Tag: Travel

It Might Be Bigger on the Inside

canstockphoto7508497The school bus had been gutted, seats replaced by plywood that would make a table and then a bed platform and then a bathroom stall. My stepfather was always coming up with creative ways to use cheap things he’d acquired, a forerunner of the reuse and recycle crowd before it became trendy. The school bus into a camper was the most odd, and where we’d end up living for a time while he turned an old gas station into a house.

Our first vacation in the bus was to a lake and campground in Iowa. As a child, it all seemed a grand adventure to me, unaware of the incongruity of a school bus parked amidst RVs and tent campers. I think my mother and stepdad were heady with accomplishment, even as my mother snapped at us to sit down and stop making so much racket, a common refrain in the early years.

canstockphoto15179487It must have been an adventure to my parents, too – lit with the possibilities that if a school bus could be a camper, then all the other things could be something else, too. Every dream was fraught with danger, though. The gas station cum family home became a prison to us and we had to leave him and it. For years the school bus camper sat, incapacitated, off to the side, a centerpiece in a garden of weeds.

This year, my husband, daughter, and I decided to rent a cabin a few hours north, where we’d been many years ago, when my daughter wasn’t yet afraid of spiders or boredom. The cabin is primitive by Minnesota standards, where cabins have quickly taken on the size and cost of a second home.

It’s early in the morning. I ended up sleeping on the couch to spare my husband the jet engine snoring that has become a hallmark of my middle-aged years. It suits me fine, since I can get up at 4, make coffee and write without waking anyone. There’s a chill in the air this morning, but I sit outside comforted by the rustle of birch leaves and rat-a-tat-tat of a yellow-bellied sapsucker that has chosen a metal sign to announce his presence.

On our way to the cabin, we stopped at a restaurant to get a late lunch. We’ve had this habit over the years of avoiding ubiquitous Subways in favor of the local habitats – diners that are also collectibles dealers and bus stations and post offices and, in the past, the only Wi-Fi connection in town.

canstockphoto14291217This particular diner had a bar downstairs. At two in the afternoon, patrons slid past the diner counter mumbling “Is the bar open?” as if it were the password to a speakeasy. We sat at the counter instead of a table, something I insist on, having seen too many 1950s movies and knowing in my writer brain, that it’s where we witness more.

Small town diners remind me forever and always of a diner I worked in as a teenager. Almost every small town diner has the taped-up, yellowing handwritten signs letting you know that they don’t take checks or that you can buy whole pies for a very hopeful price. There’s the shelf of mugs for the coffee club, handmade goods at the front counter, embroidered framed pictures about your biblical blessings and others that bless the meat you are about to eat, by covering the surrounding walls with dead animal heads, watching over you as you eat their progeny.

Part of me takes a mocking view, but it is the mentality of an escapee. The bad outweighed the good in the small town I went to high school in – I only associate it with the times the police were called to our house, the very public way in which a family disintegrates. Everyone knows, which is just about as horrifying as it gets for a self-conscious teenager, mortified when kind teachers or employers offer her a place to stay.

The diner I worked in was a refuge of sorts. The owners were terrible business people, but kind and generous to a fault. I was allowed to stay after closing time, playing Ms. Pac-Man on a gigantic arcade machine in the corner with the boss and eating free pie. As in most diners, there was an elderly woman who came in and baked pies every week – hand-rolled crusts lovingly worked at for hours, only to be filled with canned fruit. Best pies I ever had.

canstockphoto3866106When the waitress comes, my husband and I get the meager salad bar. My vegetarian daughter tries to order their breakfast croissant without the meat and egg, with just cheese. The order confuses the waitress and she launches into a long discussion with the cook. They hesitantly deliver what looks like a fried croissant, no cheese. We fare no better. The tomatoes taste as if they’re going south and there is fish next to them –  pickled herring, which my Scandinavian husband says is a thing for putting on salads. The pie in the jewel case that taunted us throughout the meal tastes like an under-cooked, soggy Pop Tart.

We cannot revisit the nostalgic comforts of youth, due to either flawed memories or absent any context. Maybe the pie of my teenage days was exactly the same, but in the context of the constant anxiety I had about what was happening at home, it was something of sweet, predictable comfort.

It makes me think how we rarely understand other people’s attachments and are so quick to condemn them. It is only now that I see the optimism in that old school bus, the reason that I’m drawn to diners, the sundry ways we lean this way or that. It means we must tread lightly in our criticisms and mockery, for what we see as frivolous or cloyingly sentimental, could be something else entirely.

Michelle at The Green Study15 Comments

The Eye (or Camera) of the Beholder

canstockphoto35817083A few weeks ago we visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum that had a night art installation by Bruce Munro – lots of light, a little weird music, and a great deal of walking. Throw in the S’more kits being sold around a fire and it was a lovely evening. We walked along dark pathways from sight to sight, under a clear, starry sky.

Light pollution often obscures the sky in our neighborhood, so I took the opportunity to point out some constellations to my daughter. We had to keep finding dark areas to stand in because beyond the actual Munro installations, people were walking around with their phones out, taking pictures of the art.

It’s in my nature to push back against cultural trends and this one, of taking pictures in a “Kilroy was here” sort of way sends my brain off into incoherent, spluttering rants. We noticed this as we traveled the west coast last year. We’d be standing in front of some sight, an animal at a zoo, a zen garden, a perfect view of the ocean and someone would walk up, take a picture , and walk away. I wanted to yell “Have the #$%@ experience – put your phone down!”

canstockphoto19466486Part of this is my particular way of taking in an experience. I can stand for an hour in one spot just watching waves, reading informational plaques and observing people coming and going. My family moves a little faster, so I’ve gotten in the habit of breaking off on my own, finding a bench or a space where no one else is and becoming a rock. Museums are a challenge. I find some work I like and I just want to sit there for a long while, so when I go, it’s more likely to be alone.

I have friends and family who seem nearly maniacal in their picture-taking. One relative has forever earned my enmity for snapping photos of me in the hospital after I had my daughter. I was in for a long stay due to a complicated delivery and having bad reactions to pain meds. After vomiting most of the day and being poked with needles (apparently I only have one workable, ever-elusive vein). Click. Click. My husband had to keep me from ripping out the tubes and strangling her.

A friend explained to me that taking photos was how she processed experiences. As a writer, this is an approach that I can understand. The world makes more sense to me through words than any other way. But there is a compulsiveness with cameras and I see it around me every time I go out in public.

It would seem that the primary purpose of taking a picture is to capture a memory, or at least the shadow of one, so that at a later point in time, one can be reminded of an experience. What if you didn’t actually have the experience? You were there, but not present. You saw something, but you really didn’t pay any attention to it. Then the picture becomes about something else entirely. Bragging rights, a need for validation (look at me, I do stuff and have been places) and the possibility of likes.

There is also the aspect of skill. Very few of my photos are particularly good. When we travel now, I buy postcards, appreciating that someone with more skill and better equipment has already gotten the job done.

canstockphoto40253681Standing on the hotel balcony in Fort Bragg, California looking out at the Pacific Ocean, I pulled out my binoculars and scanned the horizon. Spouts of water! I looked again – more spouting and then I started to see them, dark figures coming out of the water and then retreating. An unusual time of year, but we had lucked upon a pod of whales.

If I had taken pictures, they’d be little more than vague shots of a horizon. But at the very least I would look at them and remember the excitement of yelling for my husband and daughter to come and look. I would remember the chill air and the sound of the waves. I would remember watching until the sun went down and then early in the morning, searching the horizon and finding the pod again, only a little farther north. The thrill of discovery and the awe of nature.

Many years ago we made a 13 state road trip out to the Grand Canyon and back. We saw and did a lot. While staying in Flagstaff, we drove out to Sunset Crater and did some hiking. It was a beautiful day and we hiked through the remains of craters, on paths of hardened lava, passing by a cornucopia of wildflowers and plant life. It was a really good day. I have a couple of pictures, but I have even better memories.

A day later we took a bus tour to the Grand Canyon, since we didn’t have much time before we had to head back to Mcanstockphoto3482788innesota. It ended up being a stop, take photos, get back on a bus. I have some photos and very few memories. Absolute worst way to see anything. My daughter, who was seven at the time, remembers Sunset Crater and getting to eat sugary cereal at the hotel. No memory of the Grand Canyon whatsoever.

To me, it says a little about how our brains work. When we integrate and absorb and move in the places we visit, pictures are just tickler files for memories. But it’s gotten to the point where the act of taking the picture is the memory and has nothing to do with content or context.

canstockphoto10299946I know there is no point in railing against this cultural idiosyncrasy. It’s here to stay. I just wonder how it impacts our ability to process the fully dimensional world and what that means for the human brain. My experience tells me that nothing conveys a moment better than a memory absorbed and breathed and lived.

Michelle at The Green Study23 Comments

Stories from the Road: The Search for Narrative

After a vacation in Montana, I’ve returned home, a head full of unorganized thoughts and a vague sense that I’m on the right path again. For months, I’ve been languishing in a purgatory of writer impotence and flailing about for some sense of purpose.

canstockphoto4003992We took the Amtrak train from St. Paul to Glacier National Park, staying in a century-old lodge with few amenities and scant Wi-fi. We paid for a view and a convenient walk from the train station. Following our arrival, we spent our days hiking and horseback riding and our evenings playing board games.

The Glacier Park Lodge is an attempt to hold onto and faintly mimic a complicated history of land and people. Displays of old photos, both in the lodge and at the railway station reflect a pride in that history. They didn’t tell the whole story.

Sometimes I get told that I have a negative perspective, but I have learned to deflect this purported insult. It intends to shut me up, but nearly always fails. This trip reminded me of one the reasons I’m a writer. I always have questions and I’m always in search of a true narrative.

I couldn’t look at photos of railway executives and Blackfoot Indians and not wonder about the dynamics of those relationships. There were pictures of Indians performing ceremonies on the lodge’s lawn for upper-middle class white families in the 1920s. Not a half century earlier, the US Army, led by a drunken major, killed 173 Blackfoot women, children and elderly men in the worst Indian massacre in Montana history, about 70 miles away.

This idea that we should just embrace the positive rankles me. It seems endemic to the contemptuous schooling of conquering nations. Human history is populated by millions of stories and many of them are not happy ones. It is sometimes said, to pompously quote Churchill, that “History is written by the victors.” I grew up with those magical history books of American history and was disappointed to see in my daughter’s lessons, that not much has changed, except a sprinkling in of a few minority figures.

While on vacation, I finished reading Weep Not, Child by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, a Kenyan writer. The novel is about a Kikuyu family decimated by the attempts to overthrow Britain’s colonial rule and regain native lands in the 1960s. The hope we humans cling to, sometimes blinds us to the reality, both as victims and perpetrators of atrocity. I was struck by these sentences from the book: “He would reduce everything to his will. That was the settler’s way.”

It isn’t white guilt or a need to revel in misery that appeals. It is painting a whole picture. It is avoiding simplistic thinking of good and evil. It’s recognizing the immense suffering expansionism, colonialism and war can cause. It’s understanding that human relations are complex, mired in personal ambition, revenge, fear, greed, as well as noble intention and bravery.

In the railway station, a native American man bent down looking at the photos on display. I watched him, this giant covered in tattoos. Part of me expected him to rise up, angry and disgusted. Instead, he said quietly to the older woman next to him, “They took down his picture. See? They put that one up instead.” Oh, how I wanted to ask him so many questions, but the softness and sadness in his voice prevented me from intruding. The story began writing itself.

As I watched the North Dakota and Montana plains roll by from the train window, I was reminded of my own story. I remember traveling as a kid, watching the endless miles slide by from the backseat of a Buick. My eyes would follow the power lines as they rose and fell. I’d rest my head against the window, drifting off to sleep with the comforting thump-thump of the road beneath us.

I was a born observer. And every observation is only a few minutes from a surrounding narrative, my mind filling in the details. I often go to sleep in the middle of a story, which may explain why the ending of my novel eludes me.

Being an observer means that the natural world is a feast. Initially, I was disappointed at Glacier. It’s early in the season, the lake waters are cold, flowers aren’t in full bloom and the animal youngsters have yet to be born. I felt this hunger, getting up at the crack of dawn with my binoculars, searching for birds or deer, anything to fill the landscape’s narrative.

canstockphoto25706984I waited and I searched. Bear spottings are down this year, one of the guides told us. Another swore he’d seen several on the bank of Two Medicine Lake. Instead, we were discovered by very insistent and entertaining Columbian ground squirrels at a picnic table by the lake. They knew their audience.

canstockphoto15014062On the second day of early morning watching, I was rewarded with a couple of Black-billed Magpies who, despite being members of the crow family, were not happy with the crows that came near their nest. I got a version of an aerial show, magpies v. crows. I’m happy to say the magpies won and I watched for them each morning.

I looked everywhere for stories and I found them. So often we get mired in the day-to-day that we forget our nature. Mine is that of an observer and storyteller. It’s a lovely thing to go away on vacation and to come back to one’s self.

Michelle at The Green Study44 Comments

Stories from the Road: There’s Something About Larry…

canstockphoto0438807After a two week road trip around the Great Lakes, I’m making a quiet re-entry into the blogging world – homeward bound in more ways than one.

My family and I take different vacations together. I’m often up at the crack of dawn hitting the hotel fitness room or fumbling about in the dark making coffee or off on a walkabout. They sleep in unscheduled bliss. I love them and I love my mornings alone.

In Mackinaw City, Michigan, I wandered down the street near our hotel on Lake Huron, finding a locally sourced, organic coffee shop (I jest – it was a Starbucks). After ordering a luxurious, high maintenance coffee, I headed down to the pier. The concrete promenade was empty, save for the gulls swooping and diving along the shore and the occasional blare from a boat horn.

The footsteps behind me were soft and unhurried. Quiet morning, isn’t it? he said. My jaw tightened in anticipation of unwanted conversation. Or worse, some other intrusive maneuver that might require a ninja smack down. I needed coffee first.

I turned to see an elderly man wearing a Navy cap with veterans’ pins attached to it. He smiled pleasantly and I exhaled. I have a soft spot for old men, especially when they remind me of my grandpa. More often than not, they have stories and have never lost the art of conversation. We joked about being early birds. He commented that he rarely saw “young people” out at this hour.

His wife died five years back and he had been ‘adopted’ by family friends. They took him on trips and outings. It’d been nearly 30 years since he’d visited Mackinaw City. He was a retired machinist, after 38 years of working for General Motors in Flint, Michigan. Like me, he joined the military right out of high school because he didn’t have a plan. He loved to take things apart and tinker with them, which led to a job and eventual career working for GM.

He pointed to the Mackinac Bridge, remembering aloud when his parents crossed by ferry in the late 1940s, having waited for hours in their vehicle. With awe in his voice, he said “It’s really a wondrous thing.” We had driven it the day before, during high wind warnings and thought it was wondrous we had survived.

He talked about his strange career path and interest in learning more. In his 40s, GM decided to send him to a engine manufacturing plant in Australia for a couple of weeks. “Who would have ever thought that something like that could happen to a guy like me?” He shook his head in wonder.

At the age of 83, he took community college courses and chuckled about what a challenge it was, but he said he wanted to keep learning new things to fend off dementia. It seemed to have been working pretty well so far – he was a little sharper than I at that hour.

By the way, my name is Larry. We shook hands, as I introduced myself. As we strolled along the railed walk, we talked about curiosity and learning and how it makes all the difference in a person’s life. He laughed and said “You know, I look at this old mug in the mirror every morning and I wonder how I became him. I feel the same as I always have.”

I joked about my impending birthday and how every day some new ailment seemed to crop up. I told him how my husband and I were just talking about this very thing – how the road out of this life is made up of moments in between aches and pains. He nodded in agreement. “It’s the moments that count.”

We parted ways with good wishes for the rest of our journeys. At night, I slept through forgettable dreams, waking with a sense of loss. I missed my grandfather all over again. He was a man who understood that life was about the moments and the stories and the chance encounters with fellow travelers.

Michelle at The Green Study31 Comments

“OMG I’m getting mugged NLMAO”: Moving Mindfully

This is the 3rd in a series of essays on the importance of self-defense and physical power. I am not an expert on self-defense, nor a physical fitness guru. I do not condone violence, but advocate taking whatever action or inaction is needed to survive potentially dangerous situations. Not every situation is defensible through physical force.

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Today’s post will be an exercise in the obvious for most people. Be aware of your surroundings and be able to move. This means moving mindfully and being ready to react.

Look Ma, No Hands! Or Eyes!

There is no question we are a distracted bunch of humans. Just doing a preliminary search on the internet under the terms “mugging and texting” brought up a spate of news stories around the country. This guy barely noticed that a large bear was heading his direction, and would not have been in a position to defend himself against a human assailant. This is a pretty obvious tip – watch where you are going. If you can’t see a potential attack, you can’t prevent or avoid it.

Technology is addictive – I find myself checking my phone at random times, barely even realizing that I’m doing it. I decided to draw a line in the sand. When I’m on the move, out in the open, unprotected – phone calls, emails and texts can wait. Not only will I be aware, but I’m not giving a would-be thief additional incentive of an easily attainable phone.

Pack Mule or Cheetah?

From the time I was a Girl Scout through time in the military, “be prepared” was emphasized. My backpack contained a full first aid kit, umbrella, books and notebooks in case I had free time, workout gear for over the lunch hour and gadgets aplenty. I was a walking FEMA preparedness trailer, without the actual trailer. Then there was the purse. If I made any purchases, there would be additional bags. Don’t even mention the 50,000 lbs of college textbooks.

Years later, after the birth of my daughter, there was the diaper bag, the stroller, the travel playpen, a bag of toys. Not to mention the helpless, wiggling child. My hands were full and I was completely hobbled. My defense at that moment would have been the fact that an assailant wouldn’t be able to move me and my entourage from Point A to Point B without a posse.

Travel light. Less to steal, less to slow you down. Take 15 minutes. Dump out the contents of your purse, laptop bag, back pack, diaper bag onto the table or counter. What have you NOT used in the last month? Repack your bag leaving those items out.

Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag…and Possibly Shoes

Look at your travel container. Is it necessary or would something smaller be sufficient? I have a personal bias against purses – they seem highly inefficient, distracting, over-packed and incapacitating. Some require that one hand will never be free or that you will walk lopsidedly trying to keep it on your shoulder. Some provide long straps that can be utilized as a weapon against you.

I travel with a small backpack and don’t pack anything in the outside pocket that thieves could easily remove. My hands are free. I leave all unnecessary items at home. Purchases are in one hand and can be easily dropped in the event of attack and/or pursuit.

Shoes. I don’t wear shoes I can’t run in, but that, again, is a personal preference. If you’re going to insist on traveling in flip-flops or heels or other faux footwear, be able to get them off fast or make adjustments so that you can.

Other miscellaneous distractions. Bras and underwear. Seriously! If you have to keep pulling up the straps or fidgeting with yourself, upgrade. Fidgeting is distracting for you, brings unwanted attention and impacts your posture and confidence. Money clips and wads of cash. Really? You just made yourself a target at that last store or restaurant you visited. No one’s impressed except for thieves. Use small amounts of accessible cash. Jewelry. Never mind the attraction of would-be thieves, dangly jewelry can impede escape and get caught by grabbing hands, causing pain and distraction at a time when you need to focus on defense.

This Thing’s Got Wheels

Two wheels. I cycle to the Y for workouts and have seen firsthand the aggressive nature of drivers in vehicles. In addition to cases where the driver of the vehicle was not paying attention or refusing to engage in basic safety by giving the cyclist room, there have been criminal attacks on cyclists as well. In all cases, the number one rule of cycling self-defense is that helmet. In terms of crime and accident prevention, the best tip I’ve seen yet, besides circumstances of travel (time of day and route), is to attach a horn that mimics car horns – loud and unmistakable.

Four wheels. When we bought our most recent car, the remote key would unlock all four doors. This is convenient when traveling with family, but most of my driving is done solo. I took the car into the dealer and had them change the settings so that only the driver’s door would unlock. It means one more step when we travel as a family, but much more secure when I’m alone.

Notice who or what is parked next to your vehicle. The common warning is about the van parked next to your driver’s side. I’ve never had this happen, but I’ve very wary in parking lots. I park farther away if only to give myself a clear visual vantage point of not being surrounded by other vehicles. I scan constantly en route and interrupt grocery loading by frequently looking around.

The idea that we’re going to jump into our cars and tear out of the parking lot often doesn’t happen. Lock your doors once you’re in. Check your mirrors. Take care of business quickly and get on your way.

Be Aware.

Lighten Up.

Be Able to Move Quickly.

Use Your Imagination: If you travel regular routes in the course of going to work or school, or running errands, imagine where criminals could attack. Where could you run? Would you be able to move quickly, dressed as you are or carrying what you normally carry? If you haven’t imagined what it would be like to be attacked, start now. A criminal can and has imagined it. You will react more quickly if you have mentally run through possible scenarios.

 

Michelle at The Green Study28 Comments

You Were One of Them, Once

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I try very hard to not use this blog as a vehicle for pointless ranting, but on occasion, I just have to get it out. Today I read that some airlines are now having child-free seating. I have high hopes for asshole-free seating, but the screening process may be too subjective. I’m fed up with people complaining about everything under the sun, but the vitriolic rants unleashed about children and parents alike are getting out of hand.

I don’t have a natural affinity for kids. I’ll be honest. I’m fond of quiet environments. I don’t like my seat being kicked or finding stray boogers attached to arm rests. But, holy shit, when did our intolerance for humankind become so high that we now need to travel in our own little bubbles?

I don’t think my little darling is the center of the universe (mine perhaps, but not everyone else’s). When she was a toddler, I had to swiftly escort her from a grocery store when she had a temper tantrum. Of course, I did not escape without being glared at – it was humiliating.  Parenting is hard, but apparently being a spectator is even worse. And please don’t regale me with bullshit tales about how your parents beat you into submission or silenced you with a glance. And that you never acted up or were tired or hungry or scared. You need to sit in the memory-free section, apparently.

Intolerance has reached an all-time high in our society, where people are allowed to sue and rail against and be indignant about and indulged over every petty little irritant, all while living in their annoying and hypocritical glass houses, yakking on their cell phones and snipping their toenail clippings off in every direction. Humans are annoying. Little humans are annoying, too – they’re just slightly more ignorant about that fact.

Kids aren’t for everyone. I get it. But neither are crabby old people and boorish salesmen and perfume-y blabbers or depressed slackers who smell like smoke or uptight business people attached to their umbilical cords of technology and miniature booze bottles. Everyone likes to think that they are models of decorum, even if they whistle when they breathe, crack their knuckles, shake their leg nervously, expel heavy sighs every two minutes or have to get up to pee every five. Loud people, smelly people, cranky people, lonely people – which are you today and why should I put up with it?

I’ll tell you why. Because none of us are any more special than the other. We’re humans. I am a naturally irritable person and I have a low sensory tolerance for all kinds of shit. But is that your problem? Are your behaviors any less legitimate than my pissiness? It’s on me to cultivate compassion and tolerance. It is my responsibility. What someone else does, unless it endangers my safety, is a gift, an everyday challenge to my abilities to be tolerant, to not rage, to not believe that my space and time should be an inviolate temperature-controlled soundproof buffer zone at all times.

There’s a lot of people on this planet. Airlines are doing their best to keep a flailing industry aloft by screwing over their economy passengers with miniscule seat space and a passenger starvation plan. I get claustrophobic just looking at the picture of airline seats. I’m pretty sure as kids, most of us weren’t shoved elbows to ass into a tin can and asked to respect each others’ space/privacy/knees jammed into the back of the seat.

They’re creating box seats for the corporate elite and are growing a segregated seating system. Does anybody remember sucking secondhand smoke during an entire flight? With how many more irritations will we feed airlines’ sagging bottom lines? They are doing their damnedest to turn us all into intolerant jerks. I want, I deserve, you have no right to, you shouldn’t… It reminds me of Dr. Doolittle’s Pushmi-pullyu with decency stuck squarely in the middle. This sense of entitlement to a pristine environment is a losing game on a planet with 7+ billion people.

We’re getting ready to take our daughter on her first airline flight this next year. The intolerant better hope they don’t end up sitting next to me. They’ll wish they’d purchased a ticket in the snore and vomit-free seating section.

Michelle at The Green Study71 Comments