Well, perhaps I didn’t give it a real try, because I spent most of the day working on a couple of manuscripts I needed to finish before our mini-trip. I woke up and started editing, and worked straight through until 5pm, without stop. When I finished that, I had a bunch of chores to do, in preparation for leaving: laundry, shopping, baking [brownies and cookies for my husband], house cleaning, etc. Even if we’re just gone for a couple of days, I know how wonderful it is to come home to a spotless place, so I always leave clean sheets on the bed, the bathroom shining, the kitchen cleaned, the trash taken out, the floors swept. So I had all that to get done, which meant I was so busy all day it didn’t really feel like a digital sabbatical. Did I go online? Once, to send the completed manuscripts to my two authors. I didn’t do anything else, didn’t “just check facebook,” didn’t “just take a run through my Google reader,” didn’t “glance at Ravelry.” Nothing. But I didn’t feel tempted, either. I’m going to do it again next Saturday. We drove yesterday and got to Atlantic City, and in the way these things go, expensive hotels charge a lot for the internet and cheaper ones give it away for free; even though our room is not expensive, the hotel is so the charge is outrageous for the Internet, which means I didn’t go online all day yesterday, either. So two days offline. It feels good, it feels less noisy in my head. I’m curious.

Sham

So, Atlantic City. It’s a very strange place, and sad — probably a little sadder-seeming than usual since it’s winter, and so many places are closed. The summery places — saltwater taffy shops, ice cream parlors, miniature golf — they’re all closed and what’s left are half-empty casinos, psychics, and malls. Each hotel is a large complex comprising casinos, showrooms, shopping malls, and restaurants, and they all merge together. Just behind the boardwalk are rundown-looking tattoo parlors, check cashing stores, pawnshops, and shuttered businesses.

When I was first married, when I was 21, my then-husband was working for CBS News doing election research. We traveled to 20 states, and in the states he worked, he had to gather data at every county seat. One of our states was Nevada, and we got stuck in Las Vegas for more than a week because their records were so poor (surprise!). It was my first time encountering gambling, and I learned that I should not do it. I spent my little bit of cash and found myself glitter-eyed staring at my wedding ring, wondering what I could get for it. I walked away having learned something about myself. So I came to Atlantic City knowing that I didn’t want to gamble, but I don’t even want to. Now I look at the casinos and see them as oh so sad. Sad people sitting in front of tables or machines, giving their money away, and being blitzed by flashing lights and ringing bells, to keep them doing it. Or to disguise what’s really going on. They feed their money, they keep reaching into pockets and bags and handing over more and more. For the most part they’re older and I don’t know if that’s a difference between Atlantic City and Las Vegas, or if it has to do with this time of year. Or something else. Anyway, I haven’t been tempted.

We went into one place which was set up with an old west theme. Inside there were fake oak trees with tables underneath, and saloons and taverns along the outer edge, complete with swinging doors. All kinds of ‘buildings.’ And then, if you happen to look up, you see the ceiling tiles painted black, and you see so clearly the constructedness of it, and you realize it’s a giant warehouse that could be stripped of the old west theme and turned into anything else. It’s such a strange place. People love to be fooled.

We ate dinner last night at a hamburger place, and it felt as sad as the rest. It had a 50s theme, and the other customers seemed tired and worn down. It was someone’s birthday, so the lights dimmed and a waiter shouted that it’s always a special day, but today is most special because it’s Annie’s birthday, let’s sing! The entire restaurant joined the song, which very quickly drifted into a minor key and stayed there. I swear it was the most forlorn version of that song I’ve ever heard, and it fit the vibe. Minor and sad.

Because we’re here Sunday and Monday nights, the room rates are quite low; ~$70/night as opposed to $300+ for Friday and Saturday. We’re on the 41st floor with an ocean view, and the view really is beautiful. I love the ocean. We’re so used to New York, though, that last night the utter quietness was disturbing. There was absolutely no sound, at all. Bizarre! So we’re here tonight and tomorrow we’ll head home, back to the other world.

Last year I grew in a very specific way: I became more self-possessed. That’s a very neat word, especially for someone who has always been other-possessed, past-possessed, history-possessed. Self-possessed means I take my own counsel, I have integrity and take my time, consider myself, pick and choose with the confidence of my true self. But I’m allowing myself to be overwhelmed, and it’s definitely time to stop, to take stock, to turn away from the easy seduction of immediate gratification and instead move thoughtfully and mindfully ahead. Easy to say, hard to do. I hope Saturday’s experiment gives me a start.

On Sunday my husband and I are driving to Atlantic City for a couple of days, to get out of town and keep ourselves busy and distracted while we wait for some news. We’re going ironically, and we’re Atlantic City’s worst nightmare: we don’t drink, we don’t gamble, we intend to lie around the pool or walk on the boardwalk or chill in our room, and we plan to eat.

It’d be much more interesting to go when Nucky was there, and Chalky, but alas. That’s a tv show. We’ll have a good time together making fun of the whole thing, the gamblers, the Snookies, the plastic glam and fake glitz. I’ll be taking my laptop, and since it’ll be after Saturday, I’ll be reporting live. From Atlantic City.

I’m not ready to get back to my regularly-scheduled life, so I take a minute here to stall it a bit more:

• I put this on facebook so I would remember it — apologies, then, if you read it there. When I was in the Austin airport, the TSA agent was very chatty. I guess Texan trumps TSA, because she wasn’t grim and stern like they usually are. My turn came, and I stepped up to her little table and handed her my boarding pass and ID, expecting to be waved through after she scribbled on the boarding pass. Instead, she said “What’s your specialty?” Well! My immediate thoughts were I’m really good at being happy ….. I knit …. I make excellent bread …. and I just had no idea how to answer her, nor did I know why in the world she was asking me such a bizarre question. I thought maybe it was some kind of new TSA identity check, a person ought to be able to answer that immediately and if they can’t, maybe they’re not who they say they are. Then I ran through possible occupation answers I might give, but I never know how to answer that either: writer, editor, teacher, ah! Psychologist, I said. She smiled and said “It says Dr. on your boarding pass so I was just curious.” (p.s. if you’re on facebook, friend me!  I’m ldh.ny)

• My cabbie last night was unusual. First, he was friendly and chatty, which is partly unusual. After he put my suitcase in the trunk and got settled in his seat, I gave him my destination. He said “Columbia.” “Yeah, near Columbia,” I answered. That’s good, I thought, since cabbies often misunderstand my address. Then he asked me if I’m a professor. I do teach undergraduate students, so the easiest answer was yes — and he just beamed. “How did I know!” he said through his big grin. He asked what subject I teach, and when I said psychology he said “Ah! I’m a very lucky person, I can ask you questions! You have a PhD?” When I said yes, I do, he said “I’m right again!” Then he talked a little bit about how arrogant Lindsay Lohan is, what’s wrong with her. He was so charming, seeing himself as such a lucky person, knowing so many things about me. It was a sweet ending to a sad travel day.

• One awful thing about missing my Katie is that now I know the fine texture of her day, I can so easily imagine what she’s doing at any given time. It’s only 8:30 in Austin, as I write, so she’s sleeping, but she’ll be up soon, and she’ll make Trey’s lunch. My chest aches with the missing her.

• My birthday is coming right up, this Sunday. I’ll be 53, which is startling because I think I’ve been saying that I’m 53 for the last several months. I always do this. The coolest thing is that Sunday is the day we change the clocks — spring forward, fall back — which means my birthday is 25 hours long this year. WHEE!  And it’s stunningly beautiful weather, and it will be through the weekend:

look at that!

• I bought three gorgeous skeins of yarn at Hill Country Weavers (remarkable restraint, don’t you agree??), which I’ll photograph later. I also made a lot of progress on my Oz Delight sweater, which I’ll also photograph. Knitting post to come, then.

I must’ve been out just earlier enough to make a difference, because I stood in the dark rain for 8 or 9 minutes, watching the completely empty street. Once a cop drove past, but that was the only vehicle of any kind. Finally, a cab pulled up and I guess the driver didn’t feel like getting out in the rain to help me so I struggled to get my heavy suitcase in the trunk while holding an umbrella and balancing my purse and backpack on my shoulder. It’s hard to lift a heavy suitcase with one hand and do the necessary turn and flip to get it into the trunk of a cab, let me tell you. The lip of the open cab trunk is higher than most cars, so it requires a very high lift before you turn and flip.

Anyway. I got to the airport and got on my plane, took my seat, and started knitting. Sweet. The pilot told us the flight was going to take longer than planned because we were flying into a very strong headwind. This gave me pause, because I had a close connection in Chicago, but plenty of time to make it. Not more, but more than enough. So I thought ‘well, either I’ll make it or I won’t, and freaking out won’t make any difference, won’t make the plane go faster, won’t make me arrive earlier or later.‘ Nice. I can’t always pull this off, but I’ve become increasingly able to do it over the last couple of years.

The view out the window was particularly beautiful; for a long time, it was very dark and the light was that eerie scene of an airplane’s lights bouncing off clouds in the dark. But as the sun rose, the clouds became this gorgeous powder blue, and everything out my window was one or another shade of that color. The sky was slightly darker light blue, and the blanket of clouds below was lighter light blue, but the whole view was that beautiful, tranquil color. I enjoyed it so much.

So we arrived at the airport, the pilot drove the plane in from another town, it seemed, and we finally taxied to the gate where the gate folks fumbled to get the jetway connected. I knew. I really did. I knew. When the doors finally opened, I had 12 minutes until my connecting flight was scheduled to leave. AND! As these things happen, I arrived at the far end of Gate C in Terminal 1 and my connecting flight left from the other far end of Gate F in Terminal 2. I ran. Like Forrest Gump, I ran. I ran and ran, ran and ran, ran and ran. I got to the gate and learned they had just closed the doors. Like, just. If I’d gotten there 30 seconds earlier, I could’ve gotten on my flight.

the tarmac at O'Hare -- my view for a few hours

But luckily I’m me, and have my Kindle and my knitting and my laptop so I can deal with the 5-hour wait. The worst part is just these lost hours with Katie. Boo.

A little change of pace, something I’m dying to tell you! Last night the coolest thing happened, though it was really just a tiny thing. I was standing in the subway, and I noticed a small man walking toward me — I thought he looked like an imp, a little elf or something. He had red-gray hair and he wore these funny wool pants that came to mid-shin, and he wore odd little leather boots. His clothes were strange, and something about him was just so unusual. I looked a little closer, and it was Philippe Petit! The man who walked on the tightwire between the two World Trade Center towers in 1974. It was actually him.

I felt such awe, and could not take my eyes off him. Such an audacious person, such a truly alive, audacious thing he did. Watch Man on Wire, if you haven’t already seen it (it was available streaming on Netflix the last time I checked — I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times).  I just learned that he’s Artist in Residence at St John the Divine….which is in my neighborhood, which explains why he was getting in the subway at my stop. Which means I may run into him again.

bold and alive

I so wanted to speak to him. I so wanted to thank him for taking that walk, but I felt shy and didn’t want to intrude. When we were both in the train, at opposite ends of the crowded car, I caught his eye and smiled at him and he looked away. I did it a second time and he looked away, but after that he kept looking at me.  I wish I’d had the courage to thank him, but the thing is I can’t even say why it means so much to me and touches me so much that he did that.

[read more:  a piece on him in the NYTimes, and a brief PBS biography]

Boring. Real boring. What I realize this time is that resistance is indeed futile. I have these precious mid-night hours, all to myself. I’ve come to really love and appreciate this and will be kind of disappointed when my regular sleeping pattern returns in several weeks (that’s another thing, why does it take so long on this end!). I’ve been up since 1:30, reading and knitting, and feeling a lot of pleasure for these things:

The delicious humor of John Prine, especially in Dear Abby:

The wistful gorgeous beauty of Judy Collins singing Sons Of:

The color red, in all its punch and power and vivid life. I especially loved it this morning in the work of Catherine Ryan:

I just love the quality of color in that piece, but it’s characteristic of her work and the colors all make me feel grateful to be alive this morning.

Stick with me on this one: death. I’m grateful for death. I don’t want my life ever to end, but the fact that it will makes everything matter. Is this what I would be doing, right at this moment, if I knew I had 3 months to live? Maybe, it’s only 3am and I’m enjoying this moment, but keeping the question in mind makes life vivid. I’m thinking about it this morning especially because one of my dearest friend’s mother died on Sunday. She’d been lost to Alzheimer’s for years, and my friend was lucky enough to spend an hour with her mother Sunday, telling her stories of how much she’d been loved, and then other family members arrived and her mother slipped away, gently. Her mother had introduced her to Mary Oliver’s work, and my friend is the one who introduced me to Mary Oliver’s work, so this morning I remember her mother with this poem:

When death comes — Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

I’m also grateful this morning for metaphor and the artistic articulation of meaning. My daughter Marnie just got the first part of her new gorgeous tattoo done:

that's Pallas Athena

See this blog post she wrote about the levels of meaning behind her artistic choices, what these images mean for and about her. Since the image and story are on her public blog, I assume she won’t mind my putting them here.

There’s a lot more — I seem to be feeling extremely grateful this morning! — but this is getting long and I want to get back to my knitting. Speaking of: I’ll be finished with my Wintry Mix sweater in about an hour, and the yarn for my Vodka Gimlet arrived while I was gone and ohmygod it’s a gorgeous color. Another post on knitting-related things to come soon!

[and p.s., posted here for myself, so I don't forget: two nights ago I dreamed I was being held in the back room by the Chinese. That's it. There were no images with it, I just woke up and knew I'd dreamed that. WTF!! It's kinda funny.]

my last evening in the Mekong Delta

We got home around midnight from our wonderful trip to Vietnam and Malaysia. It was just amazing; if you are interested, here’s a link to the flickr set. We saw such gorgeous scenery in the mountains near the China border, in the Mekong Delta area, and on the island of Borneo. Oh my, I can’t think about any of it without crying.

I got a lot of knitting done, because we were traveling around a lot. Also, 2.5 days floating down the Mekong River with nothing to do but watch the scenery means plenty of time for knitting. I finished the body of my yellow featherweight cardigan, and I’m ready to pick up the first sleeve. Maybe Sunday, though I’m awake all night long since I’m 12-hours off schedule so perhaps I’ll sleep on Sunday, who knows.

So what’d I miss? Anything great in your life? In the world? On Rav? I know I won’t get to read all the things I missed, so if I missed a great post on your blog please direct me to it! It’s good to be back home, but I desperately miss Vietnam. Hard to think about it without crying, seriously.

We’ll arrive in Hanoi at 9:30am on Saturday, which is 9:30pm Friday (NYC time). However. From the looks and sound of the typhoon that’s approaching Vietnam, it’s extremely likely that we’ll be stuck in Hong Kong for a day or more. Not that Hong Kong is a bad place to be stuck — in fact, we wanted to see it — but I’m just so eager to get to Hanoi, and I don’t want our train trip to Sapa to get screwed up. Keep your fingers crossed, say a little prayer, send good thoughts, burn incense, please do whatever you do!

My travel knitting will be my little yellow featherweight cardigan and my KtyKozue scarf, in case it’s too muggy and sticky to deal with the malabrigo.

The title of this post is goodbye in both languages, so here you go in more familiar tongues:  goodbye! au revoir! despedida! kveðja! hwyl fawr!

Typhoon Nesat, heading straight for Hanoi

Sigh. Yep. We’re arriving in Hanoi Saturday morning, though we’re betting we’ll get stuck in Hong Kong at least one day because the currently-projected 75mph winds will cancel/delay the little trip to Hanoi. I just don’t want our trip to Sapa to get goofed up…..

Such a first-world luxury problem. I will stop complaining now.

our little sampan, with our own crew of 3

I feel kind of breathless about this — it’s coming up so quickly, and I’m so excited — but a week from this Friday, at 1:30am, we’ll be flying off to Hong Kong for our next great adventure. From Hong Kong we fly to Hanoi (one of my favorite cities in the whole world), then we’ll take an overnight train to Sapa, in the mountains near the Chinese border. Back to Hanoi on the overnight train, then we’ll fly to Kuching, on the island of Borneo, then to Malacca, on the Malaysian peninsula, then up to Ho Chi Minh City where we’ll travel out into the Mekong Delta, on a private sampan. Our last night we’ll stay in a beautiful lodge in the delta, before heading back to Ho Chi Minh City for our flight back to Hong Kong and NYC. We’ll be gone for 16 days.

I always thought New York City and Paris were my favorite places in the world, and I do love those places, with all my heart and everything I am. But I very deeply love Vietnam — can’t say why, exactly, though I can list all kinds of things I love about it. I keep finding myself on the verge of tears, so happy that I get to go back there. I went to Vietnam in 2005 with my husband (6 months before we got married), and it was my first jarring travel experience. Before then, I’d been to Montreal and Quebec City, Cozumel and Isle Mujeres, Paris, London, and Glasgow. None of those places were jarring, they were Western and familiar, obviously. But Vietnam, it just blew me out of my socks. After a full day, I kind of hit a wall and didn’t think I could bear it. The alphabet was different, I had no idea what was going on, I couldn’t make sense of the money, almost no one spoke English, the food was sometimes mysterious, I couldn’t read anything, and some of the rules were unknown and scary, like the time we were taking a photo and an armed policeman ran toward us. That panicked feeling passed, and I relaxed a bit, though I continued to feel that sense of Otherness for the entire trip.

But the people were so gentle and busy and fast and laughing, the architecture (in Hanoi especially) was so distinctive, like Parisian architecture is. In both those places, you know where you are. The food was fresh and delicious (but don’t ask me about what my husband ate in Hue, he still can’t talk about it). The countryside is beautiful. But mainly, I think, it’s the people. I feel like I could live there and be very happy.

Will I feel the same sense of Otherness this time? Probably not, because I’ve been there before and I’ve now traveled to a lot of places that were uniquely foreign to me. I’m just so thrilled to be going back, I keep getting all choked up.

the traditional 5th year anniversary gift is wood, but look at the gift ideas on the bottom line, there! GO RIGHT AHEAD, I won't stop you if you want to give me that gift. You're wonderful like that.

So I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary at the end of April, whee! That’s a biggie for old people like me who finally got it right, here at the end of the game. Since I’m struggling along economically as a freelancer (read that: not making nearly enough money), I’m thinking hard about our vacation strategy. I always use frequent flyer miles, so that’s a huge savings right there. In the late winter/early spring, I always take a 1-week beach vacation, and in the fall I take a 2-week far away vacation. For the last two springs, I went to an island off the coast of Honduras, and it was wonderful but I’ve kind of exhausted the possibilities in that fun place. I was considering Barcelona, but MAN is it expensive.

It’s looking like I’m talking Turkey. Istanbul for sure, but then very quickly to the Mediterranean coast, to Olympos. This is where Poseidon stood when he watched Odysseus sail away from Calypsos, where he got really pissed off and sent yet another big storm to throw the weary wanderer off track. Asshole Poseidon. He’s a real jerk that way.

Been to Turkey? Visited Olympos? Got any recommendations to share? It looks like some of the most fascinating scenery is over near the Syria border, but for people with my passport and last name, that doesn’t seem like a smart place to be. I’m kind of hooked on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, so I’d love to hear any experience you may have!