NOLA

in a moment of personal crisis in january of 2010, i did what i do best... i went away... escaped, traveled, journeyed. i went to new orleans, and let my soul feed on that. i ate of its fruits, listened to its music, and regenerated pieces of myself that had been lost over time. some images, one year later:

empty spaces can be heavy with meaning... in physical space and the spaces of our hearts

quality time w the bro-han. being around loved ones heals most everything.

coffee and beignets e'rryday!

this sandwich speaks for itself.  #muffuletta

it's amazing how many years of my life i spent calling it barg's instead of barq's.

#truethat

goodnight moon.

starting anew

i couldn't bear to carry the hurt around anymore. in the glare of the truth, i saw that you had your chest cut open, nothing to protect your heart--intense and beautiful, more so than mine. that i could not match you hurt me most. so for this, i begged forgiveness. not from you, but from the sun, who gives me newness every day. i tried to replace some of our old stories with newer ones, ones that were real and true, unlike the memories we polished to a golden and perfect shine with the time we put between them and us. but when i took them down from the shelves of the past to put new ones in their place, they all begin to tarnish, and the new ones became harder to make amidst the dirt and rust of the old. i still don't know if it is better to see them as they are, or as we like to remember them--flawless and unparalleled? either way, on this day, i sat at brighton beach and laid them all out before us, our shoulders unusually warm in the october sun. with my toes in the sand i eased them all closer to the sea, willing the waves to lap them away. i asked poseidon to bury the marks of our feet and lay empty stretches in our paths.

the sun rises and falls. the tide comes in and out. waves ebb and flow. love comes and goes. travels begin and end. chapters of our lives are written and then stashed away. all the time we are given chances to begin anew. in the new york autumn sun i asked for forgiveness. tomorrow, i offered, i will try to be better. 

a fairytale ending

in the dark ocean of the night, the moon stands, a lone fisherman.
the waters around him thick with their stillness.
his moonlight net cast out to gather the whole night,
to contain it,
but it cannot be done.
the secrets it knows, infinite.
its bounds, shifty.
what lies at the edge of the darkness?
beyond the fisherman's net?
a vastness incomprehensible to even the fisherman himself,
who is blind to all without his net.
but this is the justification for breath,
that we are small.
that the moon's bright and glowing web, too, is small.
and then, just as you begin to feel that you might know the night,
that you watched the fisherman as an apprentice would his master and may be wiser,
the night is stolen by the light.
the fisherman's net comes up empty and you are left with your questions.
the fisherman leaves slowly, betraying nothing, neither regret nor hope.
his departure swollen with some age-old story that only he and the night know.
the sole certain thing is that the two will meet again,
like old friends for whom the joke never gets old and the competition never wears.
and you will chance upon them as they share secrets and stories,
and you will try to understand their youthfulness when every meeting is the same--
the fisherman always drawing in his barren net,
as if the peace he finds is in the act of casting it out instead of in success.
there is comfort in its emptiness,
as if it proves the night's secrets to be true.
and so,
he will always test his friend's honesty--
to keep the balance,
and the bet even,
and all the rest in suspense over the curiosity of the vastness,
and the moments between the fisherman and his sea.

yogya

magnificent yogya. what can be said? just that it is as alive as any city, brimming with personality. i'll let the photos say more than i can...

malang

malang was a pleasantly simple place. alal and i had a splendid room just wider than my wing span. 

we whiled away hours writing in our journals over tea and waffles, in a sweet spot across from our hotel called legipait, a perfect little cafe. 

we browsed the bird and flower markets. 

we rose again in the middle of the night for a more than hilarious attempt to trump rinjani with another volcanic sunrise at mount bromo. we had a first-timer guide who did not know his way and after leading us on a series of right turns remarked, "i think... we are back. yes, we are back" upon discovering we had walked in a giant circle. spoiled by rinjani we balked at the sacrifice of warm, cozy sleep in our beds. the truth is though, that we were spoiled. even bromo was spectacular.

to end our stay, an old and gentle soul biked us to blind massages. tomorrow? we make our way to vibrant yogyakarta...

mount amazing

we've just come back from a 4 day/3 night trek on mount rinjani. words cannot describe the stunning beauty of this volcano. we set out from sembalun, led by tal, a good friend of mine from the CDC and an expert rinjani guide. we trekked for 8 hours the first day to get to the crater rim where we set up camp 1. tal woke us around 2am for a light breakfast just before beginning the strenuous climb to the summit in time for sunrise. most of the way to the top was a narrow and loose path of gravel, on one side of you the active crater, and on the other a steep fall down to the green valley below. we wrestled with rinjani through the night, searching for something stable to grab hold of to help pull ourselves up to the top of the volcano, but there was no solid ground, and the peak proved ever elusive as each time we thought we had gotten close, turning the corner revealed a new leg of the climb. there were countless moments when i thought, "what am i doing? why did i sign up to put myself through this? this is not fun! this does not feel good!" but if i paused to question myself, turning my back on the mountain, i saw that the sky was an endless black, milky with stars. a cavernous and gaping mouth ready to swallow me whole. it was so dramatic, as if all else but us had ceased to exist. stretching behind and above me was a line of ants, our flashlights bobbing in the dark like lightning bugs, all of us making our pilgrimage to rinjani's summit. sweat and tears our sacrifice, silent awe our prayers at the high altar that was this breathing hole in the earth. and so i, we, continued on. slowly one edge of the sky began to melt from black to blue to purple, until it was on fire with the orange glow of the sun rising up. our sacrifices had been accepted, our prayers heard. the sunset was like none we had ever seen before. a 360 degree view of the horizon as the sun brought color back into the world.

the rest of the day was spent making our way down into the crater to the lake's edge to set up camp 2. we rewarded our weary limbs by soaking them in a natural hot spring near camp. we felt tired, but undeniably alive. we applauded our legs for the hard work they had done, getting us to the summit and back. we ate heartily. and then, we slept.

on the third day we trekked up the other side of the crater and over the rim for a different view of rinjani's majesty, stunning as ever, and then down its jungled exterior to make camp 3, laughing the entire way at our tired clumsiness. we stayed up late with tal and our porters, huddled around the campfire and singing along to all the western songs they had downloaded on their cellphones.

by the fourth and final day we were covered in dirt and our muscles were strained, but we were giddy. we had climbed rinjani and been amazed by its splendor. we capped the trek off with a motorbike ride. set and royal drove us and our packs to lombok's capital, mataram. we shared a late lunch all together and then said our goodbyes. parting was sad, but i was filled up with experience. everything i could have asked for from lombok it had relinquished to me.

island hopping

after diving i met up with my dearest friend, who came direct from china for a couple of weeks so that we could fulfill our life-long dream of traveling together. it was spectacular traveling alone, but it has been soul-quenching to share some of this trip with someone i love and respect so much. we've been island hopping for the past five days.

on the recommendation of some surf junkies i met on the ferry between lombok and bali, we ventured first to nusa lembongan, a small speck between bali and lombok, south of the gilis. the way it was described it sounded like it would be a pristine paradise, as if right out of the movie the beach: an unspoiled place where people of various backgrounds find themselves circled around a bonfire sipping on some brew--blissfully ignorant, sun scorched, sea salted, and free. lembongan was beautiful, but there were no stretching virgin white sands. what we found there instead was an island whose livelihood was seaweed farming. our first night there we walked along the beach watching the seaweed farmers bring back their days harvest. they scattered the tangled green hair of the ocean's floor out to dry, spreading it over blue tarps stretched across the beach from water's edge to their thresholds. farmers' wives waded through the carpets of seaweed laid out in front of their homes with rakes, turning the green knots so that every inch was dried and bleached. this wasn't a beach made for swimming, or even for lounging. alongside the farmers lugging baskets full of fresh seaweed from the gentle and shallow surf, boats were strung to the shore. out beyond them you could see white patches of sand beneath the water, where the sea bottom had been sheared its wool. this was a place of quiet, picturesque industry. we could hardly believe our luck, finding ourselves within a postcard. the sunset was the exclamation point at the end of the poem, punctuated by a beam of blue that stretched from the horizon like an arm pulling the cover of darkness down over the earth.

from lembongan we moved on to gili meno. on the day of departure we enjoyed our breakfast a little too much and missed our boat. the family who sold us the tickets were stupefied that we had f*cked it up, but quickly arranged an alternate route. a kind neighbor took us in his small farming skiff from nusa lembongan to bali. we ended up beating the boat we had missed and fancying the bumpy ride to the point of debilitating laughter.

gili meno was a honeymoon escape for us. we splurged on a beautiful one room beach hut with an outdoor bathroom and spent our time exploring the small island. the entire thing could be circled in less than 90 minutes by foot, the only alternative to that being a donkey cart. we felt a slight air of mystery about the island upon making our first exploration of it, as on the western side we found several seemingly abandoned resorts, with cabins overgrown and collapsing, the swimming pools festering under the hot sun and becoming swampy. not storm damaged but left to rot, like the end of civilization on the twilight zone. there was an inland salt lake, which gave the misleading impression that the island was big enough to get lost on. while this was not true, it was true that at night we walked the paths of the island's interior with flashlights and sticks extended in front of us to fend against creepy crawlies. best of all the memories born on meno, however, was of last night. there was a concert of local music in the village school yard at the heart of the island. we wandered there after dinner, finding a crowd of bored-looking tourists and docile tunes. we opted to check our email instead of partaking, but as we surfed the net the sounds on the street outside grew louder and more boisterous. two hours later the tourists had all returned home and tributaries of locals were flowing into the yard to dance and sing along with the band. we watched in awe from the outskirts until invited to join, and then we gave ourselves up to the throbbing crowd with sweet abandon.

diving gili T

Coming here from Sembalun, I've been in a haze of culture shock the past 4 days. Sembalun was mountainous, cool, and extremely Indonesian - void of tourists, the only non-Indonesians being us few volunteers. Gili T is beachy, hot, and built for bule ("boo-lay" means foreigners in Bahasa Indonesia). Fortunately, I didn't come for the company of a crowd I haven't yet had a chance to miss, I came for the diving, and my, has that been worth it! My first order of business upon arrival was to sign up for my advanced diver course. I decided I may as well get the next level of PADI certification while I'm here, so I signed up with Blue Marlin, a semi-famous dive shop, the one considered to have started it all on the island. The dive family there made me feel right at home, which is only natural. I can't exactly explain why there's such comradery amongst divers, though I could muse that it's because we all feel we are in on this big secret together, all of us part of a story that "you just had to be there" for. Those who blow bubbles together also eat together, drink together, laugh together... So, for several splendid days of underwater adventure I was a member of the Blue Marlin family. Mad fun was had both below and above the water. Highlights?

• Diving again, it's been too long. I remember again why I love it so much, and how addictive it can be.
• A cuddlefish, up close and personal.
• The biorock reef, healthy and growing. I want to see some biorock in the Caribbean. Everyone who dives the Gilis pays a tax which goes towards the biorock and keeping the ecosystem here clean and alive. It's such a small price to pay to see soooo many fish!
• Breathing nitrox. It lived up to the hype, I might be hooked.
• The full moon party, on the beach, around a bonfire... which had nothing on Koh Pahngan, to be true, but was great fun nonetheless.
• Seeing the Blue Marlin family in togas (or as close as you can get to togas on a small island in Indonesia)

earthly magic

i have just come from the sembalun valley on lombok, where i spent my first 9 days. i am finding it hard to find the words to do it justice... it was so incredibly beautiful there, on every level, i just don't know where to begin. perhaps, i shall begin at the beginning...

before i left i had emailed several organizations i found online about possibly volunteering with them. all but one got back to me, and only one seemed even remotely reasonable as far as cost, charging what seemed just enough to cover the expense of my room and board and transportation. (why on earth some organizations think it appropriate to charge thousands for you to give one week of your time for free to work with them is beyond me!) the organization is 4th world love, and they work with the community development center (CDC) in sembalun lawang. doing what exactly was not made clear in the information they sent me, but that they would arrange for a homestay and allow me to volunteer with them for a week for so small a price sounded perfect enough to me. on my way to the airport in LA i finally got email confirmation from them that they could have me for my first week. still with no idea what i'd be lending my time and expertise to while there, i at least had some idea of where i'd be going when i arrived.

it took me 24 hours all told, from LA to Bali. when i landed and got through customs i went straight to padangbai, a port town, to spend the night before catching a ferry to lombok, where a mr. setiyadi from the CDC would be picking me up by motorbike. padangbai seemed nice enough, and for about $5 i got a mattress and mosquito net on the floor of an open-air but covered balcony overlooking the far end of the beach, above a quiet but popular restaurant. i was too jet lagged to check out the town and passed out at 8pm, with people still eating dinner around me on the balcony, and slept for 12 hours. air travel being the time warp that it is, i really needed the rest. (on a side note: where does all that time go when you're in the air? it feels like mere hours, but when you arrive you're either in the future or the past by a significant and mysterious margin, depending on where you were headed and from whence you came, but the time in between is just gone. gone! even on a 15 hour flight, you may find yourself 24 hours ahead, those other 9 hours absolutely unaccounted for. talk about a mindf*ck.)

the ferry the next morning from bali to lombok took roughly 5 hours. i was apprehensive about being able to locate the stranger coming to pick me up from the ferry, but sure enough, when i walked off the pier there was a happy face there holding a sign with my name on it, the wonderful mr. setiyadi, who would be my dearest friend for the coming days. we shook hands and then, knowing there was at least a 3 hour drive ahead of us, we quickly got on our way. we arranged ourselves precariously on his motorbike--two small people, total strangers, balanced between two backpacks.

the 3 hour drive from the ferry in lembar to the sembalun valley was breathtaking. green and lush, glittering rice paddies stretching away from the road on either side like ribs from a spine, hills rising up in the distance, growing ever larger as we drove further inland. as we climbed upward from the level of the sea i could feel the air grow cooler, see the trees grow thicker, sense the eyes of monkeys grilling me as we drove past. "who is this intruder, this strange creature in our territory? with white skin and yellow hair and a giant red thing protruding from her back?" they must have been thinking as i and my red backpack flew by, balanced on the back of set's motorbike.

 {my first view of sembalun}

we arrived at the crest of the hill protecting the sembalun valley from all the rest of lombok just as the sun was setting, so i got a glimpse from up above of this secret shangri-la, a patchwork quilt of fields stitching the valley together from hill to hill. i was elated, my whole being full of anticipation. whatever was in store for me, whatever job, whatever kind of homestay...i was ready, hungry even, to be filled up by an experience bigger than myself.

it was dark when we pulled up to the home of my host family, but they had been expecting us and as soon as we walked in they served us a great big home-cooked meal. this first meal, like every meal i took in sembalun, was superbly delicious: white rice, fried egg, a green bean/bean sprout/peanut/chili pepper concoction, tempe, vegetable stew, and local loose leaf tea. i slept like a baby that night, in a room all my own, and when i awoke there was another delicious meal awaiting me. no sooner had i finished it than a young indonesian man arrived to whisk me away on his motorbike to the CDC. it was then that i learned i'd be teaching english!

i taught a class in the morning at one of the local schools to little ones, a class in the afternoon at the CDC to teenagers, and in the evening to a group of male farmers, who couldn't learn until after nightfall as they spent their days in the sawa (field). i simply cannot say enough about how magnificent this experience was. being thrown into it so abruptly that first day was like being thrown overboard with no floaty, but to my rescue in a sturdy life boat came two young Aussies who have made Sembalun their second home. these lovely girls have grown roots in the magical Sembalun Valley, and were able to show me the ropes with not just teaching but also the local people, the crew at the CDC, the village gossip, where to get the best pisang goreng (fried banana!)... my time surely would not have been as great without them. on my first day they took me along with them to salong hill, one of the many emerald giants framing sembalun, to watch the sunset. a short little hike up to a stunning view over the fields, the sun's rays pullled away from the valley like the tentacles of an octopus retracting into hiding. i sat there amongst new friends, breathing the last warmth of the sun into my lungs and watching darkness gradually mute the many shades of green in the valley below, and i felt at home.

{the sunset from salong hill}

over 9 days there i fell in love with 30 little children, ate myself silly on so many phenomenal local dishes whose names or full list of ingredients are unbeknownst to me, accepted more gestures of hospitality than i could begin to count from not just total strangers- but from people who spoke not a word of my language, nor i any of theirs. each day i got on the back of some other Indonesian's motorbike to be swept off to whatever local cultural event someone thought I should see- whether to meet someone's extended family, hear traditional gamelan music, watch a wedding party march through the village, feast at a circumcision party, grill fish on a black sand beach, wade in a waterfall, walk a motorbike that's out of petrol home by only the light of the moon and stars, or laugh until i cry because the whole CDC crew dances to cheesy western music by the light of their cell phones when the power would go out, which it did nearly every single night. i felt so welcomed into their hearts and homes in Sembalun, though i truly could not be any more of a stranger- from the opposite side of the globe, from opposite circumstances.

{peeling garlic}

{gamelan}

{wedding march}

{circumcision party}

{my youngest students}

{the village soccer field}

{the CDC crew at the black sand beach}

{grilling fish at the beach}

{fresh chili sauce for our grilled fish}

{the waterfall}

{my home}

 {the view from my porch}

{my beautiful host mom}

 {me and my host sisters playing on the porch} 

{where all the magic happens...the kitchen}

 {a home cooked meal}

 

{the living room}                                    {my bedroom}

>>__________________________________<<

this morning when i left to make my way to Gili Trawangan to do some diving, my host mom and i balled like little babies. we had not had one verbal conversation, though i suppose we'd had many other kinds. i had been thinking for a few days, as i realized i would inevitably be leaving and moving on and that Sembalun would not be all of Indonesia for me, that to me, this experience, the warmth of the local Sasak people, was everything- beautiful, moving, enlightening, the overwhelmingly perfect beginning to 6 weeks in a foreign country- while i was nothing to them, just another foreigner sweeping through for a week to give a little bit of time to a community that was most certainly grateful, but ultimately didn't need me as i needed them to change my world. but when set came to pick me up and i hugged my host mom goodbye and she began to cry, i did question for a second if i was right in my thinking. why else would she be crying? in the end, i know she and her family didn't need anything from me, but perhaps she recognized how badly i had needed them, how much they had given me, and how wonderfully glad they had made me- letting me peel the garlic from their farm with them in the kitchen in the mornings, my little host sisters- Hulut and Bilal- indulging my camera by playing and posing for me in the afternoon sun on the front porch, nursing me with hot tea when my cold had undeniably overtaken me- and perhaps that realization had drawn out her motherly instinct, and she was sad to see me go because she knew as well as i did that every experience in Indonesia following my time in Sembalun would likely pale in comparison.

so grateful for the earthly magic of Sembalun and its people. i'll report back from Gili T.

till then!

OH! and PS - everyone wish my mama a happy, happy birthday!!!! today is her day!

countdown

30 hours to go until take off! people keep responding to my summer plans with, "wow, really?" i'm not sure what exactly is so curious about my trip... that it's so far away? that i'm going alone? that i have zero plans so far? to me, taking this trip seemed the only thing i could possibly choose to do with my summer, the only thing i know how to do, the only one that feels right and natural. so in 30 hours i'll be passing through security at LAX, about to board my first flight. what will i do when i finally land in indonesia? TBD. i know i want to get my hands dirty with some volunteer work, i know i want to do some diving, i know i want to befriend some locals, i know i want to find a deserted beach somewhere and feel alone with the life forces of water and sun, i know i want to do some trekking, and i know i want to get lost enough to find my way.

this all hardly feels real still, as i've already been away from home for three weeks but am still in the land of stars and stripes takin' it easy. missing loved ones already, though i barely feel i've gone anywhere. really looking forward to getting off the grid--not being accessible by phone and email 24/7... i will absolutely relish in the disconnectedness.

!!!!! me stoked.

in the meantime, happy 4th, america! bottoms up to rich displays of fireworks, BBQs, pool parties, and most of all to the healthy dissent that defines us--may it grow louder and continue on...

things that are round and good:

-the planet earth

-apples/grapefruits/grapes/oranges

-cheerios

-beach balls

-booty

-pizza

-cakes/pies/tarts

-flying saucers

-coins

-inner tubes

-cookies

-the center of a sunflower

-RANDY'S DONUTS!!!!

two little miracles

birth, life, and death. saw the tree of life the other day...what an amazing film. it is truly a 2.5 hour visual poem, a rumination on how infinitesimal we and our lives are in the grand scheme of the universe. our existence is so short and small--we are born, we live, and then we die; we are one of many. what a poignant time for me to see this film, considering all that my family has been going through--welcoming two new lives to the planet earth. i have fought inwardly about whether or not to blog about this, deciding not to as it is such an intense and personal moment, but after seeing this film i can't help but comment on how magnificent a miracle the creation of new life is, and how grateful i am for all the things that make that miracle possible, even in the face of obstacles. now we have two beautiful, precious life-creations of energy spun into a physical mass of skin and bones and blood and muscle, all the more precious for how singular and minute they are. perhaps this was the point of the film: we are small against the canvas of the infinite, but we are nonetheless a gorgeous and haphazard spattering of matter and mind.

grateful for life and breath...

proof

an offering of evidence, 

to prove that i am in fact in california and do in fact know what's good on the west side:

(two double-doubles with the works)

need i say more?

lounging

"ahhhhhhhhhh" <----- that's the sound i made when we landed in cali. love it out here. been spending lots of time in the sunshine by the pool, swimming and playing with my brother's dog, dani/looli/mackonfoofi:

our grand pool day

gettin some looli-love

other than that... been trying to sink my teeth into my indonesia guide book, but, try as i might, i don't WANT to plan for this trip! i hope for it to master me more than i master it...

LEG 2

i have embarked upon the second leg of my summer journey. mama and i flew this afternoon from ohio to california. i'm glad to be moving on, though ohio (or, o-flat-o, as i like to say) was good to me. i was sad to see how few mom-and-pop establishments are left. even at home in the west village where gentrification has caught like latent HIV--a brutal reality, at first seemingly symptomless, about which nothing can be done, weakening its natural defenses and eating away at it from the inside out--at least a great number of the local establishments there are not part of huge corporate chains, but are owned and operated by entrepreneurial individuals. in o-flat-o i was dismayed to note the number of malls and chain restaurants. only on small main streets, like on franklin avenue in bellbrook, do you find local businesses. truly no one can compete with the corporate giants in the grand scheme. my, how sad thomas jefferson would be to see all this farmland turned over to chili's and red lobster! sorry, TJ, this ain't no yeoman country any more. in spite of the walmartification of rural america, however, the courtesy in ohio remains unshakable... my pharmacist in ny is a pretty swell fellow, but the pharmacist at drug mart was so truly concerned about how i was going to fill the script for malaria pills which they could not that i felt he might have had my back in a showdown. the busgirl at MCL was as sweet and accommodating as anyone i've ever encountered in the hospitality industry. pedestrians walking through bellbrook nodded when passing, and would've surely tipped their hat to me if it were still fashionable to rock a bowler. the server at steak-and-shake had been to nyc but detested it, and seemed ready to award me a badge of honor for tolerating it all my life. this struck me... how relative life can be. i might have awarded the steak-and-shake server the same badge for surviving rural ohio for a lifetime! is it a stroke of fate, that we are born in the right place? or is it that we are born there which causes us to love it? sometimes it also goes the other way: being born into urbanity, one might spend their whole life seeking its antidote, and vice versa. i, for one, have always felt that the secret to surviving the city (perhaps any city, but especially new york) is to get out of it as much as possible, to remember that life isn't all concrete and shopping bags and suits. and so, here i find myself, sitting in the airport in dayton, ohio, waiting to board for california...


i love flying. almost everything about it: how wrong and unnatural it is that a chunk of steel should fly through the air at hundreds of miles an hour, thousands of feet above the earth's surface. the anticipation of going some place. the people-watching in the terminal and on the plane. the fact that bad food is totally expected and acceptable on a plane, where it would be nowhere else. however, in the years since 9/11 so much about air travel in the states has changed. incessant delays, cancellations, and charging for meals and tv do take so much of the fun out of it. ahhh, i take it all back! who am i to complain? it's still better than traveling by horse drawn wagon on the oregon trail, exposed to the elements and susceptible to dysentery and rogue bandits! i can get there in hours instead of days! 


lucky, modern, mortal fools we are.

and on the seventh day she rested

today was my seventh day away from home. thunder cracked and rain poured, all day until the sun began to set. it was a perfect day for lying in bed and reading a good book. for dinner we hit MCL. this cafeteria-style restaurant is the reason why i was a stranger to the coney before saturday. my nana loved MCL, and consequently we ate dinner here often when i was younger. (and always before 5pm to ensure we nabbed that senior discount!) in my memory, MCL is the epitome of the ohio food scene: true midwestern meat-and-potatoes fare. you enter and immediately get in queue. after grabbing a tray you slide it down the line, pointing the pre-prepared plates of your choice out to servers on the other side of the counter. there were about three variations of salad, at least six entrees to choose from, several different vegetable sides, and about five kinds of dessert--from puddin' to pie. to me, the food is either overcooked or over-buttered, and almost all of it (save for the two green options of salad and broccoli) is of the same beige color family--having lost all its flavor and nutrients in the process of preparing it. sorry, MCL, but your food is certainly nothing worth blogging about. (and yet, paradoxically, i am doing just that...) however, the meal flooded me with memories of my nana--how she would fill up her tray and tuck in heartily, though chewing daintily with lips tightly closed, and always choosing a light-hearted topic of conversation for the dinner table (she preferred to laugh over food rather than brood)--so that much at least i enjoyed.

the tale of the unknown coney

DAY 5

the highlight of my day was being introduced to the coney dog. uncle jim and chucko decided that my visit to ohio this summer would be incomplete without my enjoying a coney.

"what's a coney?" i inquired innocently. 

"what's a coney?!! you mean to tell us you are FROM new york and you don't know what a coney dog is? it's a hot dog, but with coney sauce, and onions, and mustard and cheese on top. you do know what coney sauce is at least, don't you?" 

"nope," i replied with a hint of indignation. 

"what?!?! coney sauce is the chili you put on top!" 

i tried to explain that no one in new york calls a chili dog a coney dog, nor is the chili referred to as coney sauce. quite simply, in coney island, as in the rest of the city, one orders a hot dog (or to some, a frank) and specifies what they do or do not want on it. standard toppings include ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut. if it's a chili dog you want, it's a chili dog you order. 

i'm not sure either of them was able to grasp that the coney is a fictional beast--an invented name, for a delicious food item, which ties it to the American home of the hot dog and all its tasty variations. why, names tell no lies! if something is called a coney dog, surely it must be from coney island. just as haagen dazs must be from denmark. but that's ok, i will let the world have their imaginings about new york, made up delicacies and all. it's a city so well-known that everyone thinks they know it. 

needless to say, in my hunt to experience firsthand the mystical coney, chucko led me to skyline chili where i was delighted to find not just a satisfyingly loaded hot dog, but a cheap one too! one coney was just $1.49! i haven't seen a dog that cheap in new york for over a decade. fortunately i was able to snap a shot of one of these elusive, midwestern species of the hot dog before the ones on our table all went extinct:

a loaded coney

good vibrations

DAY 4


today i joined mama for lunch with 6 of her girlfriends from nursing school. what a fun bunch! we dined at red lobster--a restaurant that i have never visited, despite its ubiquity. they are a lovely gaggle, and my, do they know how to make one another laugh! topics of conversation included: children, grandchildren, travel, old nursing stories, the decline in the quality of nursing these days, and the facts of growing older. observing this wonderful group of women--who have known each other for the majority of their lives--proved to me that true friends are not necessarily the ones you see the most often... true friends are the ones in whom you trust, lean on, and laugh with in the same way after a year's separation as you would after only a day's. i believe that we have a variety of friends for a variety of reasons, each one there to fulfill a different need of ours, or to complement a different aspect of ourselves, but all of them equally precious, and the best of them unsusceptible to the distance or time between us. before i left for the summer i had already begun to reflect on this--how fortunate i am to have such amazing people in my life, and how glad i am to be in theirs. good friends are a true gift that keep us real and vital. 


it's interesting, as we age, to begin to see our parents as whole and human individuals--removed from the pedestals of our childhoods, they suddenly have flaws and are in possession of at least one lifetime before we knew them, of which we know nothing about. today, i really felt that i saw my mom as a girl, in her twenties, surrounded by beloved friends, gossiping and giggling and drinking of the fountain of youth, for what could keep one younger than timeless relationships?

following our day with the girls, we ventured over to the milton club for dinner and some live music. just n tyme is a cover band my uncle and his lady (sandy) insisted we get to see. performing the dayton circuit for years now, they are a well-known group at the milton club, and they drew a decent-sized and lively crowd. they played it all--from country, to rock, to oldies, to sublime. we danced, we sang along, and the front man shaked his groove thang all across that room, atop our table, and even on my lap! with a man like that to lead the crowd it would have been hard not to have a good time--so without resistance, we all got down and funky for 4 whole hours.

rockin out on stage with the band

my favorite part of the evening was watching everyone dance. there are so many different styles and ways to move! some are more rhythmic than others, but they all reach the same end. why is music so magical? what else can move an entire crowd...to tears, to laughter, to happiness, to lust, to just gettin jiggy with it...??? nothing that i can think of gets in our bones as completely and universally as music does. music can speak for me when i have no words, and it draws me outside of myself--when dancing with music i am no longer a construction of my consciousness, i am just a vibration, letting more-beautiful vibrations wash over me and stir me as the waves do to kelp. and the truth is, when you're moving to the music it doesn't matter what you look like, as long as you're feelin it you're golden.

to end the night, the band paid tribute to our troops, who are overseas fighting three wars while we ate, drank, and were merry, by singing god bless america to our flag. my heart goes out to all the servicemen and women and to their families. their sacrifice is greater than i feel i'll ever know.

a day on a farm

DAY 3


today we went to a farm. mama's man, chucko (as i like to call him), has a lifelong friend named charlie, and charlie has a farm. on his farm he keeps 11 dogs for breeding. one had just had a litter of 5 pups a few days earlier--4 boys and 1 girl, squealing away while drinking mother's milk, and no longer than the distance between the thumb and pointer finger of an outstretched hand. i happened to fall in love with this sweet thing:

his name is bo, he's a burmese mountain dog, 2 months old

charlie also has 2 grown deer, 1 albino! and 3 little spotted bambis, about 3 weeks old. he also has 4 cats. he said people will just drop off animals that they don't want anymore, because they know he'll give them a good home.

i was taken with his backyard. he had a very american garage, a killer barn out back--about 3 stories high, a fine old ford tractor, and a pond with a silver windmill beside it. i took a ton of pictures, but in absence of the proper cord to upload said shots from my real camera, some artsy flicks from my iphone will have to suffice...

i couldn't have taken a bad picture of this machine

god bless the midwest

in one of my nine lives, it would do my soul some good if i could be a farm dweller.

roadtrippin w mama

DAY 1


haven't been on a road trip with my ma in about 7 or 8 years. when i was younger we used to do at least one road trip a year--always once to ohio and back, sometimes also to florida, a handful of times out west, or to maine or vermont for skiing in the winter and log cabin-building in the summer. our road trip staples? a good audio book, the radio seek button, a disposable camera, a road atlas, and lots of banter. this go-around the times have changed. her car being 21 years old now with an out of commission stereo, instead, i read aloud from ken follet's the fall of giants, played music through my ipod and portable speakers, took pictures and followed our route with my iphone... the banter between us, however, has not changed a bit :) this, i believe, is the most important aspect of a roadtrip. it would be impossible to share the confined space within a car if you can't share some good, hearty laughs. good thing my ma has a sense of humor, and a raunchy one at that--or else i'd share her jokes here, ha. (just teasing ma!) (or am i?) she is quite the independent lady firecracker. a little 5'3 ball of energy. anyone who has met her knows this much is true. she's the kind of lady who will tidy up in an hour a mess that would take an average person 5 to tackle, and she'll do it all with a burning cig dangling from her lips and a bad knee. and so, to ohio we venture, the place of origin for suzie-whippersnapper.


this place has not changed since the last time i was here in 2004. the neighborhood in which i spent so many summers and thanksgivings for the first 16 years of my life is, remarkably, just as i remembered it. coming from new york, where, if you're gone for even ten minutes restaurants close and new buildings go up and whole neighborhoods are gentrified, the stagnance of bellbrook is a striking truth. the few changes that do exist are slight--a new white picket fence around what used to be my nana's backyard, new landscaping in the yard across the street, a different business in place of an old one on the main strip of town. even the people, my family, have barely changed. case in point: cousin jimmy still wears his hair in the frizzy pyramidal style he's rocked since the eighties.


new york moves on at the pace of a runaway freight train, and then here is bellbrook, ohio. upon arrival i felt my blood pressure drop and my intensity diminish. when in the city there is always something to do, and so, i am almost always doing something. here, i know no one but family, and certainly no one my own age. i have no mode of transportation except for my own two feet or (pathetically) a ride from my mom--i have not even a bicycle. (oh, woe is me without my wheels!) there are no young and happening night spots, only the trusty old milton club--an exclusive athletic and drinking club established here in 1914, where the male-only members and their guests spend their time smoking, drinking, playing cards, and pitching horse shoes like it's their job...though fun, these are not exactly my pastimes of choice. so what shall i do here? a pleasant and welcome nothing. and i will enjoy it to the utmost. i will explore the main street on foot. i will take in the flat and stretching view from the car window, knowing this was once all farmland. i will daydream about the two months that still lie ahead of me after ohio. i will read a 1000 page book. i will be content having time pass me by for a week, takin it slow and easy.

it's a summer city

Why do I love new york so incredibly much at this time of year? 

The city awakens from its deep winter slumber. Like a bear out of hibernation, it shakes off its lethargy and is immediately in exploration of what newness is in the world after the dark winter months through which it slept. We are all generally happier, the weather thawing attitudes as well as the ground. More doors are held, more apologies are made and missteps forgiven, smiles run rampant through the human masses. People come out of the woodwork and hit the streets donning their finest, either in search of or already in mad love-with friends or themselves or lovers-really makes no difference as any way it escapes from the pores and we are all vicariously drunk on the same lust. Each one of us feels new again at the sight of the city in the summer. The sidewalks are packed full, life unfolding onto the streets just as the petals of a blooming rose open up to the world. Teenagers are up to no good, stoops echo with laughter, was the food at this place this good last time we were here? Everybody looks fly, you remember where the green grows and that new york has beautiful beaches, do I know you? I swear I know you from somewhere. I definitely know that girl. Music has never moved me so good, the fun is endless, good spirits boundless. Let the current sweep you away on bike rides through empty midnight streets with warm air grazing your skin...this is the stuff of good times. The best of times even. The city truly never sleeps. Each day is really two, with no sleep between except for the weary, and when we do sleep we keep on in our dreams the wakefulness of our days. It feels like an organism unto itself, with 8 million different parts but one heart beat, a pulse, the same for everyone, that anything is possible, as if we- every new yorker- were standing at the foot of the world, looking out upon it as though it were created for each one of us individually. A moment like life has just begun, everything that came before only a blip on the radar in comparison to the vastness of existence lying before us. The building lights form their own constellations, and we might realize, if our minds' eyes are open, that New York is an island at the center of the world, and we are all like Adam and Eve in its garden, feeling perfect and human, and life is too good not to eat of the forbidden fruit for we could not know its goodness without doing so and realizing our own impermanence...

Cheers to summers in NY, to loving life and persisting on the city's vitality, and to experiencing- the good and the bad, each enough to know the other.

the good life

been feeling high on life lately. the key? good people. good energy. good music. good food. feeling alive, the city breathing the life into me, letting it take me over, being HERE, in the moment. what a fleeting moment it is. embarking on summer travels in less than two weeks now and just trying to stay grounded in the here and now but feeling so milky with it... where do i stop and the city begin? i am overcome with gratitude. i am alive, i am here, i am now, i am new york, i am nothing...all at once.

once upon a time...

...there was a little girl who wanted to be just like Indiana Jones. Yep, that was me. Nothing was more interesting to me than imagining what life must have been like in the past…amongst the dinosaurs, or in Pompeii on the eve of the catastrophic Mount Vesuvius eruption, during the middle ages, or at the turn of the twentieth century. Somehow, Indy knew all of these things. He seemed to keep them in his back pocket like spare change. I wanted knowledge like that! But not only did Indy know everything, he could do anything—from outrunning giant stone boulders, eating monkey brains, and consistently outsmarting his enemies, to seriously saving the day. Then there was his human quality—his debilitating fear of snakes, which made him all the more real. Indy got scared, Indy got hurt, Indy got laughed at, Indy was just like you and me. And need I mention his extraordinary travels? I mean, the man has really seen some things. Plus, he is way cooler than James Bond. He didn’t use charm and neat gadgets to get out of trouble, he didn’t play or get played by hot babes—Indy used his noggin! He is a little bit gangsta…part nerd, part badass, all adventurer…Indy is the coolest fictional cat I know.

I’ll be the first to own up to my own nerd cred, and I’m working on the whole badass thing. As for adventure, I’ve hiked in the Himalayas and dived in the Caribbean Sea, I’ve sat before the pyramids of Giza in total awe, almost died on the back of a motorcycle, watched sunflowers dance with the sun, listened to the sounds of the jungle, spied a wild tiger stalking his dinner, slept beneath the stars, sailed the ocean blue, and stared into the steaming crater of a volcano. I’ve been in love and I’ve been heartbroken. I’ve seen death, and poverty, and soul-crushing sadness, but I’ve packed a lot of life into my years and have seen and felt such happiness I thought I would explode from the sheer magnificence of it. I’m never more content than when I’m reminded of how vast the world is, when I’m completely and utterly consumed by its size, its beauty, its madness, its people, its history, its constant flux, and by my small place amongst it all.

I realize I’m not exactly out to save the ancient artifacts of the world or defeat the evil Nazi regime, but I do want to live and breathe the world, experience it with all six of my senses like Indy did, see and give back to as much of it as I can, and maybe share a little bit of that exploration with you through words and pictures along the way. Traveling is the only thing that makes me feel real. I know my pal Indy felt that way. So, in the name of adventure, just call me Indiana.