Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

 Two weeks into a six-week solo voyage, I finally felt my nervous system start to settle.  Settle after nine months of constant alert, nine months of wonder, nine months of life on hold.  Since April, my Dad's throat cancer has been clear, but the lung is being watched, and the trach had to come out weeks after the last radiation.  My Mom has been holding her own.  They're stable, and for the most part, my autoimmune chaos has been manageable.  Mom and Dad needed me here, in the states, so I took a few weeks this summer to scratch off a handful of National Parks and a dream--long overdue--road trip I've long talked about.  So, two weeks into a six-week hiking trip, I finally felt myself settle.  The solitude has been a welcome relief from nights and days of endless dark wonder.   In Montana, after visiting Kansas City, Wind Cave and the Badlands in South Dakota, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and Custer State Park (SD),  I felt myself...

How does one start the next narrative? I do not know, yet here I am.   I'm back in Greece after a blissful month in the South of France.  There, I had elongated days filled with walks, stone fruits bleeding with juice, and the clicks of heels along smoothed cobblestones.  Of course, I stopped in Paris for a few sunsets, and then I spent nearly a month in Aix.  Knowing me as an urban dweller mainly thriving from smog and city noise, friends were keen to watch me as the days rolled by.  I have a hunch a few had bets I would lose my cookies and run back to the winding streets of Paris with panhandlers and pickpockets, tourist queues, and the endless noise and complacent stress of city life.  Instead, as the days lingered, I found a rhythm and solace within the small town.  Vendors at the market started to recognize me; the cafe I went to for iced coffee treated me as a local after my third visit--realizing I was there a long haul--as I blundered my F...

The view from my terrace.  Do I ever have to say goodbye? It's funny how a language comes back in an instant.  At the end of June, I hopped on a Turkish Airlines flight for Greece, and in that course of life, I found my barely used Turkish coming back as I heard the stewardess talking to each other and passengers.  On that flight, from NYC to Instanbul, I was in the middle seat between two dudes taller than me.  They were both the most polite and kind passengers I've encountered in . . . well, forever.  One insisted on helping me schlep my tote bag to the overhead compartment (my bag of medications, yes . . . and that's embarrassing to have that many prescription drugs for two months).  The other made sure I was left a flight bag and water when I dozed off.  In essence, it was a good combination.  I read, slept, and watched some blah movies.  We all did.   As the flight carried on for nine hours, I responded to the stewardess in Tur...

Last month, in what has become a yearly tradition, I replenished my soul in the Rockies.  Climbs along trails, falls along paths, and miles alone, and one hike with a partner all brought me endless doses of vitamin D and countless moments of elongated breathes and moments that will bounce in my mind's eye for days and years to come.  Sometimes the weather, the gods, and the universe align.  As I've alluded before, the Rockies and Colorado tend to bring out the universe aligning for me.  That being said, along the way I'm reminded of things.  Well, more than just things per se.  A couple of years ago I published one of my favorite pieces.  Yeah, I know . . . I shouldn't play favorites with the writings, so please don't tell the others.  But, my little piece on the transcendence of the soul in Turkey still rings true on many levels.  Even more so, or more of a side note, every time I head to the Mediterranean it turns into a comedic sideshow ...

When summer began, it came in with a series of blows destroying the crops in their wake.  Looking back it paints like a series of farm stands, succulent and fruitful from afar but upon closer examination, the wells of fruit have wilted and rotted under the sun's eye waiting for the next unsuspecting onlooker.  Well, technically that was the end of spring and beginning of the upcoming season.  A couple of months later I'm waking up front the jolts, gasping for air, and--as usual--looking at the changes, carnage, and circus of it all. The summer began with learning a cousin died . . . Another one this year.  This one, one I was fairly close to for years and years died at 49 . . . On his bathroom floor, I hear.  Lessons of the past I don't have it in me to go into, he and I parted angry ways half a decade ago.  Addictions and misgivings left a lot of the be said.  A lot to be desired.  Damage was done, to everyone and especially me, and with h...

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.   Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.   In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.   Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.   Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.   I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.   What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.   I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as...

I haven't really posted anything about sewing in a while, since--well--probably in earnest since before Oregon . . . in all fairness, I doubt anyone wants another run down of my sculpting scraps into a swanky, borderline hooker bra, the abuse I'm giving my serger with a well crafted raglan after another, or of the hilariously obscene things I add to the crotches of my jeans and say while making them (okay the fly details are just drop dead jovial, and I will not apologize for kisses on my fly, compasses, or xoxo labels). Yet . . . I've also found myself making more basics and eschewing the need to deviate from classics, tried and true, and what I know works.  Why? Part of that comes from the six or so weeks I spent out left last summer.  I left New York with a backpack, a carry on, and one well-crafted suitcase.  In two months--during insomnia hours--reading and pinning notes on the capsule wardrobe craze, and then I spent several days combing through my closet and dr...