Spain is hot. It is hot and dry and the only thing I love is the graffiti that covers it. There are tourists everywhere and I resent being one of them, but the tapas is great. The water is cool and I listen to a jazz band on the beach - the drummer used to play with John Coltrane. I meet an amazing blonde Swedish man who has been traveling in a van with his dog and living in caves.
I spend two days alone in Granada, visiting the baths and having gin and tonics with a likeminded woman. I wander the Alhambra grounds and sleep in a beautiful hotel. It is bliss and I am alone.
I visit family in Alicante and swim in their pool and drink lots of tea while talking about what my grandpa was like when he was young. There are palm tress. It is like an oasis in the desert.
In Barcelona, Di and I stay with a wonderful couple in their bohemian apartment on a mattress on the floor and a rooftop that looks over El Borne. We go to the beach and eat good food and smile and have a week of interesting conversation.
I learnt so much in Spain. I always thought people said that as a compromise to saying “I had such a bad time” but now I understand. I had opportunities to change my path and when I didn’t take them the universe hurled more and more abuse at me until I understood that one must follow their own path, even if it means hurting someone else. Because otherwise, you’ll hurt them anyway later, and yourself too. It’s the non-judgement it should be done with that is such a challenge and I was wondering how the universe was going to kick my ass for being so inept at it. It seems like such a simple lesson but I learnt it over and over again; a friend clarifies it as “recognition and detachment”. I feel she is a genius even though it seems like such a clear truth.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
New York's Thataway!
New York is walking around the Lower East side at 4am looking for a hotel (“How long would you like the room for? An hour? – taxi driver) and getting mistaken for a prostitute. First me, then him. It’s conversations that change the way I think for the rest of my life – and sort the boring from the brilliant.
It’s sex that I cant even be bothered trying to explain with words. The bottom of a shower alcove used to be where I’d sink to in melancholy and now it’s a spot to share happiness with the same lover. It’s falling in love all over again and regret that it cannot be sustained. Luckily the regret isn’t sustainable either.
Poppit makes a wish somewhere for the both of us to stay away from mediocrity. I am scared of mediocrity too. The price I will pay is that I can no longer stand anybody that embodies it. But it’s all subjective anyway.
It’s hanging out on our Williamsburg fire escape watching the Orthodox Jewish kids play on the street and getting stoned with old friends. It’s breaking into apartments to fill the tub with cold water because it’s so hot outside.
Getting lost in the Met, stung by a bee in Central Park, lobster spaghetti, jazz bars and red wine, coffee every morning in Brooklyn, outdoor movie festivals and concerts, pretentious roof top bars with beer, unpretentious roof top parties with cocktails, the Chelsea hotel, lots of breakfasts, reading books on the Highline, earl grey popsicles, lavender donuts. Markets and boys with long hair, dive bars and getting hilariously drunk. Singing Eric Clapton on the street with Poppit playing drums on her legs. It’s so hot, there is always sweat on our legs. The sun is so hot and the air is hot and even the clouds in the air are hot. The mosquitoes stop us sleeping at night and the fans aren’t strong enough. We catch the train to Coney Island (grey, dreary, like a bad summer horror movie) too many times.
When we leave we have had one hour of sleep and there are tears in my eyes, when the universe comes to save the day once again, as usual, and “Funkytown” comes on the taxi radio.
It’s sex that I cant even be bothered trying to explain with words. The bottom of a shower alcove used to be where I’d sink to in melancholy and now it’s a spot to share happiness with the same lover. It’s falling in love all over again and regret that it cannot be sustained. Luckily the regret isn’t sustainable either.
Poppit makes a wish somewhere for the both of us to stay away from mediocrity. I am scared of mediocrity too. The price I will pay is that I can no longer stand anybody that embodies it. But it’s all subjective anyway.
It’s hanging out on our Williamsburg fire escape watching the Orthodox Jewish kids play on the street and getting stoned with old friends. It’s breaking into apartments to fill the tub with cold water because it’s so hot outside.
Getting lost in the Met, stung by a bee in Central Park, lobster spaghetti, jazz bars and red wine, coffee every morning in Brooklyn, outdoor movie festivals and concerts, pretentious roof top bars with beer, unpretentious roof top parties with cocktails, the Chelsea hotel, lots of breakfasts, reading books on the Highline, earl grey popsicles, lavender donuts. Markets and boys with long hair, dive bars and getting hilariously drunk. Singing Eric Clapton on the street with Poppit playing drums on her legs. It’s so hot, there is always sweat on our legs. The sun is so hot and the air is hot and even the clouds in the air are hot. The mosquitoes stop us sleeping at night and the fans aren’t strong enough. We catch the train to Coney Island (grey, dreary, like a bad summer horror movie) too many times.
When we leave we have had one hour of sleep and there are tears in my eyes, when the universe comes to save the day once again, as usual, and “Funkytown” comes on the taxi radio.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Duck
There are wild ponies that live on the beach here. It’s also called “duck”. We don’t see the ponies, or ducks, but we stay with Tess’ friend on the lake and the house is huge and white and has it’s own jetty. We can finally sleep with windows open and there is a breeze. We take the boat out for an hour, lounge around the pool and eat tacos at the pier watching men play a makeshift game on Kayaks with paddles as swords and trashcan lids as shields. All of the “shacks” here are triple storied and look expensive even though they’re made of wooden slats and haven’t been painted in years. Everything is white and washed out - the sand, the house, the scrubland…There is a lake on one side and the coast on the other.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Nashville
I am sick in Nashville. We stay out the back of a wedding chapel/B&B. The daughter sells vintage bags. We have our own rooms . There is so much 90s grunge music on the radio and we sing nirvana all night when we hit the town. The bars are cool. There is trivia and live music and we dance to an indie country band and make eyes at skinny. Poppit chases a firefly on the way home and it is the funniest thing I have ever seen.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Memphis
Everything is starting to blur together. I don’t remember the houses we’ve stayed in as well and can’t differentiate what was where. We drive into the Graceland hotel at 10pm and are stretching our limbs in the guitar shaped pool within half an hour. The water is as warm as the air. The next day is dedicated to Elvis. I say thank you as we pass his grave. Memphis is real music and my first taste of gumbo. The musicians in an outdoor pub on a wooden stage take a liking to us and we escape in the middle of a song whose lyrics they cant change. Escape to the Peabody hotel where we watch the duck march and sleep in prestige. We sit with the children to watch the ducks and I watch the runaways in the hotel room drinking champagne. Bath, hotel, ducks, champagne, inspiration, rock n roll.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Roadtrippin'
R's driving makes me feel like a fish in a bag of water in the back seat. We are all doing well considering we are starting to grate on one other. I refrain myself from screaming across the roadside diner table at one of my friends “STOP CHEWING LIKE A HORSE” and hope to god that one day her mother will tell her. I'm not easy to live with.
The scenery is lush and green and forest-y. We eat candy and laugh and listen to 90s music and sing our hearts out. We always get a little hyperactive toward the end of the day’s drive while searching for a hotel. We managed to go off course in Pennsylvania around Amish country and ended up driving down lovely lanes around beautiful countryside, fields and national parks as the sun was going down.
On a whim we added in the field where they held Woodstock into our itinerary. On our way we drove through picturesque forests listening to The Who and Janis Joplin, all wearing crochet (it was lame and we loved it) – sun filtered through the open windows and with wind in our hair we passed creeks and lakes with people swimming, tiny charming hillside mountain towns. We also passed a field in the middle of acres of woodland, with trees cut down and abandoned bulldozers. On the biggest one was hanging a huge American flag. Further down the lane, a giant stiletto, like the one from Priscilla, on top of a shed. Americana is so wonderful.
The scenery is lush and green and forest-y. We eat candy and laugh and listen to 90s music and sing our hearts out. We always get a little hyperactive toward the end of the day’s drive while searching for a hotel. We managed to go off course in Pennsylvania around Amish country and ended up driving down lovely lanes around beautiful countryside, fields and national parks as the sun was going down.
On a whim we added in the field where they held Woodstock into our itinerary. On our way we drove through picturesque forests listening to The Who and Janis Joplin, all wearing crochet (it was lame and we loved it) – sun filtered through the open windows and with wind in our hair we passed creeks and lakes with people swimming, tiny charming hillside mountain towns. We also passed a field in the middle of acres of woodland, with trees cut down and abandoned bulldozers. On the biggest one was hanging a huge American flag. Further down the lane, a giant stiletto, like the one from Priscilla, on top of a shed. Americana is so wonderful.
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