gone...

While having dinner with Jay last night at Anita's Kitchen, trying to sum up my experience this past 40 days, a word that came up was discipline. Making a regimented effort to keep up with all areas of my life - art, health, mind, heart, etc - having a focused purpose makes everything move forward. While being busy for business sake (pun intended) is not the goal, working towards something, even if it entails not doing anything just to think about something, is the way to go.

Two days ago Mike and I left Omaha, Nebraska, and headed towards Michigan. That was to be our most grueling leg of the race, so to speak, approximately 9.5 hours. We left at 10:30 am (three hours too late in my book) and arrived at 10 pm in Saugatuck (an hour ahead with the time change) - our journey taking 10.5 hours long, not too bad but exhausting nonetheless. I was in the driver seat for the first seven hours (though I did not drive seven hours). The one thing I keep remembering, and what I want to remember, was that I found Iowa simply beautiful, as seen from I-80 going east, specially the first half of the state. That surprised me, not because I thought it would be ugly, but because I had not had any preconceived notions of it. Between the lovely windmills (blades of which I encountered numerous times being transported in long trucks on my way to Santa Fe), the soft rolling hills, and gay marriage, I thought Iowa was cool. I also surprised myself with the sense of peace I felt as soon as the car entered Michigan, not my home away from home, but my home state. For now.

Another moment of awareness that came with looking back at this journey was the serious consideration that I need to move. I need to encounter many changes. I am not sure still what this awareness means. It may mean moving to a different house, a different job, a different country, I do not know.

Yesterday morning, as I drove from Saugatuck to Detroit I also thought that I should buy a hybrid car, which provided a third and least discussed moment of clarity (because it came about as a passing comment, and not a center stage topic), that I may be experiencing a mid-life crisis. Jay thinks I am too young for it, but if we are to take it literally, this would mean I will live to be 76 years old, which I find too young to die (my goal is to live at least until I am 85, way past the year 2050). For some reason I think it will be important to see past the middle of this millennium (and if I do die at 76 I will only see few months of it at best, as I turn 76 on November 2049).

Two days ago Mike and I arrived in Saugatuck. It was a last minute plan, because Chicago seemed to have lost electricity and the heat was intense. The heat was intense the whole day in actuality, to a level I felt hellish, the humidity being so foreign and overwhelming once again. We got the worst room at the Dunes, drank too much too quickly (alcohol was cheaper than water), walked in the woods, and tried to sleep in a basement room with no windows. We both woke up minutes apart on Saturday morning feeling not so great. After a coffee in Douglas, a greasy breakfast and a dip in the pool (which was peaceful and lovely, though all seats were already claimed) we decided to forego our second paid night there (the joys of being fortunate enough to be gainly employed, with some disposable credit line), and drive back home, the last three hours of our journey trip feeling like the longest hours ever.

These last few days I have been thinking of how to conclude this blog journey. I thought that, in the weeks that follow my arrival home I would upload pictures and write other reflections on this experience. That might be the case. I have decided to take Sunday off, so to speak, and use it as my transition day. On monday I will implement a new routine and continue my last two months of sabbatical and prep for my exhibition. So I am not sure I will upload anything onto this blog account or not. I may. I may not.

Below is the self picture I took on Saturday morning in Saugatuck, in a dark sweaty room, with my phone, and no space of wireless to properly blog. Not how I imagined my last night on this trip to be.





And below the below are the lyrics of a song (appropriately titled "gone") that kept coming to my mind as I listened to other songs, driving back to a place I call home. I deleted some redundant parts.

Selling out
Is not my thing
Walk away
I won't be broken again
I'm not
I'm not what you think

Dream away your life
Someone else's dream
Nothing equals nothing

Letting go
Is not my thing
Walk away
Won't let it happen again
I'm not
I'm not very smart

Why should I feel sad
For what I never had
Nothing equals nothing

Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I'll be gone
Before it happens

Selling out
Is not my thing
Walk away
I won't be broken again
I won't
I won't fall apart

Dream away your life
Dream away your dream
Nothing equals nothing

Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I'll be gone
Before it happens






- posted via iPad

Location:W Marshall St,Ferndale,United States