.....Overlap Atlas.....

Fording Beauty in Big Sur

2010-08-04T00:18:00.005-04:00

Friends, as the summer gets shorter we will do our best to add stories and landscapes from our trip, as we think back and write down our reactions to the California coast and drive back to the Midwest/NYC. As I write this in Salt Lake City, the surf along Interstate 1 seems a distant sight - the Great Salt Lake, while beautiful, doesn't really compare.

We were warned of the twists and turns of highway one on the way to Big Sur, but the beauty made up for the vertigo. Without reservations for a campsite, we were a bit concerned about finding a place to pitch our tent, especially as we began to pass National Forest Campgrounds (with views of the ocean, no less) with large "Full" signs hanging along the road. After stopping to buy a Sprite at a small stand, where an old bearded hippie played his banjo to tourists and sang me an "un-cola" jingle, we made our way to the last campground in town. We we lucky to find folks walking out to their campground with their heaps of gear, a good .5 miles away from the parking lot, still smiling and making the best of a long, tiring day. Appropriately, we met a band called Big Tree at the camp. Comprised of five Sarah Lawrence grads who were extremely sweet, laid back, and all seemingly getting along after a long tour across the country, the band has some great tunes. We spent the evening chatting with them, and then dreamt wild dreams of earthquakes, the land opening up -- perhaps a distant primordial memory of the geological creation of this breathtaking place.

The morning came, and extremely hungry and sleepy, we drove to Big Sur Bakery for some slow food and hot coffee, which we consumed while watching the mist dissipate over the golden hills, sitting underneath old growth redwoods. Enjoying their spirit garden for longer than seemed imaginable, we headed back to camp, packed up, and finally took a long hike out to the ocean, where I forded the Big Sur river to seek out Pacific jade on the ocean beach. Here the water flows both ways, sea water inland, fresh water out to sea, the current encircled us as we made our way north to Santa Cruz, sweet strawberries, and agrarian generosity.

Big Sur River

Misty Morning

Happy Anniversary!

Looking back

Check out more pictures here at our web album:

Big Sur

Surviving SoCal = Finding Trees

2010-07-31T21:29:00.004-04:00

Our ostensible “excuse” for this trip out west was my attendance at a Contemporary Women Writer’s Conference, taking place in San Diego, CA. We were fully exhausted when we arrived in the city, at 12:30AM. Jess, thankfully, drove through the day and night in Southern AZ to get us there in time for me to see the opening lecture the next morning at 9:30AM. We stayed at a great bedroom in a cozy condo in central San Diego with our wonderful host named Lydia, who rents her extra room on a great website that we also host on, called www.airbnb.com. Lydia is a photographer and collector, and her home was a museological wonder filled with strange 1950s kitsch, antique toys, and goth/japanimation-like dark-eyed paintings of fantasy children. Our host had a great laugh and told terrific jokes when Jess and I experienced our first 5.4 earthquake in Lydia’s living room. Not to be overdramatic, but my knuckles became white and I felt like I was shaking for weeks afterward. Unfortunate earthquake nightmares and vertigo ensued. Take care sensitive Midwestern tourists! Come prepared for these West Coast tremors! After a slightly stressful week working on conference papers and navigating the city post-land-jitters, Lydia and her boyfriend Larry took us out to Torrey Pines State Forest and beach, where we walked along the shore, getting wet from the rising tide. As the sun set we came back to the car to find dolphins swimming at the beach, jumping the waves and beckoning us into the Pacific – our first and best introduction to the western ocean. That beautiful evening, paired with great food at Taste of Thai, and homemade tofu scramble the next morning, brought us a sunny and pleasant conclusion to our stay in San Diego.

Driving in Los Angeles was not as desperate an experience as we first imagined. All those weeks watching the L Word gave us an irrational image of LA lesbians stuck in traffic – okay, we really were stuck in traffic, but only for 30 minutes, and Jess was driving the whole time. Not a big surprise! On our way up to LA we stopped at Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Garden in Encinitas, that looks out over the cliffs into the sea. We were extremely happy to drive up a windy hillside street to our Silver Lake home for the weekend, where we stayed with my semi-relative/new-friend Kat. Kat’s taste in everything (food, furniture, art) is immaculate, and her home was a beautiful and eclectic mix of mid-century modern and California/Buddhist décor. We spent Saturday evening with my friend Ben and his GF, sharing an amazing dinner at Local and then going for a drink at a gay piano bar called The Other Side where I saw more 70+ year old gay men in one location than ever before. This was a literally hidden in the wall location that had a tangible aura of pre-Stonewall secrecy. Sunday we had a great morning feasting at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, which continued on to dinner, after an afternoon hike to the Observatory à la Rebel without a Cause. Dining on a scrumptious grilled menu of salmon, veggies (green onions) and peach/plum pie, we watched the smog-filled sunset with Kat and her bff Margaux. Thanks Kat!

Encinitas

Torrey Pines

Pacific

Finding Oases in Sedona

2010-07-31T12:08:00.011-04:00

Friends, its been a while since I sat down to write. We've been so busy traveling and visiting friends that it seems that webpost writing has gone to the wayside. But now we're going to be updating you each day with a new story about our adventures over the past three weeks.

Although, many parts of Arizona are teeming with folks who seem oblivious to the realities of environmental cohabitation and balance, Sedona seems to be an exception. After leaving the Navajo reservation we headed west back on i-40 and picked up state road 89A that took us down about 2,000 feet through an amazing canyon of Ponderosa Pines. The road curves alongside Oak Creek, a creek that seems more like a small river. After not seeing water for a week, the reality of this little flowing brook struck us as a small miracle, and we can only imagine how earlier peoples might have paid care and attention to this waterway. Sedona, not surprisingly, sits at the valley floor, and is surrounded by the Red Rock Mesas for which it is so famously known. As we drove through, we continued to repeat over and over: "I think this may be the most beautiful place we've seen so far." This meeting place of water, sandstone mesa, pine and sun must be partly responsible for the sacredness of this landscape, where many have traveled to find solace and to create new spiritual communities, one of whom were the Anasazi, another the mid-20th century New Age pilgrims.

We were greeted with warmth and welcome when we arrived at the home of David Sunfellow who lives, I kid you not, on Disney Way, the street where Walt Disney drew up his first plans for Disney Land. I've never been a huge fan of Disney, at least in my adolescent and adult lives, but it seems interesting to think about how presumably the place he lived in might have influenced his fantastical creation of another world. Once we entered his home, David sat us down and gave us his full attention, asking us questions that were unusually perceptive and gave us his time and patience as we talked through the previous couple days of experiences with him. David's story of moving to Sedona with his young family was surprising and illuminative of the draw of that landscape, and his work as a photographer and social media developer is worth checking out.

After taking a private hike through some ruins in Northern Arizona that morning, we arrived to David's home in the late afternoon still humming from our experiences there. David helped us continue following whatever called us forth in Sedona, and gave us insight into the history of the New Age community in the area. Some may rightly see the town's new age presence as recently commodified and outlandish, but if you try to peer under the surface of things, beyond the kitsch UFO videos and psychic readers, I believe you can find a uniquely powerful spiritual presence. If you find yourselves there, one place to check out that seems to mix kitsch and authenticity is Chocola Tree.

I learned in Sedona that personal intuition and inner guidance can be more compelling and effective than outside mediated "spiritual experiences" or tours. For example, we had no money and not really the time to attend a vortex tour or other such touristic experiences, so we were happily forced to take on the space on our own time and with our own set of intentions. The lack of resources actually provided the opportunity for us to utilize our intuitions, a perceptual instrument that is often shadowed by more tangible senses like sight and sound. We found ourselves, not surprisingly, at Cathedral Rock, pictured below, which was less than a mile from David's home, filled with both tourists and locals swimming in the 90 degree heat. We had an amazing experience there, finding powerful energetic sites that seemed created uniquely for us - sites which could not be mapped or highlighted for us by others. I say this partly aware of the fact that I may be focusing too much on essence here, speaking of the fact that I had to avoid the crowds and markets in order to get to the authentic reality. We don't really believe in essential truth, essential divinity, or essential bodies today; however, essence can be experienced in fleeting embodied moments, where you are there and not there, with the moment and also distanced from it. If you have had moments of transcendence, its impossible, in my opinion, to completely discount the presence of an unmediated spiritual or energetic reality. If we were pilgrims, in the true sense of the term, there was no altar or relic on which to focus; rather, we had to create our own object or site on which to meditate and find solace. This was a creative and collaborative activity.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Oasis as: " 1) Originally: a fertile place in the Libyan desert. Now: any fertile spot in a desert, where water can be found. Also (in extended use): an area supporting luxuriant plant growth; a piece of productive land in an otherwise unproductive area. 2) A place or period of calm or pleasure in the midst of a difficult or hectic situation; a place of relief, a refuge." Derived from the Greek term, used by Herodotus presumably in his Histories, oasis may be a concept that is particularly useful for us to meditate on in this dramatically changing environment we find ourselves in. Thinking back to images of oases in the Bible or the Koran, the desire for finding fertile and aqueous land in the middle of the desert appears transtemporal and transpatial. And yet, now, more than ever, I would like to think of us, as a global community, doing similar work as the men and women of the ancients: seeking out productive, fertile, and pleasurable places that can support dynamic ecological growth, in the midst of a hectic and damaged world.

Snugs Family

Jess and David

Jess in a Tree (more to come of this genre)

At the water

Cathedral Rock

Hidden National Secrets of Arizona Revealed

2010-07-24T13:48:00.002-04:00

~UFO sightings in Gila Bend
~Miles of irrigated cornfields
~Scary feedlots and bumper stickers that say: “Pelosi Happens”
~Scarier Maximum Security Prisons literally in the middle of nowhere
~Billboards for the current female Governor, which features the Rosie the Riveter image overlaid with the quote: “Doing the job the Feds won’t do!”
~McDonald's restaurants that only have grilled chicken available, as opposed to crispy chicken
~Four immigration checkpoints with signs that warn of drug-sniffing (and human-sniffing) dogs on I-8 driving West towards California. Instead we find 18 year old boys who wave us white women by without question.

As we drive west, seeking to muddle our privileged life on the east coast, certain realities become apparent. Sights of environmental degradation and human incarceration are often hidden from the scenic overlooks and river roads of New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. In Arizona, for example, facts we often desire to ignore are now magnified in the hypervisible starkness of the desert. I was surprised to see so much suburban sprawl and irrigation going on in and south of Phoenix. The unsustainable use of water and chemical pesticides leaves Mexico dry and supports a special kind of American dream world, where corn and soy beans grow in the desert and water comes from a source 1,000 miles away. I see this landscape and can’t think of our fresh water in the Great Lakes threatened by not just local stupidity, but national greed. Barbara Kingsolver echoes this in her book, which we’re listening to while driving: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Seeing the desert climate change around her, Kingsolver and her family decide to move to Western Virginia to start their own farm.

Canyon de Chelly, AZ

2010-07-15T20:03:00.006-04:00

J and J spent fourth of July weekend in Canyon de Chelly, on the Navajo Reservation in Northeastern Arizona. After driving through Gallup and buying a very very messy and melty Dairy Queen, we arrived in Chinle and head straight to our campground, Spiderrock Campground. We recorded our experiences while we were there. Take a listen and let us know what you think! We're experimenting with this form. Enter at your own risk... If player doesn't work, please click on the link below to go to streaming.

Canyon de Chelly Pt 1 by mettamind

Canyon de Chelly Pt 2 by mettamind

Also check out our album of the weekend...

Canyon de Chelly

The Texas Panhandle onto Albuquerque

2010-07-15T19:14:00.005-04:00

After bunking in beautiful Clinton, OK, Jess and I headed west. We were excited to cross into Texas and were even more impressed with the first rest-stop that we found there – this bunker-like structure (an official tornado shelter) was nestled in a hill in the Panhandle, just where the geography began to become somewhat deserted and the topography a bit more rugged and pocked with small but dramatic hills and mini-canyons. Here was the first hint of the larger mesas and buttes we would see as we entered New Mexico.

After passing a very smelly and depressing feedlot we vowed to never eat fast-food beef again. Before heading off to NM, we stopped at the Midpoint Café, a very cute kitschy little restaurant at the official midpoint between Chicago and Los Angeles on Old Route 66. Although we really wanted eggs, we arrived at 1PM, prime lunch time, and treated ourselves to soup and a 6 buck grilled cheese sandwich (the soup was Campbell’s Alphabet soup we’re pretty sure). The highlight, however, was the miraculous and very large piece of lemon meringue pie we shared for dessert. Fueled up with sugar, the courageous travelers continued on, passing suspicious road signs and amazing desert vistas along the path towards Albuquerque. We were absolutely flabbergasted (no really, this is the appropriate term) by the beauty of the desert. We’ve decided we would love to live in NM or AZ as long as we have a non-chlorinated swimming pool in the backyard.*

Upon arrival in the capital of NM, we made our way to our friend Nina’s home, close to the campus of University of New Mexico. Nina lives with a roommate, a rabbit, and 95,000 cats, well really just 5 that we could count: Mama Bitchface, Black Kitty, Badger, Oona, and Sheepy. Even with our allergies, we loved them, especially Black Kitty. Nina - we’re still thinking about adopting the male cat, Sarah Jessica Parker. THANK YOU Nina for our amazing stay. We MISS you!

We were happily amazed to find an Ayurvedic vegetarian restaurant literally 3 blocks from Nina’s home, where we had the most amazing food during our stay: carrot ginger soup, bowls of chana masala, and a mouthwatering ABT sandwich (Avocado, tempeh bacon, and tomato on chipati bread). These were paired with cups of homemade soy chai and cool glasses lavender mint tea. The owner and chef of Anapurna’s comes to NYC to offer cooking lessons, so we’re hoping to find him back home. While we were at Anapurna’s we also came across a jolly woman from Alberta blissed out by her unexpectedly long stay in New Mexico and multi-day visit with Amma. We learned through her enthusiasm that the owner of the restaurant had also met the Mother that week, and had a private meeting in his native dialect with her to talk about food. That and his list of other gurus he had spent time with, plus the food and our wonderful squirrelly host Nina, made us instantly fall in love with the city. We also had some great watermelon tuna ceviche at the Standard Diner and excellent gelato at an unnamed location on Route 66.

In addition to the great food, and countless old-school camera shops (including Kurt’s Camera Corral), Nina was generous enough to take us to the top of Sandia mountain, where we meditated and looked out over the vastly gorgeous views. The experience of Nina driving us up the mountain, around switchbacks in her mid-90s Toyota Corrola was enlivened by the radio blasting the greatest hits of the Smith College Glee Club. As Nina and Jenny sang nostalgically along (at the top of our lungs), Jess smiled tentatively and held on for dear life. We weren’t sure if her emotional response to the top of the mount was a result of our deafening harmonies or just the sublime altitude. The morning before we left, Nina and I took a lovely morning walk around the campus, enjoying the early sunlight, one of the best things about the Southwest.

*Jenny’s more concerned about the swimming needs.

Best Rest-stop ever

I-40 looking north

NM looking west

Trains following the highway

View from Sandia Peak

Looking north from the Sandias - notice the rainfall on the right.

Nina and Jenny

The family

Arkansas and Oklahoma

2010-07-06T12:13:00.005-04:00

It seems like its been centuries since we were driving through Arkansas and Oklahoma, but really it has only been one week! We were lucky enough to stay with our friends Alana and Lisa in their lovely home in Maumelle, AR. THANK YOU A and L for your hospitality! After a lovely grilled dinner with our hosts, we took a long walk with dog and ducks around the main park in the city, looking out for goslings and the dreaded chiggers (thankfully neither of us got bit). The highlight of the visit was the excellent coffee with cinnamon in the morning (a new discovery), great conversation and entertainment by Nico the pup, and the amazing lunch offered to us for the road (sausages and wonderful pasta salad which made us feel very loved and taken care of. Our conversations that night confirmed to us that this trip will be definitely one of spiritual and communal discovery. Everyone we've met so far is grappling with similar challenges: thinking about the environment, the catastrophe in the Gulf, the role of the spirit or the divine in bringing about transformative change, and the ways we as humans can foster a new commitment to balancing and revitalizing the energetic ties that bind us all (plant, human, animal) together.

We were surprised by the beauty and varied landscapes of both Arkansas and OK. On our way down I-40 we took a small hour detour to check out the backwaters of the Ozarks. We drove across the very very wide Arkansas river, meandered around the Mt. Magazine area and came upon Paris, AR with a fabulous mural mixing the Eiffel Tower with backwoods imagery. The very very white town also had a frightening court house that reminded me of Gregory Peck's stand against oppression (albeit sentimental) in To Kill a Mockingbird. On our way out of town, we stopped for a pack of three dogs (two dachshunds and a beagle) crossing the road on their country journey - very much like Disney's Homeward Bound.

By the time we arrived in OK, we were ready for a bit of relaxation and happened upon one of the many native-owned rest-stop/trading posts. This was owned by Cherokees and had a somewhat sad looking buffalo and baby to say hello to, and a mamoth gift shop with handmade items mixed in with stuff from Pakistan. Here we bought some beautiful sweet grass braids. We were very excited to be driving through the many different nations that have their land along I-40. Other observations included the excellent driving skills of Oklahomans (even in rush hour in OK City) and the serious beauty of the plains. Both Jess and I felt drawn to the rolling fields and small hills and gullies that marked the landscape of this state - much more dynamic views than we had imagined. Also, the weather was perfect which nixed my desire/fear of getting caught in a tornado. We were surprised about how much we loved OK. We ended up staying in Clinton at a cheap Super 8, and were welcomed in to the well stocked but not too well visited supermarket of the tiny town on Route 66. Take a look at these pictures and stay tuned for our next installment about the Panhandle, Land of Enchantment, and AZ.

Crossing the Mississippi into AR

Humongous Pentecostal Church outside Little Rock

Arkansas River in the Ozarks (photo doesn't capture the immensity)

Paris

Oklahoma

We know this is wrong, but we couldn't resist the kitsch.

Sad Buffalo (made me literally cry). However, I've heard that all buffalo look sad, so maybe this wasn't a state of exception.

Tennessee

2010-06-30T21:38:00.006-04:00

Welcome to our online effort to document our summer road trip across the country. We're glad you're here...

At the end of our second long day of driving we made it to Nashville, TN. After stopping to visit Mr. and Mrs. VK in sweaty Charlottesville, the errant travelers headed south on I-81 to pickup the eastern beginnings of Interstate 40.Besides repetitive cross trinities, the highlight of our journey was the sunset over the mountains of central Tennessee, as the sun shined out through bands of fog and mist. Every so often we would pass a river valley being swallowed by blankets of fog. We arrived in Nashville tired, vibrating and happy to get off the highway.Thankfully, we were blessed with a perfect place to sleep, with our new friends Abbey, Brian and family.The RV, motorcycle and car in the driveway were evidence to the fact that we had arrived at a home of fellow travelers. Tucked away on a backcountry road only 15 minutes from the city center, the surrounding woods around the house echoed with the overwhelming sound of cicadas.We woke in the morning to fresh goat milk, toast, homemade cherry preserves and eggs. The most memorable moment was when we toured the impressive vegetable garden with Abbey, while a pack of coyotes yelped and howled in the not-so-distant hills. Photos to come...

Fog Valleys

Tennessee Sunset

V for Victory

Fear of Chick-fil-A

Setting

2007-08-29T09:11:00.000-04:00

We arrived back in New York on Thursday evening, almost a week ago today. I can feel my body gradually begin to vibrate with the tempo of the environs here in Manhattan - and I miss the almost unbounded quality of the embodied experience of the woods and lake. It's been difficult getting back into the hard hitting swing of things. Yet slowly (but surely) I am beginning to feel the enthusiasm for the term hiding behind the sadness of losing my weeks of freedom. The best news is I feel an intellectual vigor beginning to sprout. Just in time for the big project!

The memories of home are pretty strong the past couple days. This morning I look back at the setting summer in the hopes of still catching a glimpse of it this weekend. Thankfully those 1880s socialist union organizers decided Labor Day was a good idea for the nation -- and we'll be back on Monday to celebrate the founding of this holiday in its home town of NYC.

We hope that all the wonderful people we saw along the way and the warm embraces we recieved from family and friends will sustain us as we move forward. At least that is my hope.

2007-08-05T09:16:00.000-04:00

I seem to have a hard time composing these entries without the help of a visual aid to spur my thoughts. Usually writing comes in the morning, when I have just woken up (as it is today), and my dreams are the first thing that come to mind. Dreams don't seem to be an appropriate conversation starter on a blog; neither does my to do list. So I attempt to go back or go forward, anyplace that conjures a moment where life seemes a tiny bit simpler than now -- a Sunday of work piled up, cool overcast summer skies and crickets chirping steadily outside the window, like drops of rain. The power of nostalgia makes the past become enhanced by a glow, like a hazy circle around a setting sun, that often is more evocative than the simpicity of the present moment. Thankfully though, conjuring in all its forms does make us aware of the senses. Writing these sentences has already made my morning more pleasant than it would have been without this post. Meta-conversatioin here, folks.

So this photo brings me back to a long, long day of driving -- 12 hours or so -- from Brunswick, Maine to Ithaca, New York. With little money and little food Jess and I set out from Maine only to become lost on a backroad detour. Maine cowpaths are even worse than Boston. From there we traveled through the pick-up truck encrusted byways of Southeastern New Hampshire, the land of the weekend family vacation. Stopping at a Wendy's for lunch, Jess and I scarfed down the meatful or meatless food (depending on our personal piccadilies that noon) served with a side of condiments. Then onto I-91 through the southern tip of Vermont to Massachusetts, the Turnpike and the Taconic Parkway. By the time we exited the Taconic we were ready for home, but sadly we still had about four more hours to go, much of which we took through the two-lane highways of the Hudson Valley, crossing the Hudson at its more riverlike width at its namesake Hudson, New York. At one point we climbed up a mountain in the Catskills where I thought I was going to fly off the highway out into the sky (unfortunately I was driving). We weaved our way through small valley towns where the cemeteries were bigger than the Main streets and citizens seemed to hide behind checkered gingham curtains in their old 1930's dilapidated homes. Little inhabitants could be found besides a lone 12-year old boy slowly riding a BMX bike down the wrong side of the road. It was amazing to me that these communities survive and are part of the state of New York, a state where 500 miles away you still find roadsigns pointing to New York City and state-line posters boasting of the Statue of Liberty near the far west Pennsylvania border. It was an exhausting, strange day, but a day that was off the highway, and hence more memorable than many.

Pathway's End

2007-07-21T10:09:00.000-04:00

After speaking with our friendly neighbor on our last day camping I learned of a beaver pond accessible from our campsite. The name of our site, Sunny Landing, perplexed us for days as we could not untease the use of the term "landing" for a site completely untouched by water. But the discovery of the beaver pond cleared the way for a logical etymology of our place in the woods.

Walking through the small meadow adjacent to our tent site, where the sun filtered through young-growth trees to offer warmth on the cooler mountain days, I trampled on over to the path now over grown in the far corner. Following the pathway, now becoming less covered with high grass and discarded tree branches to reveal the sandy bottom underneath, I made my way to what I thought to a clearing at its end. Slowly, the sound of multiple bullfrogs began to reach my ears and then, I arrived at my destination, a magnificently large beaver pond, half marsh and half freshwater. Once stately trees broke up the stillness of the pond surface, now drowned to become lonely yet still majestic stumps.

Up until this point the only beavers I had come across were in our own "beaver pond" known as Paradise Pond at Smith College. Beavers have always been a favorite animal of mine, no pun intended, perhaps starting in the zoo scene in Lady and the Tramp. In any event, no beavers were to be had at my morning visit that day in July, but the stillness and discovery still registered a warmth that I look forward to finding again on our journeys. Walking down a path in the woods, to its end, and discovering where it leads, albeit Frost-ean, is an extraordinary happening.

Forest Roads

2007-07-20T08:42:00.000-04:00

After 3 hours of searching out the most comfortable and beautiful campsite possible, J and I came across a small dispersed campsite near Ripton, VT at the deadend of a tree-covered forest road. Forest roads are different from regular dirt roads in a couple ways: first off, they are less driven upon and often serve as pedestrian trails more often then vehicle runways; secondly they are hard to traverse by car, with large gaping holes in the dirt floor and steep shoulders down to rock encrusted rivers and creeks; thirdly they are hence the antithesis of anonymous, if you see a being on the road, whether human or animal, eye-contact most certainly is made and hands waved.

As our little slice of a forest road was on the side of a mountain (think our childhood fantasy My Side of the Mountain) clouds rolled by, both rain-bearing and innocent, often close enough to reach out and touch. The road was also the scene of evening walks after dinner to explore the woods together, afternoon drives up steep pathways, and morning expeditions to photograph and lose myself.

One of these mornings, our last morning camping, I met Nola, our neighbor, who we had seen other mornings walking her dogs with friends. She walked like an older farmer, perhaps from years of cross country runs, and had a warm smile with a melancholy tint. She told me of the changes seen in the forest over the years she has lived there, and explained of her feeling of the world pushing in on their little corner of wilderness. Escaping the tri-state area 20 or so years ago, she came to Vermont to find a simpler life and perhaps became, according to my own semi-touristic perspective, a steward of the forest life-ways. Fighting rifle ranges, logging, and the tossing of Budweiser cans, she doggedly keeps on with the important work one person can do to protect the small environmental oases we are lucky enough to visit. Shaking my hand, she invited us back and thanked us for being the kind of campers so welcome in the neighborhood. The friendliness of a stranger on the road put me on a natural high for hours.

You can easily get lost in the forest, each road looking a bit the same. J and I couldn't find our campsite our first morning there, after returning with supplies from town. But perhaps that isn't such a bad thing after all. For being off the map, you can trace your own swath of land and open your thoughts to creativity and purpose, free from the markings of media and "the grid."

Freedom

2007-06-29T09:56:00.000-04:00

So we're off on our road trip, or what is a cheap escape from the city. Went from 90 degree heat on cement to 68 degree coolness and fresh air in the Pioneer Valley. Felt like coming home, but with no responsibility, to be here in Northampton. Isn't that what we all crave once we reach 25 -- freedom from responsibility? That word can really weigh on our shoulders, even if we may be childless and officially done with graduate school duties for atleast a month.

J and I are finally relaxed and I think ready to revise the daily duties of worry and guilt into something more flexible, light, and tender. The happiness of a cloudy day in Massachusetts with no appointments or reasons to rush is upon us. Thank the lord! It is truly amazing how one place can invoke something so different from another, illuminating different energies, casting hope or fear in one fell swoop without a change of weather. Going over the GW Bridge into New Jersey is a move against the national itinerary - and it feels so damn good -- even if you are entering New Jersey! :)

We're on to Vermont and the Green Mountain National Forest. Here's a preview of what is to come, from our experiences on our earlier trip home to Michigan. Let's hope the rain clouds stay in the past and the Americana keeps on coming.