Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

I haven't lived in the mountains in years.  In about sixteen to be exact.  That was when I found myself living in Las Cruces, NM with the Organ Mountains in the background. Then I moved back east, and headed northeast to New York.  Yet, in years of moving and shuttling about I forgot and suppressed the memories of where I started.  Seattle.  All those years ago.   I'm in Oregon for the month, on work and research officially and more so is the resounding reset of me.  Pretty much from the moment I exited the Portland Airport a sense of comfort and ease began to settle in on me.  One of those moments when you realize you are home . . . in my case it was a home I always knew I had, but along the years I had suppressed it and moved on.  In the days since, things have fallen in place like natural kismet, without strenuous effort and with buttered ease.  I started out in Seattle, and we lived in a little house on A Street in Tac...

It's been two weeks now, I think.  Today I'm sitting at the Eastern Iowa Airport, situated in the middle of a veritable corn field, heading on the next leg of my late summer journey.  Farther left, farther west.  Farther removed from the city I've long called home, that's no longer feeling like home, and yet within the same proximity to those I chatted away that night with . . . a coup, a message, a saving stream of wifi. Sitting at my computer, working on a fellowship app I was about two minutes from pushing back for a break of coffee and idle work around my apartment, but like any red blooded western soul I opted to divert my eyes and head with a couple seconds of Facebook scrolling.   That’s when the messages from friends in Turkey popped up about low flying jets, and then someone saw a tank . . . 3pm turned into a protracted timeline of messages, chats, and a game of holding our collective breaths.   Ironically, or perhaps poetically, the app is to spend fi...

A few months ago I found myself in Providence, RI.  This week I'm in Iowa City, IA for writing and work, and as I find myself continually lost among the corn stalks and melting under the sun's burning rays intensified in this open, almost barren, Midwest heat I leave you this.  In the 2002 movie The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Ashley Judd’s character flees home, family, and perhaps sanity as she escapes to a seaside hotel.   Awaking a day or so later, she learns from the hotel operator how much time has passed.   In that moment, the power of revitalization has taken over.   The viewer can almost see the sweet relief in her shoulders, even as she frantically calls her children.   Yet, the power and pressure of the young—and even more mature—mother is not the only narrative here.   Women, across the board, are all in need of that frantic night away.   The solitary night, in a bed you didn’t have to make, sheets you didn’t have to w...