Category Archives: travel

object lessons

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I flew home last night and left a glorious Florida sunset behind.

01.2015 florida sunset

Before I left, I took another walk to try to absorb as much sunshine as I could, and added some birdwatching to the mix. It’s always fun for me to see different birds in different places, although I wore my iPhone battery down trying to Google ‘small brown bird with yellow butt’. It made for some dicey moments standing in line to have my boarding pass scanned at the gate (I use the Delta app on my phone and I kept wondering if anyone has ever had their phone die before they could have their electronic boarding pass scanned…this is the kind of thing that would happen to me.)

This white ibis was pretty easy to ID and he was a fine looking fellow. There were a couple of other wading birds that were more difficult, it’s hard for me to distinguish egrets from herons from cranes and it began to interfere with my attentiveness to the final bits of my seminar so I finally gave up.

01.2015 florida ibis

And of course there were the usual flocks of house sparrows, a brown plague that has taken over my own yard at home. But I couldn’t resist this picture – they were all sitting around the table at the Trattoria at the Disney Boardwalk looking expectant and vaguely European.

01.2015 florida sparrows

My seminar was quite large, almost 300 people, and when you attend these types of events, there are funny little behaviors that emerge. You find yourself sitting next to the same people every day, you quickly establish your cliques. People network and chat and swap business cards and I am wretched at all of this. I sit in the front row where no one else wants to sit and I try not to make eye contact with people. I don’t like small talk or chatting, it makes me nervous. I always forget my business cards and I tend to be focused on consuming as many of the free meals and snacks as possible in the shortest amount of time and then fleeing to somewhere quiet. (I also stockpile pens at these seminars. For some reason my pen jar at home tends to be filled with dry markers and useless highlighters and small screwdrivers and broken-tipped pencils, everything except pens that work. I found these Disney resort pens quite satisfactory.)

The sunshine and birdwatching opportunities made my lack of desire to network at breaks even more prominent, as did the fact that I started reading George R.R. Martin’s “A Feast for Crows” on my Kindle during the flight down. I’m so absorbed in this book that I want to read it straight through and I feel a little dazed when I look up from the pages. I spent many a break hiding in a sunny corner poring over the pages. To be sure, this makes me feel guilty. When my company sends me to a seminar, I’m on the clock, so I really shouldn’t be sneaking away, even on scheduled breaks, to read or play or absorb sunshine.

So when I pondered skipping the last day lunch and heading to the airport to try for an earlier flight, I thought better of it. I girded my loins and hit the buffet and found a new place to sit and before I quite knew what had happened, one of the panel speakers sat down next to me and then another and then two board members on the other side. The first panel speaker started talking to me and quickly we were laughing and he introduced me to the other speakers and board members. I felt like the new kid at school who suddenly finds herself at the cool kid table. I came away with a pack of business cards and promises of LinkedIn invitations and guidance on which chapter I should join, feeling stunned. I told myself sternly that this is an object lesson – 45 minutes at a lunch table and I made great contacts that my boss would appreciate. Those 45 minutes of somewhat painful socializing probably had greater benefit than the prior 2 days of seminar materials and skulking. I was proud of myself and so I had Pinkberry at the airport to reward myself.

It was about 18 F. in Detroit and the airport was full of tired commuters, ready to be home with their families. It was so nice to be home, cold notwithstanding, and Emmett & Sarge piled onto my lap on the couch while I ate pasta late at night and finished watching ‘Broadchurch’. (What do we think about mysteries that end with the killer being someone entirely unexpected? Do we feel impressed at their cleverness or do we feel a bit put out that we aren’t given the proper clues to solve it ourselves?)

And now, Winter Storm Linus. For fuck’s sake.

catch up

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I always sort of hate when I haven’t blogged for awhile, and I have all this stuff to catch up on, and no idea where to start, and so I just put it off even longer. Sigh. Anyway, I survived Turkey Day without my little chickadee, we were joyfully reunited, and then I had to turn around and fly to Miami for three days on business, which neither of us were pleased about.

The boys weren’t happy about it either.

12.2014 miami suitcase

Miami was rainy and overwhelming. The sheer number of people pressing in on me every place we went was completely daunting. The traffic was beyond anything I’d seen. The hotel lobby was packed full of men (soccer convention?) in tight shirts, reeking of cologne and yelling at each other in some beautiful language. And staring. I’m unaccustomed to being frankly stared at and it had nothing to do with me being any sort of beauty, they stared at every woman in the same assessing, flirtatiously challenging way.  I commented on FB that it was like ‘Night at the Roxbury’ in a hotel lobby and before a person is properly awake and had coffee, it is extremely off-putting. I did not make eye contact with anyone and pushed through for the toaster projecting an air of ‘don’t fuck with me’ which is kind of difficult when you’re clutching marmalade and a slice of wheat bread.

The chickadee & I have been trying to slide back into our normal routine. She likes adventure and she has done awesomely well with dividing her time between my house and her dad’s, but it can take its toll, too, when she has traveled and I have, and things aren’t consistent. So the past few days have been lots of this.

12.2014 fireplace

Alex, the Elf on the Shelf, has made his reappearance. He was absent last year, as in the years before that, Miss L, as a toddler, understood only that he was a spy for Santa. “I hate that elf,” she said thoughtfully. So Alex took some time off and triumphantly came down the chimney a few days ago and Miss L is alternately charmed and apprehensive. It was funny when she found him wearing a Barbie skirt and leading a parade of her My Little Ponies; however, this morning, she came to find me in bed and said urgently, “Mommy – there’s something creepy in the bathroom, and IT’S THE ELF.” He was ziplining down some toilet paper unrolled between the top of the bathroom cabinet and the sink. I understood. Alex has kind of pointy legs that seem a bit spidery, and the glazed grinning face…yeah, I get it. However, once the lights were turned on and she saw him properly, she found it hilarious, but there is definitely still some lingering terror over the elf’s purpose and whether he uses his powers for good or for evil. I’ll have to make sure that the elf’s adventures are completely innocuous and nothing she could stumble onto in the dark, thus inflicting psychological trauma in the vein of evil clowns, dolls that come to life, etc.

“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought – sometimes it isn’t much, either.” – walt disney

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I am home from several days in the Happiest Place on Earth, and you know what? It was happy. Despite the crowds, and the exorbitant outlays of cash for souvenirs and toys, Harry Potter wand & robe, autograph book to stalk princesses, and $10 hot dogs (well, it had bacon on it) – it was happy. I felt as though for a brief few days, my concerns and troubles were left at the gates, and I lived in the moment in the park, only concerned with when our next FastPass started and whether we could handle a 40 minute wait for a ride or a princess autograph. Miss L had a great time. GB & I fell back into our normal mother – father rhythm and for a few days, it was sort of just the three of us again, which was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant, fleeting as it is.

Emmett & Sarge were livid that we’d been gone so long, and have spent the last day following me around closely to ensure that I don’t plan on leaving again anytime soon. The time changed while we were away, and we came home to bare branches and spindly November light. The days are short and darker now, and soon, the outside chores left undone will have to stay undone. I still have things to finish, but tonight I built a fire (a successful fire) and I have a striped cat lounging protectively at my elbow and dinner is in the oven and the darkness is pressing on the glass.

on going out and coming home

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I try not to talk much about a variety of topics on the internetz, including my work and my personal relationships and now, as she gets older, my daughter, whose life and image and thoughts and feelings belong to her, not me to share with the general public. But I’ve been through a lot over the past year, and there were many days when I just didn’t think I could get out of bed and face the day.

All my life, I have felt that I needed someone else to trust and to lean on, because inside I never trusted my own self to get me through hard times. I felt fundamentally unreliable and flawed. When I faced a challenge, I never truly believed I had the ability to get through it.

It’s a terrible weakness, not to trust or like your own self, and although I wish I could change many things that have happened lately, the silver lining of all of it is that I finally know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can get through what I have to, and that I am more than I ever thought I was. Part of me hates to see that written out in black and white, because my old self would feel that was tempting the universe to knock my feet out from underneath me. I don’t think like that anymore. Now I think the universe is more receptive, it’s something that responds to the energy you put out into it, and gives it back, and if you wake up every day to see the beauty in what is around you and feel gratitude for it, and love the people in your life and what you have been given, and you work to be happy, the universe responds to that. The only person who is responsible for your happiness is you.

This is a long way of saying that I flew across the country this week, and visited new places, and saw new things. I spoke in front of groups of people and laughed with them and made friends. I wasn’t perfect, but I was real, and I wasn’t afraid, and everywhere I looked I saw sunshine and warmth and new things. I trusted myself and enjoyed myself and when I came home, I was so happy for the little life I have here. California was hot and dry and bright, the Santa Ana winds moving restlessly through the palm trees against the blue sky. Traffic wound in glittering ropes along the asphalt. There were people everywhere, great waves of people pressing in on all sides. When I wasn’t presenting, during our car trips and at the airport, I couldn’t even speak for staring around me.

And then I came home, and my world was small and damp and green, full of cats and a chattering child, cluttered with construction paper and crayons and toys. I dreamt last night of five cardinals in the branches above me, and picking up a small colored bird, thinking it was dead, and having it come alive in my hand, fragile and prickly. I liked coming home the best of all. It’s so strange to feel that at the age of 40, I’ve been newly born into something I never was before. I have such a short life left to enjoy, I’d better get to it.

“He’s got that New Orleans thing crawling all over him, that good stuff, that We Are the Champions, to hell with the rest and I’ll just start over kind of attitude.” ― Chris Rose, 1 Dead in Attic

a week in new orleans – when one is supposed to be spending long days in an expensive, work-sponsored academy training – just isn’t enough. i need to go back, when i have more time and more energy to explore all of the little shining things and time-worn bits of a polished old world that peek through the dirt and the cheap beads and dive bars.

03.2014 sarge and suitcase03.2014 poydras street, nolathe hotel was on poydras street and i found it off-putting. it’s a big brand hotel and my room was cramped and dirty. the first day, i was too tired and out of sorts to do much more than sit through my classes and observe the view from my room.

03.2014 old wall nolaon the second day, the sun was out and the sky was blue, and i escaped at lunchtime to wander through the concrete labyrinth of the warehouse district. i don’t know how people don’t just stop and stare constantly at the brick and beams and old things.

03.2014 sunshine nolathe sun was a nice visitor, too. after the hardest winter in michigan, i felt like i could dose on vitamin d for days and not get enough, my cheeks were pink and slightly sunburned and it felt wonderful. that night, we had a sponsored dinner at a nearby restaurant which, as one of my fellow attendees amusedly pointed out, felt like a VFW hall. buffet lines, drink tickets, and a zydeco band, a bare dance-hall feel, fried alligator and bread pudding. maybe we would have danced and drank more if we hadn’t all been strangers, pulled together from different parts of the country, a brief stop and three days of camaraderie is not enough to build real friendships on, funny how the world intersects our paths, for what meaning?

03.2014 hotel monteleoneon the morning of day three, i was finally brave enough to get up early and explore before class, seeing the side streets of new orleans still unconscious and recovering from the evening parties that never end, a ceaseless engine of careless mechanical gaiety that brings new tourists every day, every week, every year. i feel sorry for the city, it must be exhausting to start that huge cheap engine without ever stopping to rest, like a terrifying carousel of lights and leering clowns and shrieking music, no respite. yet the city is long past caring, the streets aren’t friendly, they have seen a million like me and will see a million more, they are oblivious to their own tired beauty.

03.2014 st. louis cathedral nola03.2014 cafe du monde nola

the coffee was wonderful, the cafe full of chattering staff in paper hats pulling chairs off tables, clattering, streets damp outside. a busker setting up with a trombone under a flowering tree, a wrought-iron fence, a brick sidestreet. the beignets made me feel sick, the heavy greasy sweetness, so i left the bag on the bench and knew someone would find them.

 

 

03.2014 jax beerso much strange beauty and every day the sun comes up in humid, steamy splendor over the river, and there are so many sudden moments of quick passing loveliness. you could easily miss it.

03.2014 sunrise 2 nola 03.2014 sunrise nola03.2014 pigeons nolai will be back. i don’t want your beads or your bourbon street, though, i will stay off your carousel. i just want moments like this.

03.2014 sunrise windows nola