not much else i remember, save for the lanyard-making. the second time it was another upstate sleepaway camp and, again, i was with my best friend susan. that time did not go well. it rained a lot that week and that contributed to my wistful homesickness. i remember kickball and crafts and i remember a bit of weeping. i didn’t try it again.
i guess – as much as i now love going away – traveling and adventure, immersing in new places – even my favorite places – i am also kind of a homebody. i miss our house, our routines, my feet on our old wood floors, our dogga.
paradoxically, i feel fortunate to have gotten away from home. we needed a little bitta time out of town, a little bitta time away from the usual stuff, a little bitta time near family, a little bitta time in the mountains.
i think even a short stint of time away interrupts us. it grants us fresh air. it pokes us to not take loving our home lightly. it stirs up the wish-we-were-closer proximity yearnings. it gives us fresh eyes to return to our routines and the projects and challenges on our plates. it makes coming home sweet.
i am really, really familiar with the view out the front door of our house. this tree has been there the entire three and a half decades i have now lived here. and i have seen the sky and the seasons change through the arc of its branches.
the trees next to the sidewalk on our road have been aging out. one by one we wake up or arrive home to the roar of heavy chainsaw sounds. it makes me worry about our tree. it would be tough to see that tree removed.
going away and exploring – meandering around – is good for the soul. it’s invigorating and can take you out of your comfort zone. it’s rejuvenating. it gives you space.
coming back home – after going away and exploring – is also good for the soul. it affirms the everyday, the mundane, everything you consider ordinary, the very-familiar. and it elevates appreciation of all of it.
but – juxtaposed on the same life-wave-riding surfboard – i love to get away. i love roadtrips and adventure, exploring backroads, immersing in new places. though i am fed noticing the extraordinary in the familiar, i thrive on images of the unfamiliar. more than once i have cried entering a canyon or at mountain-range first glimpse or surrounded by the scent of a lodgepole pine forest or the quiet of an empty trail or the quaking of aspen leaves.
so i yearn for these places – the ones we have been to and have loved and the ones we dream about.
i’m not high-maintenance when it comes to vacations. i’m not a resort-type or a cruise-type, not a disney-type or an amusement-park-type. i don’t need all-inclusive or my bed turned-down. i don’t need all-you-can-eat-any-time-of-day-or-night. i don’t need fancy or plush or luxurious. i definitely don’t need contrived.
it’s pretty simple. what i do need – is a little or big getaway. short distance, long distance. time to leave, see new things, experience new places, feel the sun from a different latitude or longitude. and then time to go home and feel the hygge that is ever-present back here, the moments that go by perhaps a little underappreciated, to feel the here and now without regret or longing, a chance to revive my homebody-ness.
it’s exactly how i draw horses. back in the day i had a book that taught me how to draw them. i was horse-crazy and i studied this book and practiced over and over. i did not retain much of all that study – or all of the other books i read about horses – but i can still draw a horsehead. so when we flew over this island on our approach to the tampa airport, i was astounded to see the first vestiges of my own drawing. i named it van gogh horse – for obvious reasons. high tide and angle and an active imagination helped, but i sure do think it looks like a horse.
it had been three and a half years since i had flown. we’ve read many articles about aggressive passengers and, i must admit, that doesn’t sound too enticing. i can’t imagine being rude to people who are tending to your needs as you zoom through the sky. not to mention all that recirculated air and the folks in the seat behind us hack-coughing. ahem. so it was a little nerve-wracking.
but it was also magical. you forget. i spent a lot of time looking out the window, mesmerized by the cloud formations and the landscape below, checking the flight plan on my phone to see where we were (technology is pretty amazing!) and taking photographs. i looked – i am sure – like the quintessential tourist-on-the-airplane. but i didn’t care. we have driven everywhere in the last years so it was like a small miracle to jaunt from milwaukee to tampa in two hours and forty minutes.
i remember days i flew often. midwest express airlines and real plates and real silverware and gourmet meals and mimosas in the morning or wine in the afternoon. and, the pièce de résistance…warm chocolate chip cookies. it was an experience – a whole experience. i flew midwest as often as i could, flights to los angeles and nashville and south and out east.
the most memorable experience was the – only – one time the airline lost my luggage. i had concerts and appearances in boston and all my attire was in my suitcase. a midwest express representative – jimbo – who is still my friend on facebook – immediately set to helping me, told me to go buy some necessities, including concert attire, and send midwest the bill. i am mostly a jeans-wearing performer – though there were some exceptions that particular trip – so that kept the costs down a bit, but they covered every last thing i needed. customer service at its best. i called all those items “my midwest express collection” and flew midwest loyally until the airline was no longer.
in a memory-filled moment with the smell of baking chocolate chips in my mind’s eye, i googled the milwaukee-based airline and was jazzed to see it is hoping to make a comeback one of these days. i wish them well. here is the best news:
“the airline plans to bring back the cookies if it starts flying again.” (milwaukeemag.com)
i know that can take some time and some luck. but warm chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the airline’s tiny kitchen could encourage me to start flying more again. i mean, people can’t be ornery with cookies.
if i had to draw an airplane experience – even though i am clearly not gifted at drawing – i would draw people in cushy two-across-seats, trays down, real plates and silverware, coffee cups and mimosas, warm chocolate chip cookies, linen napkins. smiles and horses out the window.
lusting over brochures is kind of my thing. there is nothing quite like the dreamy four-color-magazine-quality-glossy-coated-silk-card-stock intrigue that beckons me, inviting imaginative adventure and exploring. a good brochure will take you there, place you there, let you sink in and never want to leave. i am clearly the targeted recipient of their magic. and i am – ahem – a collector.
like my relationship with catalogs, i can immerse in the story of the place, the action…it’s deeply satisfying.
sometimes we stop at the welcome center and i load up with all the possibilities of our destination, never to crack them open. it’s like having a treasure chest, knowing you have the treasure chest, not-knowing what’s in the treasure chest but knowing it’s enough you have it. a back pocket full of shiny coins, should you need them.
and sometimes we stop at the welcome center and i find something in a brochure that will not let go. i wonder and ponder and strategize and scheme how to get there, how to experience it, how to afford it. i’m a little overwhelmed by the draw of whatever the thing/place/action is, but i know the likelihood of it is relatively dim.
we clicked on an article on the-island-phone the other day. like shiny card stock, it beautifully featured a resort in utah: amangiri. there was nothing about this resort that wasn’t stunning.
i’ve never stayed in a resort, nonetheless one where your pillow-piled-down-comfortered-bed was out under the stars in the desert, your space open to remote canyonlands of red rock. my breathing got more rapid as i showed david. i clicked on “make a reservation”.
$12,000 a night.
deeper reservation diving revealed a range of pricing, verbose reviews, glamorous indeed, this place.
$12,000/night.
a little fancy.
clearly we won’t be staying there.
but, in the way that catalogs and brochures also function for me, i saved it and looked at it a few more times. i’ll probably glance a time or two more at this wildly expensive place to stay. and then i’ll delete it. because, by then, i’ll be satisfied.
and besides, the tiny blue airbnb house on one of the side streets in the mountain town in north carolina is also magical. it will afford us a chance to unplug, to hike unfamiliar trails, to cook and eat out on the front porch watching traffic go by, to immerse in a new place, a getaway.
at 93-almost-94, i would imagine that my sweet momma felt much the same as she had decades earlier. i would imagine that she would have expected herself to move about the same way she had, to participate in life the same way she had, to be able to do most anything the same way she had. she was always startled when she looked in the mirror, self-deprecating her wrinkles and changed body to the end of her decrescendo. but i would imagine that inside – sans mirror – she was feeling like she felt back in the day, back in the forté of her life.
i actually get it. i, too, am in denial when i look in the mirror. i am shocked to think of myself as almost-63. i am shocked to wake with aches and pains, having had a measly amount of sleep in the night. but behind the wheel? with country music blaring or perhaps the soundtrack “about time” or a lowen and navarro cd or john denver or james taylor and carole king maybe … i am back in my skin.
we – in recent days – have made a decision about roadtrips, which we adore. we have decided that we will not drive the seventeen hour all-in-one journeys of our younger days. we will not drive through the night. we will not drive in snowstorms or fierce rain. tornadoes are another story. we will do everything we can to outrun them. but, my point, since i am getting off-track, is that we are seeing the wisdom of exercising restraint on our drives. stop at dark, have a nice dinner, get a good night’s sleep and start again early in the morning. we are trying not to be foolish. because no one wants to be exhausted or stressed on a roadtrip anyway.
so we check the weather ahead. we try to reasonably plan where we are going each day. we book an airbnb, sometimes a hotel. we keep vigil with our accuweather app. we take the back roads anytime it is possible.
we are yes – getting off the road when it’s no longer safe to be on it.
we are yes – being smart.
we are not – no, not yet anyway – succumbing to our “age”.
in my wild-harebrained-dream we own a food truck called “and sauce.” and we drive around the country in big red pulling our food truck and selling sauce on pretty-much-anything.
i blame the whole30. or credit the whole30. i suppose there’s a difference between blaming and crediting.
the whole30 is a diet for 30 days (clever, eh?) during which you only eat whole foods and do not eat any: grains, legumes, dairy, added sugars, alcohol. you pare down your menus to fresh vegetables and meats and seafood and, after 30 days, deliberately add things back in to see how your body and digestive system react to various ingredients. it was back in early 2018 and it truly helped me get a tummy that was having a rebellion under control.
in many ways, it kind of stuck.
one of our staples was my homemade tomato meat sauce. but, at the time, we could not have it over pasta – regular or gluten-free. so we had it over spaghetti squash, which was, surprisingly, amazing. then we had it over oven-roasted chopped sweet potatoes. then we had it over roasted brussels sprouts. and over a hamburger. and over a baked potato. when we could add gluten-free products back in, we had sauce over penne, over rotini, wrapped in corn tortillas. sauce, we had discovered, is good on pretty much anything.
and the ideas were born. “and sauce”, the cafe, the food truck, the home delivery service. with the entrance of the pandemic, the food truck seemed like an apt adventure. i mean, who needs to even think about pianos and stages when you can travel around with stock pots and a food truck?
perhaps i am romanticizing this a tad bit, but, since this is my dream and not my reality, i am giving myself grace to daydream.
in those moments where comfort is sought and food that soothes the soul is paramount, we turn to the stock pot, to sauce or soup. the biggest pot comes out, the apron goes on (i adore over-the-head aprons), the cutting boards sit on the counter and life instantly slows down.
chopping and measuring (sort of) and sauteing and stirring with the giant wooden spoon from finland and sampling…it’s all heaven. there is not much that smells better than onions and garlic being sauted in olive oil. (though i recently read how you could re-create the williams sonoma store scent, which is very popular, by simply simmering vanilla extract, rosemary, lemon and peppercorns.)
just walking into the kitchen and seeing the stock pot on the stove is a reassurance. whether there is sauce in that stock pot or veggie soup or – drumroll – my sweet momma’s chicken soup (with the addition of spinach leaves and shredded parmesan, of course), it brings everything back into focus.
and as we ladle out sauce or soup into bowls or onto baked potatoes or penne, we, in turn, put worries and concerns and out-of-sorts-ness into the big pot. cause that’s actually the job of big stock pots. balancing out life.
reverse threading 