Lost: One Groove, Slightly Used
Your Secretary finds that her Groove, her Mojo, if you will, is no longer soaking in the glass of placque remover she keeps on her nightstand. A trip to find it seems in order.
If you were to spend a month or so looking for your Groove, or last shaker of salt, where would you go? A city, a small town, a quiet scenic spot? Omaha? The Metropolitan Museum of Art? Sea World?
I'm serious. Maybe it's being forty, being childless, being lazy--I don't know but there's a voice in my head shouting "Go!" and an echo that says "Where?" To the sea, maybe Baltimore? To a river, like in Pittsburgh? A big lake, say Cleveland? To a tall mountain near Boulder or a modest hill somewhere in the Hudson Valley? A quirky little town not too far from Memphis?
It should be a place where I can live cheaply, as I've already cost the Laird too much. A place that's different but not so exotic that it provides its own focus. I'm not just shopping for distractions, I want a place where I can recover my imagination and find my groove again. (If I have to sleep with Taye Diggs, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to consider.)
A better woman than I could do this in situ, since I pretty much live in paradise, but so far I haven't been able to manage it. Travel has helped in the past, so I ask:
Does anybody know of a Motel Six at Walden Pond?
posted by Corresponding Secretary General at 8:58 PM
3 Comments:
Dr. X posts this from the Walden Lake Condo Association:
"I used to live near Walden. Rural Massachusetts is very nice, but no way to do it cheap without relatives. Vermont in the summer is nice, as the Laird and Sum of All Monkeys can tell you.
"I'd plump for somewhere in the southwest - Taos perhaps, where you can soak up sun, eat Mexican food, and hang with artists. Perhaps the First Sea Lord can suggest an economical artists' colony in the environs."
while in the philippines recently we stumbled through (not onto) an artist village in the mountains. those guys have it figured out. they live in 100 year old huts, eat and drink (a lot) in a communal area and paint and write all day. inspiring.
another option is to give up on giving up. decide to fight for your happiness, there, in paradise. a few days ago as i wallowed at self pity at my lost youth while riding across the bay bridge on once laird's red motorcycle i had a simple and yet brilliant thought. i may have spent the last 10 years awaiting middle age with cold dread but god fucking dammit, i'm going to fight to stay alive, young at heart and mind, and the opposite of depressed (does anyone even know what that is anymore?). and miraculously, it worked. i suggest therefore, that while a change of scenery definitely can be a catalyst for great change, a cheaper solution may involve traveling not from physical location A to physical location B but from point of view A to point of view B. there's too much horror out there for us to dwell on constantly. it's overwhelming. our perspectives are too deep. we know too much about the cold heartless universe and trying to live in that reality is not far from death. live in the human reality, and fight for your place in it.
or how about joining a nudist colony
if travel is the best option for you, then certainly travel. the problem with traveling is the onslaught of reality upon your return. so clean house first and then travel. may i suggest the forests of maine w/ canoe trips down the saco river. a road trip across australia. or start riding a motorcycle again. ride cross country. see the grand canyon. get out of the house.
It is the paradoxical nature of artist's colonies that they never share the title of economic- and, as a result, are usually peopled with wealthy divorcees painting flowers that were perfectly good as actual flowers.
If I could suggest an economical artists colony I wouldn't be here.
If I may suggest: a road trip, but not perhaps a month. (A month on the road tends to erode the immune system. ) Perhaps just everywhere you've always wanted to go in California- a tour of ghost towns- and L.A. - to remind yourself of the folly of Man. A very successful artist I know just gets in the car and just drives for about two weeks.
A warning: the meaning of life is not hidden under the pastry in a Vienna cafe, or stuck in a penguin skeleton in Antarctica or written on a Tibetan prayer flag flapping under the towering face of K2. Not that it's not fun to look.
That being said, on no personal experience: road trip to Baja, if nothing else for the Humboldt squid wrestling. The road is important- travel by aircraft is hardly travel, more like changing the channel.
For the final word on the topic: I cede obvious territory to my betters.
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby_001.html
Post a Comment
<< Home