I spent close to 3 hours at the bookstore today. There is something about small homey bookstores that has always enamored me into an altered state of small town happiness. I have used amazon.com many times to buy books and find myself wandering aimlessly online for hours, reading reviews, trying to figure out if it is the book that will change the rest of my life. The cheaper route may seem more user friendly, but I feel like crap after 3 hours of "browsing". Small bookstores creek when you walk into them. The walls are full of deep mahogany colored bookshelves and the binds sit there perfectly resting in their places colorful and molding into the walls. I scan the aisles for a color, a word, a instinct of some sort that will send me the book. I pick it up. It feels soft to the touch and usually gives off an unyielding sense of what it is about before I even can turn it over. I officially get lost. Only the ring of the bell hanging on the front door startles me with a close behind, "hello, how are you" phrase thrown out by the easygoing literary graduate calmly sitting behind the check out counter. Small conversations ensue, talk of local happenings, book talk, shit talk, then someone orders a latte over in the coffee corner and they are on their way to book heaven.
When I was about 16 and first started driving I came upon a used bookstore in the town I grew up in. It looked like a shack off another building and behind some other bigger building. It had corrugated iron walls and looked like it may just fall over if you took too many books off one of the shelves. At that age it was the first bookstore that literally consumed me for hours. I remember buying "The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life" there and feeling like I had a key to a lost door somewhere after that. It became a haven for me to escape home, friends, cars.....until one day it disappeared. Eventually the big box bookstores came in and swiped all those little guys right up. I can't even remember now where that store was or what it even looked like. It is almost as if it was just a fragment in my mind of a time and place that I can visualize the experience of, but have no idea the exact location.
I showed up at the townseller bookstore in Basalt last year the day they were closing. I was in shock and still drive by that spot and mourn its loss and the taking of town vitality with it.
So I try to keep the feel alive by buying books local. I am very pleased with the fact that in 1 week I will have an unmeasurable amount of freetime to lay in a hammock and read books. For me, this is a beautiful thing after many months where the activity of reading a book came not enough and when it did come the words all mashed together as I thought of what I was going to do the next day in the back of my head. After 3 pages I realized I wasnt paying attention then immediately after that it was time for sleep.
So here is what I picked up:
"The Thing about Life is that one Day you'll be Dead" -David Shields-biography, philosophy, biological science, culture- Basically the writers journey of seeing his father dying and analyzing what it means to be alive through not only philosophical and psychological avenues but also through scientific ones
"Blessed Unrest" - Paul Hawken - About groups, individuals, organizations that are working towards making positive changes in social movement, environmental issues and overall global justice
"Exuberance- The Passion for Life" Kay Redfield Jamison- A book about the human spirit and the power of exuberance- lots of awards, I love the word exuberance and always think we all need a little more, so why not?
"A Fraction of the Whole"- Steve Toltz- A nice long funny fiction about family, some crazy travel, love ambition. Always nice to have a long fiction for the long peaceful nights by candlelight in the beach shack travels
I want to pick up a Tom Robbins book as well. I miss his literary exuberance and his knack for metaphors that shake the earth on my axis. Not sure what I will bring yet but hope they all include a concoction of inspiration, audacity, mediation, sex, grace, mortality, knowledge, and some little twinges of itty bitty book worm laughter.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Free at last, again, and not for the last time
Change is upon us. Up up and away into the spring we go. Tomorrow I will look out the window and the ski lifts will not be moving anymore. Shut down. Season change, energy change, priority change. It all keeps me on my toes and I think that is why I like it here in this area of constant movement and shifting energies.
And then off I go, to a new surrounding. There is such excitement bubbling for my up coming surf trip to Mexico that I could potentially explode into small pieces and disperse everywhere. There is something about adventure that has been calling me lately. I need sporadic decisions, spontaneous combustion, culminatiing culture, unknown enclaves. I am turning into my father in many respects when it comes to needing freedom and creating a lifestyle that includes instinctive turns into faraway places. I know that surfing is calling after me. Surfing brings a certain confidence to my life, a certain cleansing sensation, a certain tone of strength that I crave again to have in accomplishing any current and future endeavors. I love what it has always given me. Surfing made me who I am . It was my first adventure.
The trailer for this movie brings me back to the mentality I spent much of my later high school and early college years dreaming about.....
http://vimeo.com/5936526
Is there something missing? Do I live this life? But do I feel still caught up in what I should be doing all of the time? I am living this life in a way, but I do think lately as I grow older and more into myself I am figuring out step by step in which direction my energy should flow. I can make it work. All the pieces, career, family, travel, home, they can all come together. Something in me has always known that I can balance these things in a way of beauty. I am working on it, without having to "work" or "think about it all too much.
Time to be free again. My things will soon all be in a dark room with a lock on it sitting there smelling the poop from the nearby cow fields. I will be with one backpack, no cell service, a surfboard bag and some sunglasses. Can't friggin wait for the freedom. I have always been good at being free. Something I have always strived to be a professional in.
I do think we all have our own distinctive ways of dealing with life decisions. You look back in history and you see the difference in peoples needs and the way that these characteristics were passed down through the generations. There are the explorers, the shackeltons (the treacherous journey south into rugged waters), the captain cooks(the desire to explore far away lost lands and islands even if the natives threw spears at him upon arrival), the general Powells (the first trip down the Grand Canyon just to document its outcome in the most precarirous style wooden boat for rapids so fierce that they cant even be classified), the roz savages (courageous woman rowing over the Pacific and the Atlantic in hopes of giving the greater public awareness of climate change). The list goes on an on. The ones who take a risk, the ones whose conviction becomes stronger then their need for comfort, the individuals that seek new horizons and who discover new worlds weather inside or out of themselves. There area also the people who are more along the lines of settlers or homesteaders. When the first colonial peoples set west from the east coast a century ago or so they headed into open country, a new space. There is a certain attitude and mindset that comes with taking this leap of faith. There is also a respectable mindset for staying back, staying comfortable, building a homestead, caring for children, building a life in one place.
These 2 types may exist in all of us, but one just may predominantly overcomes the other. Lately adventurers inspire me to do something with a wider spectrum of spontaneous outcomes and to find a greater good to support. The homestead can still be there, but the adventure is what currently calls.
It is nice when you let go with minimal belongings and don't let your stuff consume you or define you for that matter. I am ready for that. I am also ready for time away from the phones, the computers, the scheduling, the efficiency of daily life. I am pretty good at efficiency and scheduling, commuinicating, and staying up with all of it. Yet I do feel in our current times that we are overly stimulated by all of this and that keeping up with it at a constant rate is literally exhausting and counter intuitive. We all need a little time to reflect and new surroundings help that for me.
I feel very happy right now. Like I am in the right place. I have worked hard and saved some money, now I am off to surf and feel sun on my body all day, only to be followed by a summer out in the rocky mountains. There are always challenges in our future, there are always anticipated fears, but they subside in just one breath when you are in the right mood. I am un certain of where i will live but know that the right place will come. We will walk up on it and the feeling will over come us. We will just know. Like any adventurer would when finding there new land. And of course there is always another one right around the corner. But every adventurer needs a tree house to settle in between journies to use all the skills and thoughts that they have learned and to record them into a piece of earth. I see a home with big view, creative energizing space, a garden in the works, a happy kitchen to cook in, a place to build and use tools, and stimulated people to live with. All while working at the summer camp with my favorite age group of kids learning together, riding pedicabs around town, taking long hikes next to rivers and fluttering Aspen trees, and having dinner parties with close friends, my parents, and my lova.
Everything is as it should be. Everyday is an adventure.
And then off I go, to a new surrounding. There is such excitement bubbling for my up coming surf trip to Mexico that I could potentially explode into small pieces and disperse everywhere. There is something about adventure that has been calling me lately. I need sporadic decisions, spontaneous combustion, culminatiing culture, unknown enclaves. I am turning into my father in many respects when it comes to needing freedom and creating a lifestyle that includes instinctive turns into faraway places. I know that surfing is calling after me. Surfing brings a certain confidence to my life, a certain cleansing sensation, a certain tone of strength that I crave again to have in accomplishing any current and future endeavors. I love what it has always given me. Surfing made me who I am . It was my first adventure.
The trailer for this movie brings me back to the mentality I spent much of my later high school and early college years dreaming about.....
http://vimeo.com/5936526
Is there something missing? Do I live this life? But do I feel still caught up in what I should be doing all of the time? I am living this life in a way, but I do think lately as I grow older and more into myself I am figuring out step by step in which direction my energy should flow. I can make it work. All the pieces, career, family, travel, home, they can all come together. Something in me has always known that I can balance these things in a way of beauty. I am working on it, without having to "work" or "think about it all too much.
Time to be free again. My things will soon all be in a dark room with a lock on it sitting there smelling the poop from the nearby cow fields. I will be with one backpack, no cell service, a surfboard bag and some sunglasses. Can't friggin wait for the freedom. I have always been good at being free. Something I have always strived to be a professional in.
I do think we all have our own distinctive ways of dealing with life decisions. You look back in history and you see the difference in peoples needs and the way that these characteristics were passed down through the generations. There are the explorers, the shackeltons (the treacherous journey south into rugged waters), the captain cooks(the desire to explore far away lost lands and islands even if the natives threw spears at him upon arrival), the general Powells (the first trip down the Grand Canyon just to document its outcome in the most precarirous style wooden boat for rapids so fierce that they cant even be classified), the roz savages (courageous woman rowing over the Pacific and the Atlantic in hopes of giving the greater public awareness of climate change). The list goes on an on. The ones who take a risk, the ones whose conviction becomes stronger then their need for comfort, the individuals that seek new horizons and who discover new worlds weather inside or out of themselves. There area also the people who are more along the lines of settlers or homesteaders. When the first colonial peoples set west from the east coast a century ago or so they headed into open country, a new space. There is a certain attitude and mindset that comes with taking this leap of faith. There is also a respectable mindset for staying back, staying comfortable, building a homestead, caring for children, building a life in one place.
These 2 types may exist in all of us, but one just may predominantly overcomes the other. Lately adventurers inspire me to do something with a wider spectrum of spontaneous outcomes and to find a greater good to support. The homestead can still be there, but the adventure is what currently calls.
It is nice when you let go with minimal belongings and don't let your stuff consume you or define you for that matter. I am ready for that. I am also ready for time away from the phones, the computers, the scheduling, the efficiency of daily life. I am pretty good at efficiency and scheduling, commuinicating, and staying up with all of it. Yet I do feel in our current times that we are overly stimulated by all of this and that keeping up with it at a constant rate is literally exhausting and counter intuitive. We all need a little time to reflect and new surroundings help that for me.
I feel very happy right now. Like I am in the right place. I have worked hard and saved some money, now I am off to surf and feel sun on my body all day, only to be followed by a summer out in the rocky mountains. There are always challenges in our future, there are always anticipated fears, but they subside in just one breath when you are in the right mood. I am un certain of where i will live but know that the right place will come. We will walk up on it and the feeling will over come us. We will just know. Like any adventurer would when finding there new land. And of course there is always another one right around the corner. But every adventurer needs a tree house to settle in between journies to use all the skills and thoughts that they have learned and to record them into a piece of earth. I see a home with big view, creative energizing space, a garden in the works, a happy kitchen to cook in, a place to build and use tools, and stimulated people to live with. All while working at the summer camp with my favorite age group of kids learning together, riding pedicabs around town, taking long hikes next to rivers and fluttering Aspen trees, and having dinner parties with close friends, my parents, and my lova.
Everything is as it should be. Everyday is an adventure.
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