Colorado/Moab Part 1: Writing Here...

This is the first time I’m trying to write from the road. It’s harder than I thought because I have to take time away from vacationing to sit down and do it and somehow have perspective on what’s going on while it’s happening. To live in the moment and reflect and evaluate all at once is not such an easy task, like a photographer trying to take and edit and process photos all at the same time. Why photographers, you say?  Because right now I’m sitting in our rented Ford Edge at Arches National Park with the sun streaming in behind me, a panoramic view of the park and LaSal Mountains in the distance. When I look up from my computer, there are at least eight, no twelve, no twenty photographers in view  (Greg amongst them) all trying to capture this perfect light, what they call “the golden hour.” Writing while this is happening both puts me in and takes me out of the experience.

Though I always keep a journal whenever I travel, it usually gets littered with all the worries that cling to me when I leave home, so I’m trying to do something different this time, as in only write about the trip and get it publishable by tomorrow. It’s a challenge that I’m forcing myself to meet because one of my imaginary futures is that of a travel writer who writes while touring the world, all expenses paid by my wonderful insights, style, knowledge, and enormous and dedicated following.

In the real world, as in the one I’m living in right now, travel is a mixed bag. It gives me a lot of time I don’t usually have to sit around in a car or plane and think about things I haven’t quite worked out yet. Small issues, like what will I do with the rest of my life? Or why do I even think I can afford being on this trip right now? And because the sun has just set and the golden hour/15 minutes is almost over, I’ll backtrack and tell you how this whole trip started.

We left Buffalo on Saturday heading to Denver for a trek up to Estes Park for some strolling, scribbling and picture snapping (aka hiking, writing and landscape photography). The plane had some weirdness but I actually slept that deep sleep that only happens in the comfort of an airplane seat where you’re sitting pretty much upright so your head occasionally bobs forward like it’s about to fall off, startling you into wakefulness. But when the plane finally lands you get off fully rested (right?) and begin the search for your luggage which in Denver involves a long train ride to the baggage claim followed by crowds and confusion, hoards of lumbering sheep who are practically begging you to clock them in the knees with your suitcase as they hover close to the carousel refusing to move as you squeeze in to grab your bag weighing only slightly under the 50 lb. weight limit.

On to another moving vehicle, a bus to the car rental pick-up where the agent who couldn’t seem more disinterested asks how we are and where we’re going, then proceeds to skillfully hustle us into upgrading our vehicle to something bigger that will be more powerful, safer and more expensive for taking us into the mountains. I keep saying, “Budget, budget…” and Greg says, “But we really could use a bigger…” and we wind up with a full-size SUV that is quite nice but $125 over what we were planning on spending, a fantastic bargain by our crafty agent’s standards.

But we’re on our way, a mere hour and a half after landing at 4:30 and we get to see a few streaks of purple and pink through wispy clouds as we head up to Estes Park on a dark and winding road. This time of year in Colorado can bring any kind of weather, but one thing you can rely on when you’re at this elevation is an early sunset and a bit of time allowed for altitude adjustment.

We arrived at our small hotel called “Nicky’s Resort” at about 7:30 PM, a place we found on Expedia for $79 a night in an area where rooms can cost much, much more. But we read the 95% approval rated reviews, which we know can be fake, but in this case, we were in complete agreement with what we saw described on the Internet. The room was small, but clean, and  had a really cute knotty pine decor. We got the cheapest room with a king bed, but if you wanted to pay a bit more, you could get two queens, a fireplace, that kind of thing. We weren’t planning on spending much time in the room so what we got was fine and the location was perfect, quiet and off the road a bit, a short distance from town and Rocky Mountain National Park. The one negative thing we read about was the restaurant which was reported to be expensive and not very good, so we drove five minutes into Estes Park and had dinner at “Mama Rose’s,” one of the many good restaurants there where we enjoyed reasonably priced comfort food in a warm atmosphere with good service.

After a decent night’s sleep Greg left in the dark at 6:05 AM to get his sunrise shots while I stayed back and slept in until 8:30. It was a bit cold when I ventured out wearing my warm weather gear and discovered a lovely path of pine straw and pebbles next to the Fall River complete with the sounds of rushing water over rocks and aspens bright with yellow leaves dappled in sunlight.

That’s when I got it, the realization that whatever this costs money, aggravation or time-wise, is completely worth it. Not only did I need to get away, but I needed to come specifically here, to sit and stare, and dream and write, and reconnect with the beauty of the natural world.  

 

Invisible

Deer at Bryce Canyon by Greg McGill

I recently drove on the New York State Thruway on a sun-drenched autumn afternoon and couldn’t help noticing an astounding number of dead deer lying in various uncomfortable looking positions along the highway. I was traveling at sixty-five miles per hour so I was catching a quick glimpse of contorted corpses, blood and body parts, scattered remains of these lovely creatures strewn across the shoulder of the highway. I kept thinking about how this horror contrasted with the beauty of the leaves changing, the rolling green hillsides and puffy white clouds in a sky the color of morning glories.

I also noticed one young deer against the guardrail in the median whose head was upright and resting gently against the metal, so peacefully, it looked like he was sleeping. Maybe he was dreaming of being reunited with his parents who I’d probably passed on the road before reaching him. 

When I drove home a few hours later, it was pitch dark and I didn’t see much of anything except headlights coming toward me, tail lights in front of me and the white lines guiding on either side of my vehicle. I think it was a moonless night, but when I passed a clearing off to my right, I saw three glowing deer standing on a hillside, just for a second. It was the strangest thing because I couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from. Certainly not my headlights, they were pointed in a different direction. But there they were, lit up like that old “Green Ghost” game I used to play when I was a kid.

The image stuck with me but I didn’t think too much of it until I was safely back home in bed, trying to fall asleep, unsuccessfully, as usual. I thought about the three glowing deer and the ones slaughtered on the highway and wondered if there was any connection. I knew I’d witnessed the secret world of the night deer standing in the field but I also started thinking that what I’d seen glowing might not be of this world at all. That perhaps the ghosts of the slaughtered deer were standing still watching us, trying to make sense of the rushing wheels, why we all needed to get somewhere so fast, while they stood caught in unearthly stillness between this world and another.

I believe in an afterlife, though I’m not a religious person. It’s because of the experiences I’ve had with people close to me dying. My friend, Angela, who died at age 39, was put on life support for a few days after a brain aneurism, and I swear I felt her presence everywhere, except in the hospital room where she lingered. I especially felt her when I was near the lake, but shortly after she was officially dead, her presence faded. I felt that after my mother died too, that she was around for awhile, a white butterfly fluttering through my backyard, but then moved on once she’d checked in on us enough to know we’d be okay.

I don’t know why the deer would stick around. Maybe they too were looking out for their loved ones. Yeah, deer. I think they have feelings. And they certainly have reason to be concerned. The highway is a dangerous place, especially if you’re a wild animal trying to get to the other side in this life or the next. But I also think that the deer, and other things too, are looking at us, noticing what we humans are up to, even if we’re not too keen on looking back. There’s a lot out there, though it sometimes goes by in a blur. There's so much more we could be getting in touch with, if we would just slow down enough to appreciate what's going on around us.

A Small Thing at the Playground

My beautiful young Mom

            I’m walking back home from the grocery store across the field near the playground and I notice this sign that says, “No smoking, young lungs at play.” It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time because when I was growing up and all the horrors of secondhand smoke were known and ignored, people smoked everywhere. And God forbid anyone should object to people smoking outside! It’s outside for Christ’s sake! What could be the problem with that?

My mother was a smoker so I got to enjoy secondhand smoke in my very own home. Everyone smoked back then, (except my dad) especially on T.V. and in movies, so it seemed like the most glamorous thing for my beautiful young mom to be holding a cigarette in her hand or to her lips nearly all the time, except for when she was drinking or eating. The way she would hold it, just so, was nothing short of graceful; Ingrid Bergman Casablanca graceful. Smooth, romantic, utterly cool.

I think I was around five when I started picking up my mom’s cigarette and pretending to smoke it, holding it exactly right between my two stubby fingers then sweeping it to my lips, where I just, you know, placed it gently and kind of puffed. This was all fine and dandy until my dad saw me one day and decided to teach me a lesson or kill me, I’m not sure which. He told me to suck in on the cigarette like Mommy did and low and behold I nearly choked to death. I don't know if I turned blue, but I never did smoke or even touch a cigarette after that. Lesson learned. Stay away from Daddy.

Though my Mom was the lone smoker in our nuclear family we often went to my grandparents’ house where everyone (except my grandfather) smoked. My mother had three siblings and among them were more than ten marriages so it’s hard to keep track of how many of the spouses smoked, but I know that my sister and I and our revolving door of cousins often were stuck in a fourteen by eighteen foot room with as many as fifteen smokers. We repeatedly complained of headaches and were told to go outside or down cellar to my grandfather’s office but not without first being reprimanded for whining and complaining about something that had nothing to do with their smoking.

My grandmother believed in smoking like her mother believed in Jesus. She allowed her children to start as early as they wanted, my mother at eleven! She also encouraged my sister and me to try it and not be such “goody-goodies.” We would have nothing to do with it, but I did enjoy eating the gin-soaked olives she left in her martini glasses that (sans pimentos) fit very well on my tiny little fingers.

I know this sounds like child abuse by today’s standards but these are not unpleasant memories, except for the smoking. We also ate at these gatherings and my grandmother, “Gammy,” made this salad we called “Gammy Salad.” It consisted of soggy iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise-drenched tomatoes, onions, and (here’s the really good part) little slivers of Swiss cheese! The reason it was so soggy was because of the endless cocktail hours that preceded dinner. There were pitchers of martinis that kept getting emptied and refilled, I kept eating the olives as an appetizer, and before you knew it, the main course, “Gammy Chicken soaked in French Dressing” was so over-cooked that it was falling off the bones (yes, chicken had bones in those days) and it was delicious!

Gammy never quit smoking, even after several operations to reopen the collapsed veins all over her body. She never got lung cancer. She did have emphysema, but I don’t ever really remember her being very sick. Near the end of her life, she brought a handsome young man as her escort to my mother’s third wedding. This same guy was a pall bearer at her funeral. She did whatever the hell she wanted. She was not a nice person, but she was an accidentally amazing cook!

My mother was the only one amongst her siblings who died directly from a smoking-related illness; emphysema at the age of 64. She did quit smoking in her late 50’s but by then it was too late. Her husband died of lung cancer seven months before her death.

Smoking kills people. It really does! I’m glad that a few young lungs will be spared by the sign next to the playground. But I also wish that the people I loved who got killed by cigarettes were back with us to enjoy a few moments of smoke-free air around most everywhere now. I’d stand in the sunlight with them, watch the children play and just breathe in all that fresh air.

***

This week’s blog post came from reading (well, skimming) William Zinsser’s The Writer Who Stayed. At age 87 he offered to write a personal essay once a week for the web version of the Scholar and wound up doing so for 19 months! Like me, he also taught writing and loved helping other writers find their voices and get over whatever it is that’s holding them back from writing. For me, it’s finding a subject that I feel comfortable writing about each week and keeping to the deadline like the word dead means something.

I thought about small hands, young lungs, the little mouth that puffed the cigarette and slurped the salad. The joy of childhood, the weirdness, the photos and fragrances (acrid sometimes) that take me back there. And Gammy. She surprised me.

There’s always something worth writing about, if you think small and dig in.

The Playlist

James Taylor and me circa 1970

I’m listening to my Spotify “starred” playlist on shuffle through a bluetooth speaker propped on my kitchen counter. This is all thanks to my son, Zach, who got me an ad free premium membership and the speaker last year for my birthday and I’ve been hooked ever since. It was a little bit of a learning curve for this old girl who’s just figuring out her IPOD, but I’ve enjoyed being able to find all the old music I used to listen to as a kid as well as a good deal of new stuff that really is quite good. I know I’m betraying my generation by saying this, but there is some pretty brilliant music that was made after 1975 and I’m fortunate to be in touch with younger people, like Zach, who point me in the direction of stuff that appeals to me.

I don’t remember a time in my life when there wasn’t music. Starting with my crazy grandfather playing Beethoven symphonies loudly on his RCA console stereo when we visited, to my very young parents introducing us to vanilla early 60’s music, like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checkers. Yes, I grew up on songs like “Swingin’ School” and “Wild One,” as well as “Twist Again” and “Ballin’ the Jack.” My parents also listened to Barbra Steisand and I learned to comically lipsinc to “People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” in an effort to lift the spirits of my often depressed Mom.

But the music we first took ownership of came from Broadway musicals which topped the charts in that era and while we loved “The Sound of Music,” “Oklahoma,” and “My Fair Lady,” our favorite musical was “Oliver!” and we listened to the Lionel Bart version repeatedly until we learned every line of every song. We even invited neighbors to an evening of “The Parkwood Summer Theatre” which featured my sister and I, the Franks, the Creans, or basically anyone on the street who thought they could sing and dance. For fifteen cents we treated or annoyed them with our special renditions of “I’d Do Anything,” “Where is Love,” “As Long as He Needs Me” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking” performed by my sister, Terri, who I don’t think sang as much as wore really cool boots. The money we made (I think $3.15, we also sold popcorn) was donated to charity which assured that our picture got in the local paper. I don’t think anyone has this picture, or any evidence of our remarkable productions, as this was not the age of selfies and cameras on everyone phone or phones on every person, thank heaven for small favors.

Then came “The Monkees.” While teenagers listened to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, us younger kids (let’s say 10 and under) listened to this thrown together boy band (with grown men) that wasn’t assembled for its talent as much as its appeal to young girls. Apparently, I fell victim to this marketing ploy, watching their T.V. show religiously each week(sometimes twice when we would go to a neighbor’s to see it on Canadian T.V.) and buying albums which featured songs they mostly didn’t write with instruments they couldn’t really play and singing well enough to fool ten year olds into thinking they could sing.  I am still proud to say that I traded my “Meet the Beatles” album for “Meet The Monkees,” which says a lot about my musical taste then and now.

My real musical awakening came in 1968 when I was eleven and was asked to babysit at the home of my neighbors, Doug and Barbara Hunter, who were totally into the folk rock scene exploding at that time. While their darling little boys, Gerry and Geoffy slept, I was REQUIRED to listen to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkel and anything that was played on the F.M. radio station then called “WYSL.” Upon their return, I was asked to critique the music they’d left me and I can only imagine how intelligent my eleven year old response to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” must have sounded.

But they started me on a path, so by the time I hit twelve, I was sitting in my room listening to EVERYTHING, mostly folk music but also blues and southern rock, all of which felt like it was written specifically for and about me. Hearing “hello darkness my old friend,” and “how terribly strange to be seventy” has an even more haunting effect on me now than it did when I was still a young girl.

I’m skipping a lot here about how music has influenced me in every way imaginable but it’s hard to summarize how having music that spoke to me on an emotional level added to and in some ways saved my life. I honestly don’t know where I would have been without it and even now, some days, all it takes to get me out of a funk is hearing a really good song.

 So whether I’m bopping along to Robin Thicke and Pharell Williams singing “Blurred Lines,” or screaming along with John Mayer's “The Real World” or swirling into the romantic orchestration and lyrics in Judy Collins’s “Albatross,” the playlist takes me forward and takes me back, lifts me up and centers me. It’s the greatest thing ever to be able to connect and reconnect and know that no matter how old and feeble I get, the music will always be there for me.