I’m home. Home again. It took a while.
This has been, for me, an unusually busy summer of travel. For someone who doesn’t travel much (anymore), it has been disconcerting and disconnective at times, bouncing from place to place, time zone to time zone, trying at times – when I wake up – to figure out what place I am in and what time it is.
And I don’t think that’s a real word – disconnective (at least, my spellcheck app suggests it isn’t) – but I guess you probably know what I mean: Too much, too fast, too many, too often. A fantastical, revealing, exciting, exhausting fist bump with the American spirit and psyche. And more gas station hot dogs than I care to admit.
I’ve spent perhaps all of two full weeks in New Orleans since Jazz Fest. (Which reminds me: About those walking tour requests from some of you which I never responded to: Please be patient with me. I’ll get back to you STAT. Promise.)
There was Electric Forest, the big EDM music festival in the Michigan woods where we camped and sold art; the family reunion in Minnesota, where we kayaked and played bocce; the wedding in New York City, which we missed because we went to the wrong church, and then the reception in Brooklyn, where we were the first ones in and that last ones out; the reunion of college roommates in Aspen, Colorado (Yes, we went to the University of Wisconsin; don’t ask, it’s complicated); and a whole lot of Interstate miles and motels in between, roadside attractions, distractions and diners; and the working vacation in Grand Isle.
“Working” meaning making art in preparation for the Michigan festival, but mostly reading magazines and holding hands and kicking sand and watching the stars and – Grand Isle being probably my favorite of all the aforementioned destinations – yer great plains and skyscrapers and Rockies be danged.
Weird, I know, but I love a place where not much is what you do all day, unless what you do is break your back trawling at sunrise looking for seafood catch. But then home by 2 p.m. – decks and nets washed down – ready to pursue the American – or perhaps Louisianan – dream of….not much.
(And lest my indelicate phrasing be cast as derision upon Grand Isle or its residents and workers, I offer this previous post in my defense.)
My ultimate dream is to live a shoes-optional lifestyle in the Tropics, some time, somewhere, anywhere. But until that happens, Grand Isle is the closest I’ve got. For now.
Side note: Witnessing people walking barefoot in New York City kind of freaks me out. But then, who am I to judge? I try to look for silver linings. At least they have a much easier time of airport security than the rest of us.
But here’s the best part about all that travel, all those cellular and WiFi dead zones (there were many) and all those lost weekends (there were more) and getting lost searching for those lost weekends: I’ve seen so much of America in such a short time. And seen so little of cable news.
I’ve missed most of the candidate debates and White House helicopter press conferences and Senate hearings and random (but thoroughly planned and executed) shootings upon the American landscape. So much and so many that I almost feel – in the general national spirit of things – blissfully uninformed.
And God, does it feel good.
And so, if you turn to this weekly blog post to get the skinny, the straight dope, to be coaxed or derided into action, to get informed or inflamed, encouraged or enervated, well…this was not the week for you.
I haven’t a clue what’s going on. And damn, does that feel good.
I haven’t read Nola.com nor heard Scoot on the radio since the Rolling Stones canceled their concert. (The second one, if I recall. Not the first one and not the third one – which I hear, through reliable sources – actually happened, and was pretty rad.)
Good on the Stones. They’re still rolling. Me, I’m looking to gather some moss for a while. As much as I love seeing other places and meeting other people, it’s always good to come home. More importantly, to have a place to call home.
My favorite four-letter word.
