The Great Urge... in the Words of Steinbeck

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.

"When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This art of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it.

"Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has a personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognzied can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it."


Interestingly, La Framéricaine mentioned "Travels with Charley" in her thoughtful comment on my last post. I own the book and read it a couple of years ago. Her comment inspired me to pull it off the bookshelf and reread it. When I picked the book up, a receipt fell out of the book. I bought the book exactly 2 years ago to that day... June 1st! A flood of memories besieged me. I bought it at the OSU bookstore before I headed to Baltimore to drive cross country with my sister. What a great road trip that was and how it inspired me to make that first great trip to Paris just a few months after! Sometimes I like to leave receipts, photos, leaves, or notes in the pages of books as I read them. They definitely prove to be lovely memories that always surprise me much later. Ah, memories. How powerful and inspiring. I mean, there the book has been sitting for quite some time and certainly I did not forget that I had read and enjoyed it. But it was that receipt that triggered so much awareness!

This great urge to journey is as much a part of me as my brown eyes and eager smile. It doesn't diminish, it never goes away. I so feel the itch Steinbeck so wonderfully describes in this opening passage of "Travels with Charley." The heavy sound of a train in the distance, its destination unknown but its journey certain. The exciting feeling I always get when I go to the airport, even when I am not the one traveling. Driving down an unknown road, great music playing... the rush of feeling that the open road brings. It haunts me, it pleads with me, it sees right through those substitute experiences I try to appease it with.

I give in. I yield. I soar.

But... I Have Built-In Bookshelves!

A few days after my enlightened decision to become homeless, to let go of my apartment and roam Paris and the States for an undetermined amount of time, pragmatism reared its timid head. I was getting ready to go to bed. I sat on my bed and looked at my built-in bookshelves on the opposite wall. Wow. I've really given up my apartment. July 27th I will be officially homeless. But I like living here for the most part, neighbor proximity and noise aside. My studio is in a great neighborhood and I love the layout, including these built-in bookshelves which I have neatly and thoughtfully arranged my books on. I love laying here in my bed, looking at my books.

This initial and premature nostalgia for my built-in bookshelves gave way to further precipitate wistfulness, with the momentum of a downhill train. I have granite countertops in my kitchen, for God's sake! Granite! Isn't my kitchen one of the first things people comment upon when they see my apartment? How they marvel over the relatively ample size (given that it is a studio), the granite and the stainless steel appliances?! Am I not told repeatedly how fortunate I am to have such amenities in an apartment? I have a lovely window next to my dining table and a a rear door! How lovely to have a window in the kitchen, AND a rear door!

And the closet?! Haven't I always wanted such a closet? It reminds me a bit of Carrie's closet on "Sex and the City," but a bit smaller and with far less exciting contents. But it is a walk-through closet, leading to the the charming little bathroom with full sized tub and hexagon tiles! The bathroom where I've had such wonderful "revelations" standing before the adorable pedestal sink! How could I possibly consent to leave all of this?! And to leave it for what? No security, no comfort to return to after a long day, no place to watch my wonderful flat screen LCD HDTV? Really, I'm choosing such? Freely?!

This sudden and rather immense ruefulness did not last long, fortunately. I found myself laughing out loud at the absurdity of such feelings. These are things after all! Would I really relinquish my dreams of traveling, exploring, living... for built-in bookshelves?! And they aren't even real wood! They are particle board with adjustable shelves and not even really built into the wall. They house a hideaway bed that I don't even use (after all, how then would I be able to gaze at my books if I'm laying behind them?). Do I really think that I will never have another "home" that could have such things? Ridiculous.

And I've been here before. When I was married, my husband and I had an amazing house built, a house with the most charming little den for me to write in. This den had French doors, real built-in wood bookshelves and plush Berber carpet. Did those built-ins bring me any lasting happiness? Clearly not. And they did absolutely nothing to save our marriage, either.

This return to sanity was further verified at 130am, a few hours after the wistfulness over the built-ins, when my new neighbor sharing the very wall of the built-ins cranked her stereo on at an alarming volume. It was a Monday. I awoke abruptly and with what easily could have been perceived by another (if only there were another present) as a somewhat psychotic smile spreading on my face, I muttered out loud, "I am going to move." Although this disturbance was precisely that, it felt like a wonderful indication that I was doing the right thing and I was actually glad for it. I reached over to my bedside and grabbed Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and threw it across to the opposite wall. It seemed the appropriate thing to do. To really substantiate my decision to choose homelessness over built-in bookshelves, the next "morning" at exactly the same time, 130am, the music returned. This time I pounded against the wall with the thick binding edge of my not-so "Concise French Dictionary." The point was made and the music ceased. My conviction about homelessness strengthened.

What an insular notion... to cling to my little apartment interior and these things. I've always loved cozy little spaces and I've enjoyed my present home. I appreciate the comfort and fulfillment of a home with four walls and prominent traces of our presence in nearby books, framed photos, treasures and trinkets. But this will only be one of many homes for me. And I smile so widely when I think of the real bookshelves I might build in my own house one day. A quaint house on enough land so as to provide room for a Labrador or two to roam comfortably and without having to hear my neighbors having sex or repeatedly fighting and making up. I'm not beyond appreciating the need for home. I know I will yearn for a home while on the road. But interestingly, I just feel an intense desire to know that longing for home. I think that pain of being "homeless" makes the experience of traveling all the more gratifying. Home really is where the heart is and that can be anywhere. I need to know this feeling more deeply.

My current "backyard" is a landscaped alleyway facing another row of brick condo apartments like mine. The woman who lives directly behind me comes out to chat every now and then. She is in her 40s, single with 2 cats and heavy with regret. Her voice betrays her sadness for a life not fully lived. She talks of the two new armchairs she recently bought, how the cats have each staked out their respective chairs, and how she must work extra to pay for the chairs. She sighs and takes a sip from the can of diet Pepsi she holds. She tells me repeatedly how lucky I am to be able to go to Paris. How she wishes she could do something like that. I find it painfully difficult to talk with her at all because I know that if I cling to these built-in bookshelves, I might hold that same sad tone one day, right here in this very apartment with the granite countertops.

So, I trade my current "backyard" and these ordinary built-in bookshelves for a vast backyard, glorious, and for now.... wonderfully unknown:


*Photo, aptly titled, "Foggy Road Less Traveled," from here.

Divine Discontent

The storm of my discontent finally broke. It was an unusually warm morning here in Portland last Saturday. I awoke at 630am, immediately showered and waited for my sister to arrive. A highly atypical outing for us, we were driving up to Vancouver to see Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand, co-captains of the F/V Time Bandit, featured on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch." As my earlier post about "Deadliest Catch" details, I love this show to a peculiar degree. I find that I could endlessly write about what draws me towards the show: the Hero's Journey, the authenticity of these men and their intense connection with nature, the sea and how it is the one thing I both fear and revere the most, my immense attraction to various aspects of masculinity, memories of the boyfriend who turned me onto the show, and so much more.

When I stumbled upon news that the Hillstrands would be doing a book signing in Vancouver, I knew I had to go, especially after posting about my love of the show earlier this month. So, I enlisted my sister N to join me, who I turned onto the show a few months ago and who has become an equally avid fan since. We fervently discuss who our favorite captains and deckhands are and why we feel such an intense connection with the show. So, the book signing was a no-brainer for us.

We arrived early and purchased our books and stood in line outside, where the Hillstrands would be signing books under an awning. It was a very casual setting, at the Clark County Skills Center. There was a teenage punk/alternative band playing, a dunk tank, a handful of classic cars being featured, and booths set up with information on the Center and its educational offerings. We stood in the unusually hot 10am sun, looking through the photos in the Hillstrands' book, Time Bandit, and eagerly agreed to indulge in hot dogs afterwards.

There was something instantly magical about this day but I had no clear notion when I awoke that this would be the morning of absolute enlightenment... that all my dreams, my hopes of being alive and realizing myself as a writer... would be illuminated, revealing the most lucid direction I am to take with my life. I had no idea that all the symbols, internal and external struggles, and seemingly unrelated experiences and thoughts, would come to such fruition.

*****************************************************************************

The discontent had been mounting, to a deafening degree. I've stood at my crossroads and with a disturbing amount of patience, I have waited. There was no wind about me. No stirring. Just the density of my restlessness. Motionless. Soundless. Absolutely still. I strained my soul repeatedly, trying to glean some indication of which direction I should take. Come on soul, you should know. Nothing. The exigency within me did not subside. I knew I had to go. But where? Could I really be satisfied with randomly choosing just one direction? And while each direction looked equally appealing (and vague), my ridiculously indecisive nature would not allow me to step toward any one of them. So, I waited some more.

My mind started turning against me. Why am I discontent? Why can't I be adventurous and inspired where I am now? I'm going to Paris for the month of July, after all. I'll come home and the writing will be here and more will reveal itself. Maybe I'm just so close to realizing that dream that I'm feeling antsy. No. That isn't it and false attempts to convince myself never work. Travel specials on PBS kept taunting me. I was equally fascinated with each and every one of them. The two hour special on the Adirondacks captivated me wholly, as did the Equitrekking episodes in Vermont and then the South and then Wyoming. That damn Rick Steves and his back doors to Europe! My head was spinning.

I felt the same spinning sensation in reading all of your amazing blogs on moving to France. My horse dream haunted me and I was literally feeling twitchy. The wise voice of Joseph Campbell lingered, like a small bird swinging on its perch in a birdcage with no bottom. This bird (Campbell) repeatedly whispering, you can't have the Hero's Journey in your own backyard, you fool. I highly doubt Campbell would call me a fool but I like a bird with a little provocation. I need it.

The cloud cover of discontent started pressing down upon me more rapidly. It became oppressive. My mind tried to present substitute fantasies - I would hear John Mayer on my iPod and fantasize about us falling in puppy dog love, him writing a song about me and serenading me on the porch of our remote countryside home. After seeing "Lars and the Real Girl" and loving it, I watched "The Notebook" five times in one very hormonal weekend and fantasized that Ryan Gosling and I might meet in a little coffee shop down in the South, trading playful glances. I know... you just threw up in your mouth, didn't you? Me too. Yep, I know this pattern all too well... trying to convince myself that falling in love will quench my yearnings. It is a substitute fantasy that my mind always veers to when I'm discontent. But I know better, in my heart at least. Kind of backwards, isn't it? My heart knowing better than my head. Well, it does. It is an escapist fantasy - the idea of a relationship being enough to sustain me. And that substitute fantasy never lasts, nor do the substitute relationships.

This immense discontent has lasted over two months. No doubt it has resided within me for quite some time (a lifetime?) but it has become unbearable in the past two months. Previous bouts of discontent throughout my life have encouraged me to make changes, but the changes were always a band-aid, a temporary "fix" to keep me going a little while longer. These band-aids never required much from me, maybe a slight leap of faith here and there but no ultimate vulnerability. I tell myself that I cannot keep doing this temporary fix bullshit. I know myself better than ever now at age 31. There is a price to that consciousness. And when you heed that consciousness diligently, as I have for many years now, it never lets up on you until you actually live the life you are supposed to.

The past two months in particular have truly been introspective hell, standing in the middle of my crossroads and reaching the exasperated point in which I yearned for, and then tried with great force, to conjure up a massive train (let's call it the Fucking Choo-Choo to Bliss Express) to barrel me down in this damned crossroads. I felt like I was hoarsely screaming to the universe, "here I am! Is all this consciousness for naught?! I don't want to end up spending my life in this bell jar, suffocating myself with thoughts and dreams unrealized!"

Apparently, the universe listens. The train came, the bell jar lifted. But the train was no train. It was a butterfly, a blackbird, vertical shadows dancing upon me on a bridge. Yes, it was on the Columbia River Interstate Bridge that it all lifted, the divine discontent finally gave way completely, and my soul expanded over the river... it expanded over the largest river flowing into the Pacific from North America. The symbolism only presented itself later. I was in the moment and I've never felt more alive.

*****************************************************************************

Last night I sat at the kitchen table in my apartment and looked at the bottle of Jack Daniels before me. Just enough left in there for one decent drink. As I poured the remainder of the Jack into my glass, a smile broke across my face. I realized that when I bought this fifth of Jack, I was really at the edge of falling into that deep discontent. This drink would undoubtedly taste different than the first drink off the bottle.

I looked out the window and a light rain was starting to fall. The weather changed drastically since last weekend, when we had temperatures well exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It was in the 50s now. The contrast mirrors my own weather change. I opened the window a crack to soak in the comforting sound of rain and a train sounded in the distance. My smile deepened.

The enlightenment of Saturday was put into solid motion yesterday. I've secured approval from my amazing boss and I submitted my 30 day notice on my apartment. There is no false ambiguity, no forced motion, no restlessness. Not anymore.

I dream of the sea constantly these days.

I know where I'm headed.

I know I'm a writer.

This is my Hero's Journey.


...to be continued.....

Towards Paris

Paris is really only 47 days away. I know it has been creeping up on me and I know I'm going. Yet, I've been feeling incredibly oblivious about it. So much so that once the basic elements were secured - approval from boss, apartment, and ticket - I feel like it just became this suspended thing. Spending a month in Paris was such a fixation for many months (and really, a lifetime!) and my mind was buzzing with how to make it work. The ambition behind that fixation brought about a great investment of energy - planning, buying books and Paris related items, working on my French language lessons, etc.

I was buying up little tokens of Paris, like my beautiful Paris charm necklaces, Paris magnets, the very hip Moleskin City Notebook Paris, the neat little package of Paris City Walks, and so much more. I was eagerly engaged in my Rosetta Stone lessons, watching French in Action episodes and actually using French phrases and words in emails and conversations with friends. I was voraciously stuffing my Netflix queue with French films, reading Balzac, Voltaire and Flaubert as though French literature was the only thing to ever exist.

Yet, somehow, once those fundamental commitments were made with work, apartment, and airfare, that energy subsided substantially. My French Phrase-A-Day calendar is sitting over there on the shelf, still on some date in March. That great Moleskin planner has just a few places of interest written in it (Ladurée, Vaux le Vicomte, Museé Carnavalet, Museé Rodin, and Belle Hortense bookshop), and I even started a Towards Paris blog but the inspiration for such has waned considerably. Although I feel that there is much to write about where this upcoming trip is concerned, I sit down to blog about it and the words just aren't there.

Earlier this week I had an awful feeling that my seeming lack of interest in Paris meant that I wasn't truly thrilled about this upcoming trip. I feared that maybe my previously held conviction about Paris being a gateway to a fuller life was somehow false. And then, just as instantly as this last and painful thought emerged, I became acutely aware of a recurring theme in my dreams... baggage. I've had countless dreams about baggage. In many of the dreams, I suddenly realize that I am responsible for all of this luggage around me, that I somehow have to lug all of these bags around and realistically, not one person could carry so much on their own. Or dreams of packing and repacking to an unnecessary degree for a trip I never actually embark on within the dream because I'm spending an insane amount of time packing.

In thinking about this symbol within my dreams, the "aha" moment came. I realize that once I made the commitment to myself to spend a month in Paris and actually spoke with my boss, booked the apartment, and received the airline miles from my sister, I was off the hook with myself, so to speak. I didn't feel some ridiculous urgency to spend all my free time learning the French language and consuming all things French because I know I'm going to be living it. And that's not to say that learning French or reading about France has ever been a chore, but I think that much of my energy spent steeped in such was a substitute effort to quench my desire.

So often in life, I've over-prepared for things that I've never carried out. And in investing so much energy in the planning and preparing, I feel that I (we?) sub-consciously attempt to substitute for the actual experience. Maybe it is a kind of fear that prevents us from really living out the experience, embarking on the actual journey. Whatever it is, somehow we manage to keep our dream barely alive by surrounding ourselves with knowledge and "souvenirs" of a journey we may never actually take. Really, trying to keep that dream barely alive is far more exhausting than carrying out the dream.

Once I committed to this month in Paris, I felt a tremendous easiness about my dreams of Paris. I know that I'm absolutely open to the experience and I don't feel some enormous pressure to be "prepared." I'm not trying to control the experience and I've not set any expectations on the trip, which is wonderful. Just committing to this trip has already put me closer to that symbolic gateway. And yes, with it (as demonstrated in my previous post) a divine discontent. That sensation of being alive started invading every aspect of my psyche. If I can commit to this month in Paris, what else am I willing to do with my life?

It seems ridiculous at times, thinking that we might be afraid to pursue what seems like a simple and relatively easy dream such as spending a month in Paris. Yet, we deny ourselves our dreams so often and so aggressively. Why is that? Possibly because that consciousness makes us feel so much and urges us to action?

In thinking about posting this last night, I felt a resurgence of interest in my French language lessons and much delight in glimpses of the upcoming month in Paris. But this feeling was a new one, an easy one. I'm really going. And now, after allowing myself these past couple months of suspending that energy, I feel revitalized. My French books and trinkets look different. They feel real. And suddenly, so do I.

Austin Adventures

I had such a great time in Austin. There was little sightseeing while there, but that was more than okay with me. LBR and I had a difficult time getting out of the house each day, as we found ourselves immersed in some incredible conversations. There was much insight, depth, and laughter that lead to hysterics. Here are some highlights of our adventures:

Jack Daniels, Cupcakes, and Queso. One truly can live off these "staples" for days on end.
I have always appreciated Jack and Cupcakes (not necessarily together) but I now also have a wicked love of "the queso," which I quickly deemed to simply be Velveeta cheese with jalepeno (and other?) peppers thrown in there and heated up. And boy did I feel all proud of myself upon such observation! :) Despite my new-found love of queso, I did have to turn my head when LBR was kind enough to stir the queso after it had been sitting for a few minutes, breaking that disturbing coagulated layer forming on the top.

Y'all and all y'all. Darlin and ma'am. The. I really do like hearing "y'all" and being called "darlin" and "ma'am" by Texans. There really is something so charming about it. The highlight of our dismal experience on Sixth Street was being called "darlin" by a bum playing a guitar. It was very touching. And LBR and I quickly took to overusing "the" before nouns. "The Tasty Freeze," "the queso," "the tex mex," "the Walmart," "the bar-b-q," "the blog." We even got into a serious analytical discussion over how people came to find "the" necessary when saying things like "the McDonald's." When distinguishing between "y'all" and "all y'all," it seems that "y'all" can be applied to one or more people and that "all y'all" seems appropriate for three or more people, particularly larger groups. Really, I loved it all, all y'all.

Austin is really green and really pleasant. I was genuinely surprised by how green Austin is and how many trees there are. It has a really great vibe as well. You know you are in Texas but it truly does feel like an Oasis there. Speaking of which, I loved The Oasis (pictured here). It is a restaurant/bar that is roughly seven stories high and overlooks Lake Travis. At the entrance are a myriad of statues, with no clear theme to the collection. It is a wacky hodgepodge of statues strewn about a pebbled pathway towards the restaurant entrance. As bizarre as it seems, I found myself really charmed by its seeming absurdity. The view of the lake was gorgeous and Austin has amazing sunsets:


Texan accents are really fun and easy to slide into, even with the "locals." It does help when they are really drunk. :) I think I have a few different Texan accents going on all at once, however! LBR and I would often find ourselves having serious conversations and then suddenly slide right into Texan accents, continuing the serious nature of the conversation. Disturbing? Likely.

Cowboy boots are bad ass and rather darlin. I was infatuated with these boots I tried on. I really am not a fan of animal print anything, but these were really well done in my opinion and the animal print added that little bit of sexy sass every respectable girl needs in a cowboy boot. When I saw that they were just about five bills, I had a sudden fear that I could not get the boots off. Yet, somehow, this fear turned into a strong desire not to take them off and I happily lingered, walking around in them and fantasizing about what fun things I would wear with them. LBR will concur that they were gorgeous boots. And just to reiterate, here's another glimpse of these little darlins. I hope to bring them home with me one day. Sniff, sniff.

I wish we had taken a photo of LBR in the green "Riverdance" boots she tried on... they were gorgeous as well. But we were soon distracted from the boot love when...

I got to play the idiot city girl for the boot salesman's entertainment. This involved baby rattlesnake eggs and some girly screamin and squealin on the part of LBR and I. Oh, did he have fun with us big city girls. And LBR had a premonition that "the snake" was upon us. After I had quickly found "my" boots, we rounded the corner of an aisle to find LBR some boots. When we did, I looked up in horror. The expression on my face must have been fierce, because LBR quickly darted, gasping in fear. She thought I had seen a snake. But really, what I saw rivaled a dangling snake. Before us was the most hideous pink leather jacket with studs and fringes. Moments later, in the same aisle, the salesman approached LBR with a little pouch claiming to have rattlesnake eggs in it. He asked her to open it. Sweet Lord... did LBR run for the hills. And so, I was faced with opening the dreaded pouch. I knew it was a gag and I knew that something would startle me. But despite knowing it was a gag, anxiety mounted within me and when I did open it (some kind of rubber band wound up with a paper clip or something, that made a buzzing sound when you opened the pouch), I threw that thing across the store. Yep, no doubt he is still having a good laugh over that.

Change of scenery and awakened taste. Any traveler knows what I speak of here. To be out of your element is such an awakening. We really do drift through our daily lives without fully experiencing all that is around us. The climate and landscape change is huge. And each time I visit a new place, I feel an emerging curiosity about what it might be like to have a life here. Travel stirs up a lot within me. It really challenges me to think about where I am and what I'm doing with my life.

Food is also such a poignant marker when traveling. To have Bar-b-q and Tex Mex restaurants all over is so alien to me that I feel really awake to the overall experience through food. One night we went into a bar-b-q joint that looked like a gas station market on the outside. And with our brisket, we were given a half loaf of white bread. I don't know why that was so neat to me but it was. And I find myself more adventurous with food when traveling. At Manuel's, LBR and I happily accepted the waiter's recommendation of the gordita pictured here. It was very good and a very keen reminder that trying something new is an awakening.

Having a 2am breakfast with LBR at Magnolia Cafe was so great. I love this little diner and how this particular cafe on Lake Austin Boulevard sits back off the road, up a little incline parking lot with a great big oak tree. As we pulled up, there were a couple young guys strumming guitars in the parking lot. It didn't feel dead outside but rather, at that hour it seemed that there was a quiet but palpable energy that evoked an exciting tranquility. Although, as LBR stated in her post, we were likely the only two non-stoned people in the diner, it was so much fun to be out like that, enjoying the experience with a great friend. I never go out at 2am here at home to have breakfast with a friend. Although such a simple experience, it was so poignantly delightful.

University of Texas. Great college campus and ENORMOUS football stadium. I love college campuses and derive such pleasure in walking amongst old buildings, aware of the knowledge buzzing all around me. The college lifestyle so appeals to me and I'm not talking about those early 20s of ridiculous boozing and hooking up. UT has a beautiful college campus and the architecture is so rich. The University of Texas Tower is truly magnificent. A woman on my flight home told me that UT has some 50,000 students. That is incredible to me, coming from a school much smaller. It was such a great experience, walking through the quiet campus on a Saturday evening with LBR.

Austin certainly was an adventure and opened me up to many possibilities with regard to life. I tend to draw inward so often and this trip reminded me, as that last scene of Into the Wild does... happiness is real when shared.

Austin Bound, Y'All

Yes, I will be headed to Austin this week to visit the incredible La Belette Rouge for five days, y'all! I so can't wait. Not only am I thrilled to meet the lovely and hilarious weasel in person, but I really need a vacation. As my lack of blogging might indicate, I have been so wicked busy recently. We had a HUGE birthday bash for my dad's 70th and my uncle's 60th on Saturday and I've been planning and preparing for it for weeks now, devoting any free time to making it spectacular. And spectacular it was. We had old photos blown up and mounted and then I poured through thousands of old photos and created a bunch of different boards featuring reprints of photos of my dad and uncle throughout their lives.

It was so touching to see my dad tear up as he looked at old photos of himself. And it was great fun playing 40s and 50s music and dancing around the kitchen with my dad. I love him so much and feel immensely grateful that he and I are at this "place" of open love and acceptance of each other. It wasn't always so. My uncle was also very touched. Being divorced with no kids of his own, our (huge) family has really been a primary family for him. He is in so many old photos with our family and we all have such fond memories with him. At the end of the night, we sat around and each brought up a time that our dad really pulled through and helped us out and then a memory of our uncle.

While the party was a success, I have felt so incredibly drained since. Not only am I beyond exhausted, but I feel emotionally drained, beyond what I have felt in so long. I will save all that (observations on life and living life fully, etc.) for a later post. I don't have it in me now!

So, this trip to Austin will be great for me in many ways but mostly because I will get to spend all that time with LBR!! 

Looking forward to blogging more when I return from Austin next week! I'm sure there will be some hilarious adventures to share!