It's been a ridiculous couple of days. Sunday morning I was super-prepared for my trip (in fact, more prepared than I normally am for travel), and due to one slight delay, I missed my flight. This would not have been too much of a huge deal, except that I had to not only fly to Memphis, but then take a 3-hour buss ride to West Plains, MO. On someone else's dime. Needless to say I did not make the bus....not only did I not make the bus, but I had to divert my route all over the place. LAX to Vegas ($10 in the slots); back on the plane to Phoenix, 6-hour lay-over provided time for a margarita-laden lunch with my mom and my niece; evening flight to Memphis sitting next to a kid who must have been Samoan and spilled out of his seat most inconveniently into mine (a Bloody Mary was had but no steady sleep); 5 hours of frequently interrupted sleep, underscored by the next room's TV which was playing the hotel menu selections on top volume all night.
The new day should have brought a new energy, but I suppose since I didn't sleep, the day just continued, starting with a fried fly in my breakfast plate. Let's just say the Radisson in Memphis is not on my list of favorite hotels (neither is this one in White Plains, but the festival is paying for it, so I'm not going to complain about it). Lastly, Ellen, a woman who is part of the festival, was kind enough to stay the night and drive me to White Plains, and really, we had a grand ol' time chatting, despite the 5 hour journey.
But I digress...it's not all bad, really, despite the sleeplessness. And I'll tell you why:
1) I usually have a lot of anxiety when I fly, but when we flew out of LAX we passed over the pacific, glistening with the morning sun and it was just magnificent to see. Then we rose above the clouds and I remembered how, when I was young and we flew anywhere, I would pretend that I lived in my own little world up there in the clouds, running across them like endless fields of cotton balls. And I remembered how remarkable flying really is - and just as I had that thought we did a loop back over Santa Monica, and I watched in awe the slow disappearance of the magnificent place I call home.
2) You get to see stuff that you just aren't familiar with, scenes and towns that seem almost is if taken from a film or two. I had the most incredible urge to gather my pooches in a car, but a camera and just hit the road for a month, taking pictures of all of these wonderful places that told stories without words. The shacks built along the rivers, the old churches that sat proudly at the end of dirt roads away from the main highway, the little cemeteries that document the history of a place and the families that reside there. It's magnificent, really. There's something about small-town life that is romantic; simply calm, simply carefree.
~Ellen and I stopped at a little greasy spoon in Hoxie, Arkansas and had a great, cheap breakfast of french toast, sausage and grits. The place was full of tanned men who must work on the farms, and complete with a smoking, pregnant waitress, whom I really wanted to chastise, but instead chose to mind my own business. The best part was when Ellen asked her if they had lattes. Her response was, "What?"
3) You get to leave home at home. No worrying about the job, no worrying about the bills...you take the take to clear you head and recharge, and start afresh.
So....POW. 6 states in 26 hours and little sleep are worth the fascination of things new. And now, with some rest under my belt and some time to simply be me, I begin to re-explore the creativity that I thought was lost to me over the past 6 months. The past is now the past, there are new adventures ahead and excitement underlying it all.
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