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I've not blogged since April for three reasons (cough::excuses).
1) The weather; if it's not raining, I feel like I'm wasting time being indoors.
2) I've been a reading fiend; I have taken a timeout from my own personal writing, quit watching most TV, and am making a concerted effort to read as much as possible.
3) My blog domain (slightobsessions.com) expired and I don't even want to tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with GoDaddy and Google to get it back online. But I'm back now.
Tonight I also opened my road trip memoir draft for the first time in months. It's the most daunting personal project I've ever taken on, but I know it has potential to be the most rewarding. Sharing a short excerpt below—FIRST draft, let's just put that out there—from the day my brothers and I arrived at the Grand Canyon.
My copy of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die has begun to split its seam and, if dropped, falls directly to page 568—The Grand Canyon, Nature’s Masterpiece. It rests on my bare thighs, open, but I’m not reading anymore. I pull my vinyl lanyard pouch from the zippered pocket inside my purse, plucking our AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL annual pass from its safe place and handing it to Trey as we pass through the gate. It looks like a credit card, but instead of a bank logo in metallic colors stamped across the front, there’s a palm-sized photo of the Nankoweap Ruins at the Grand Canyon, a rust-red stonewall built into the sheer sides of the cliff, with the Colorado river winding along in the background. The south entrance of the park is thick with wide-eyed lanyard toters like us. We loop around the parking lot once before Trey makes his own spot, pulling off the pavement with two tires into the dirt.
“So. Many. People.” I roll my eyes, because it really does bother me and at the same time I know I sound like my mother, who can’t stand to be among throngs of people for any purpose, state fair, Christmas shopping, or a vacation-destination grocery store the Saturday of timeshare check-in.
The swirl of thoughts—of home, of Mom, of how much I’m becoming her—leaves my head abruptly. The sky opens up and out, enormous suddenly with nothing between me and it, no trees or buildings within my directly line of sight. We walk the dirt path toward the canyon, leaving the cars behind, and then I see it, like the mouth of Mother Earth split open, the canyon plummets downward as sharply as the sky above it swells. The enormity of the scale is too much, and I feel my brain flicker and falter, as though time slows down, and the light that filters through my cornea, processing and flipping this reflection of the world’s deepest gouge moves much slower than the speed of light. I slow my pace, instantly dizzy. Is this what vertigo feels like?
We are here. We are standing at the front door of the Grand Canyon, what John Muir described as “unearthly in color and grandeur and quantity of its architecture as if you had found it after death, on some other star.” It took the earth 2 billion years—summers, springs, falls, winters—to deliver this. I busy myself with taking pictures, standing just off the path, the tears rising hot and quick, feeling infantile and invisible next to this magnificent pit of wonder and latitude.
It’s the same reaction I have when I stare at the stars too long or a handful of beach sand too closely. Beautiful things that will outlive me and everyone I love. And yet we’re here, day in and day out, caring about things—should I buy this shirt in blue or green, do I want an omelet or French Toast, should I marry him or join the Peace Corps—things that amount to less than a blink of an eye on the timeline of natural life, world life. Clouds dot the pale blue sky, casting wide gray shadows onto the floor of the canyon beneath us, adding another layer of complexity to the already jagged floor.
“Masterpiece,” I breathe to no one, just to say it aloud, the words leaving my lips in a pouf of carbon monoxide, mingling with the same pool of air that flows down and across the canyon.
Damn near forgot I had a blog...
Update! March Memoir Madness was a success. I wrote for a half hour every day ::cough:: with a few exceptions—staying focused on Fridays is nearly impossible!
The best part about going through that exercise is it's breathed new life into old writing and—frankly—gotten me excited again about a project I'd fallen slightly out of love with: a memoir of the month-long cross-country road trip my brothers and I took in 2009.
March 1 | 17,800 words
April 24 | 30,100 words
That's about 115 pages. But in terms of storyline, I'm only this far...
That puts us at the Grand Canyon, our 5th stop out of 16. So many more stories to tell...
The journey continues!
I may be mediocre at most things, but I'm spectacular at procrastinating.
The memoir I started writing last January has sat untouched in a Dropbox folder since—June? Pitiful.
As much as I love writing, I'm easily distracted by TV. By instagram. By the two needy puppies who are as annoying as they are cute.
In an effort to get off my lazy lump and make some writing progress, I've instituted #MarchMemoirMadness.
On March 1, I wrote for 30 minutes. On March 2, I did it again. And today, yet again.
I'm committing to this for one month, in the hopes that it will turn from a chore into a habit, from a habit into a hobby.
17,800 words and counting...
P.S. You're welcome to steal this idea and customize, making it March [insert your goal here] Madness.
The previously unused space beneath our staircase has been reinvented. It's now the Writing Cove, future site of my memoir authorship. You read that correctly, memoir authorship. Feels scary and exhilarating at the same time to actually write that "out loud" and commit to it.
But it's happening, so I might as well blog about it. I've begun what promises to be a long and strenuous and exciting process—turning a month-long road trip into a 70,000-word story. The post-it note front and center reads, "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts." Just a little reminder that I'm sure I'll need.
Here goes.
60 days ago — the last time I bothered to blog — it was August 20. Sunny, high of 95. A regular Friday.
I go to work, eat lunch, drive home, pack a suitcase. Put the suitcase in Ryan's 4Runner and we head north to Chi City, listening to Kanye's Graduation album on repeat (Chi City, Chi City, do you think about me now and then, do you think about me now and then, cuz I'm coming home again.)
"I was thinking we could walk around downtown when we get there and test out the new camera," he says.
"Cool."
There's a superfine mist blowing through Chicago, the kind that keeps vegetables alive at the grocery store. The sky is dusty mahogany and starless. We click our way through the city like true tourists, stopping to take too many pictures and kissing on street corners.
Down Michigan Ave and through Grant Park until we arrive here, at Buckingham Fountain. The skyline is unreal and we soak it in. The park is filled with spectators and loud parade music, and I'm exceedingly upset by a pack of preteen boys who are chasing down a scared little rabbit. We start back toward the hotel.
I'm still worrying about the "poor bunny" and Ryan keeps trying to change the subject. He's recounting minute details of a long walk we took on a rainy night years ago, asking 'remember this?' and 'remember that?' until I blurt out, "You never remember our dates, why do you remember so much about that night?"
"Because that's when I knew I loved you."
Even though I'd asked for details plenty of times, he's never told me this before — the first time he knew he loved me. Why is he telling me now? I'm wondering, and the pieces come together like a Jenga game in reverse. He's carrying a backpack. He's wearing cargo shorts. That's a lot of storage space. He seems nervous. He's never nervous. He's making me nervous.
The sign in front of Millennium Park says 'closed' but we go in anyway. He sets the camera up to take a picture of us on the park bench. He's fiddling with it, and fiddling and fiddling.
"Why don't you just have someone else take our picture?" I ask. People stream past, a few stragglers like us in the park after hours. And then there were two. The park is empty. My heart is pounding. He hits the camera button and walks toward the bench where I'm sitting. Kneels in front of it. And before he can say anything, at that supposed pinnacle of one's romantic life, what do I say?"You are not doing this right now!" "Yes, I am." He says. And he says much more, words that I will always remember and rarely share. We're wrapped up and talking and I'm on the verge of tears, and don't even notice the security guard until he shouts, "The park is CLOSED. Ya gotta get out."
So we relocate. We drink a glass of champagne at an overpriced bar. We stare at my hand and hold each others. We can't stop smiling and our faces ache, in a good way. A very good way.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled Road Trip Recap.
I'm sorry to say that Roswell, NM does not warrant its own blog post. Given the chance to do it again, I would bypass the town and head for Carlsbad Caverns or White Sands Monument. But instead, we had the privilege of camping at Bottomless Lakes State Park, which they should consider renaming "Endless Mosquito Bites State Park," or "Deer Flies That Bite Through Clothing State Park," or any number of things more descriptive. This is how I happened to become the proud owner of one genuine mesh head-net. Jealous?
On to more worthwhile ventures: Arizona. Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Page. Northern Arizona seeped into my blood and now I desperately want to live there. I know I just moved to a new state, but my next new state will be this one... one day.
From the Grand Canyon South Rim you can see the North Rim. It doesn't look that far. If you had a small plane, a helicopter, some go-go-gadget wings, you could zoom right across. But to drive around the Canyon... now that is an experience you don't want to miss.
One of the few places to get supplies en route to the North Rim is Tuba City. In Tuba City, the only place to buy food is Basha's. And inside of Basha's, signs are written in a strange-looking Native American language (luckily for us, they were also translated into English).
Shortly afterward comes this: the first time I truly doubted the intelligence of my GPS unit. A "shortcut" about 8 miles long, that took us 45 minutes to drive.
But at the end of a very long day, it was worth it. Watching the sunset from the North Rim could make even the most committed atheist second-guess himself.
Austin, Texas. Nice place to visit, bad place to camp in July. When it's still 90 degrees at midnight, the last thing you want to do is look at a sleeping bag, let alone curl up in one. But the highlights of our short stay were worth the sweat and tears.
Highlight #1: Greg Laswell at Stubb'sStubb's is famous first for their BBQ and second for their concerts. Or maybe the other way around. After dinner, we made our way to the basement for the show. No air conditioning, but I had a good spot ten feet from the stage, and a cheap Lone Star beer, and I even got to talk to him afterward... when I promptly plugged Atlanta (their next gig) and recommend breakfast at Flying Biscuit. Gotta represent the A.
Highlight #2: Barton Springs
Here is what made the heatwave bearable —
Barton Springs. Thirty million gallons of spring-fed, stone-bottomed, 65-degree goodness. We parked our overheated selves in the water for about five hours.
Highlight #3: The BatsBy day, the Congress Ave bridge is quite ordinary. But every evening around dusk, tourists stand elbow to elbow. Underneath the seemingly unremarkable bridge sleep 1.5 million bats, the world's largest urban bat colony. More than the sight of it, the sound was a bit unnerving.
Above all else, go to New Orleans for the food and you won't regret it. Muffaletta sandwiches, Jambalaya, Cafe du Monde beignets and coffee.... I'm not ashamed to say I ate my way through the French Quarter.
Beyond that, it's a beautiful old city. Perhaps the American version of Venice: awesome and historic, yet sinking and smelly. And haunted. But unfortunately, the scariest part of our ghost tour was when a dark shape scurried past me on the sidewalk (I screamed, of course, thinking it was a rat, but it was only a pigeon who was too fat to fly).
We rode the street cars to the Garden District, where Mardi Gras beads hang like fanciful icicles from phone wires and peaks of million-dollar homes. Oh, to have a rich Great Aunt Gertrude who lived there!
And what trip to the Big Easy would be complete without an outing on Bourbon Street? We spent a chunk of time at this karaoke bar, Cat's Meow, with a bird's-eye view of the stage, where a Kid Rock wannabe sang one terrible song after another. All in all, highly entertaining.
First of all, I can't tell you how nice it is to have access to a clean toilet 24 hours a day. In the past month of traveling, I have experienced the most revolting public restrooms in all of America. And what's worse than a nasty bathroom, is no bathroom... for miles and miles and miles. It's enough to make you dehydrated as hell.
But, believe it or not, I have more exciting things to write about. I'll post recaps of the places we visited as soon as I can get my photos in order. For now, I'm glad to be back in Georgia... even if the humidity is so thick it's like the earth giving you a big warm sweaty hug.
...and so much to say! Alas — here are two quick shots from the Grand Canyon North Rim. Will hopefully have internet in LA (we'll be getting there on Friday) and can catch up a bit. Miss you all, xoxo.
All packed and ready to go. Not much room to spare. I could write so much more about the insanity of today (how my family freaked out at the 11th hour, thinking we needed to rent a car, trying to find a rental SUV on a holiday, almost taking MARTA to the airport in search of one, etc.) but it's late. We're leaving in 8 hours. I'm going to bed. Happy 4th of July! Catch you on the flip side.
After searching high and low, through the back alleys of eBay and the dusty corners of overpriced antique shops, I found this beauty today at Value Village.
Mom's best guess is it's from the late 60's or early 70's, and it's in pretty great shape (after I attacked it with OxiClean). The greatest part: it only cost me two bucks.
My plan is to get a bumper sticker from each city we stop in, and stick them on the suitcase as we go. Oh yea. The ultimate souvenir.
Road trip starts in 19 days. I wish I could take you all with me, but since I can't, here is the next best thing.
If you glance to the right side of the page, under the header "right now," you'll find a link to my Twitter page. I'd love to post pictures and blog from the road, but I'm not sure how much internet time we'll have. BUT... I can post updates to Twitter via text message — so that's what I plan to do. How's that for tech savvy? And I was a Journalism major!
June 2005: a muggy mid-family-vacation Jekyll Island night, my brothers and I had a flash of brilliance — WE SHOULD TAKE A ROAD TRIP TO CALIFORNIA!
Four years later, we've actually found a way to make it happen. We leave Atlanta on July 5, and we'll return (barring any technical snafus, fingers crossed) August 3.
This will be a serious dollar-stretching journey, as we're trying to stick to a budget of under $2,000 (each). Sounds like a lot, but not when you add up food, gas & lodging for 30 days of travel.
I would LOVE to hear any recommendations you have for things we should see along the way!
Here's our route:
New Orleans
Austin
Roswell, NM
Flagstaff, AZ
Grand Canyon
Zion National Park, UT
Bryce Canyon, UT
Las Vegas
Los Angles
Morro Strand, CA
San Francisco
Yosemite National ParkDeath Valley National Park
Mesa Verde, CO
Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO
[Somewhere random in the panhandle of Oklahoma]
Lake Dardanelle, AR
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