What a lovlely day! This is my kind of "retirement," puttering, brooding, making bread, making biscuits, doing some prep for turkey legs grilling later, daily checking of our finances to make sure there are no surprises, just the routine of daily living, which may be the very point of Existence. Yes, nothing like a road trip to make you apprciate what you have at home. Typing out here on the deck now, I am as relaxed, as peaceful, moreson, than at any moment on the road trip, including Boise and Baker City, the two highlights. I think my traveling days are over. Certainly on any grand scale. I'm just so damn contented at home! I wish H would get into this space as well. It's perfect for an artist but she hasn't found energy for painting since the heart event, except on scattered moments here and there. I'd like to see her in her studio every day, in the old routine she had in her working mode.
On the trip I asked her what she wanted for the rest of her life. Two things: peace ... and to be recognized as an artist. I understand both. I have both and feel lucky for it. She doesn't have either yet and I don't think she'll get the first until she faces the reality of her situation. The second is a crapshoot, but all you can do, all she can do, is do the work and keep the faith as much as possible.
I wonder if the Baker City motel was there in the 1980s. I would have loved to "hide out" there in my younger writing days. Perfect set up, swimming pool (no one used it while we were there!), free breakfast, great location, I really dug it.
One of the memories the road trip brought back was the summer four of us toured a short Oregon history play I had written, 3 of us performing, the 4th the stage manager, hitting several dozen small Oregon towns in central and east parts, several shows a week and the entire town would come out, it seemed, and give you a standing ovation no matter what you did, but it was the camaraderie among us, and the back road traveling, setting up the stage, doing the show, then being wined and dined by the locals, then back on the road to the next town and show, all paid for by the Oregon Committee for the Humanities on a grant, nothing out of our own pockets, and money left over ... it was a great gig! The 1980s were terrific for grants of all kinds for artists.
I also had memories of small town tavern hopping with my soul brother Dick, in the Idaho outback, one logging town after another, most with his relatives in or behind the bar, very romantic to my LA self at the time. I've written a lot about this.
And the memories are so much sweeter when they are not eclipsed by ego-driven fretting about whether or not your writing career was a waste of time or not ha ha ... nothing like the security of being "in the canon." Has really mellowed me out.
