The Art of the Roadtrip: Arizona to Nevada

It’s hard to be sure at this point whether or not I will be traveling back to Thailand in 2014 alone or with anyone.

Ideally, my friend who I was traveling with when the tsunami happened will want to go back, but it’s hard to tell right now. The last thing I want to happen is to have to make the decision to go back alone and chicken out at the prospect.

What I thought I could do in the meantime was get used to traveling on my own. Couple that with a love of road trips and I thought I might have a good formula for getting used to traveling on my own. There are a couple big ones and a couple small ones that I definitely want to do before 2014: Charleston, SC & Savannah, GA, New England, Maine & Nova Scotia, West Virginia & the Appalachian Trail, Big Sky Country.

The first one just fell into my lap.

Phoenix>Sedona>Las Vegas>Phoenix.

And thanks to frequent flyer miles, AmEx points, and friend in Vegas for work, it looks like I will have the chance to practice a road trip not only by myself, but on a budget.

It all came together in less than a day. A good friend of mine mentioned that she was heading out to Vegas later this month for work. Jokingly I said that maybe I would come and crash. She was all for it. Once I really started thinking about whether or not I could swing it on such short notice, I realized that this is the type of situation that I thrived in. Just enough structure and security to make me feel comfortable, but enough leeway and potential for adventure to make it exciting.

RomComs at Bedtime: “Patagonia Station”

I have an on-again, 0ff-again relationship with insomnia and one of the things I’ve found that helps is to put on a movie that I have seen a million times and let that act as a sort of lullaby. It turns out that the best movies for me to fall asleep to are romantic comedies. Especially the “we hated each other at first but then we got to know each other because of some ridiculous situation and then we realized we loved each other” variety. The Proposal, The Ugly Truth, Life As We Know It, It’s Complicated, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. They have all been on the rotation list at some point. My DVR is full of them.

Right now, Something Borrowed is playing nightly in my bedroom.

What I have discovered, and maybe not so surprisingly, is that sometimes scraps of these movies find their way into my dreams.

The other thing is that almost every day I wake up with a song in my head. Random selections. Sometimes it’s a current song, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s not even a song I like or have heard for ten years. I’ve always been kind of fascinated by these songs. Where did they come from? What had been rolling around in my subconscious overnight that has morphed into that particular song that I wake up to.

Sometimes they run on repeat for days at a time.

I’ve been thinking about trying to capture them and use them as topics to write about, but by the time I come downstairs, my day has started and the jukebox in my head has been forgotten.

So when I woke up this morning, after remembering a particular vivid dream, I really started thinking about the details of the dream how what I had watched the night before might have influenced what I process in my sleep. I also thought this might be a good place to start writing this stuff down and seeing where it went. If for no other reason to at least capture the sights and sounds of my sleeping hours. I’ve tried to keep a dream journal before, but I find it hard to roll over and immediately start writing, even though I keep a notebook and pen next to my bed.

Sunrooms in January

Today it’s warmish. And by warmish I mean 46 degrees at 2pm. In January. In New Jersey.

Not tropical, not record-breaking, but warm enough – and sunny, I should add – to feel ready for spring. I noticed that the telltale first signs of spring are on their way. A few more birds chirping in the morning, a few crocuses poking up from the cold, wet ground.

We’ve been lucky so far this winter on the East Coast. Only one snowfall so far, and that one, which was earlier this week, was minimal and gone within a couple of days.

It’s a day like today that I find myself with the dog sufficiently walked, the house sufficiently cleaned, and the iPod sufficiently reading my mind, drawn to the sunroom. With the laptop.

It’s also a day that I feeling sufficiently sad for some reason.

I am also being stalked by a song.

Everywhere I went this week, I feel like this song has followed.

In a store, on my computer shuffle, in a movie soundtrack, on my Sirius radio in my office, in the car, in my head when I woke up on Thursday. And now just an hour ago on my iPod as I was walking the aforementioned pooch.

So, of course the only thing to do was to park my ass in the sunroom, open the laptop, and put the fucker on continuous reply and pound away until I got it out of my head.

And to see where all the pounding went.

Especially since when it came on yesterday in my office I burst into tears. Thankfully I work from home.

The Beginning

If I take my own advice, or actually the advice that was given to me, I need start with the end. Because I know the end – the return – the next step is to go back to the beginning and start ploughing through. In my last post, I identified the beginning as my first post to this blog last week. But that’s not the real beginning. That’s just the beginning of this.

Whatever this turns out to be.

The real beginning is a little more elusive. If this story was black and white, the story begins back on Thursday, December 16, 2004, they night I left for my Southeast Asian adventure. But unfortunately it’s not that simple. The shades of gray that live inside this story are myriad, and to pick the exact shade and groundstake it as the beginning is a little tough for me.

For me, the true beginning lies with the reasons behind why the trip happened at all. And to dig those up, I have to go back a little farther. How much farther, I’m not sure, but farther for sure. July, 2004? August, 2002 maybe? September, 2001 or June, 1998 perhaps? Possibly May, 1995? How about August, 1981 or July, 1977? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. But it definitely has to do with what I call “the running”. And when the running started happening goes way far back, farther than I think I need – or want – to go at this point.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Over the past fifteen or so years I have started more pieces of writing than I can count. Have more ideas and outlines tucked away on index cards, in notebooks, and now within iPhone and iPad apps. There is not a tool or a book I don’t have meant to help me delve into all these ideas and create something from them. Something great. Something meaningful. Something that memorializes something about myself.

I haven’t finished any of them. It is entirely possible that the last piece of writing I actually finished was in one of my creative writing classes. In college.

I left my full-time corporate job almost two years ago to start my own freelance business. That was a pretty big accomplishment when it comes to finishing something that I started. One of the reasons I decided to go for it was so I could free up some time to focus on my more creative “passions”. Namely writing, but also photography and even painting. I couldn’t wait to get started. To live a lifestyle that not only paid the bills, but allowed me the freedom to create! Write! Shoot! Paint!

In case you missed it in the paragraph above, you can re-read the first sentence of the second paragraph.

I haven’t finished any of them.

RIP Etta

Today it was announced that Etta James died. Probably best known for her rendition of “At Last“, the romantic and sweeping wedding staple, Etta sadly succumbed to leukemia.

I bring this up because this was one of “those” songs that always reminds me of “that” person. And “that” person is inexorably tied to this story. Especially the part that relates to my problem with relegation.

Just goes to show that everyday, no matter how hard I try, the memory devils are always nipping at my heels. That and the fact that tomorrow marks one year since we’ve been in touch. In the past, I think the longest we had gone was three or four months.

In my head it has sunk in, but my heart just doesn’t want to fully let go. And I’ve wasted so much time. It’s about time to help my heart catch up. It’s about time to help my literally broken heart heal. At last…

The Countdown Begins

I feel like this has been a long time coming. Not the idea of going back, but the actual countdown to the planning, to the return, to the finishing what was started seven years ago.

Seven years ago last month, I became one of the luckiest people on the planet.

I survived the Asian tsunami.

Got out without a scratch. Well, at least no physical ones.

A lot has changed in my life in those seven years. Mostly good stuff, some bad stuff, but nothing as life-changing as that fateful day in December 2004.

Until this past October when I found out about a heart condition that I have had my whole life, and now – to a certain extent – threatens my life again. I don’t talk about this situation as easily as I do the other.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about each of these things.

I wake up each day hoping that today will not be the day my aorta gives out.

I feel like I am now living six months to six months in between CT scans and echocardiograms. Waiting for results that are measured in centimeters.

Wondering why I should be spared this time since I was spared the last.