Sitting in the Salt Lake City Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Boise. It's raining, hard. A stark contrast to the sunny blues skies I just left in LA. I've never been to Salt Lake before, although I've had friends that moved out here. Mormons, mostly. It's sort of a tragedy to have a first trip to a new place become merely a stop on the way to somewhere else. It's a flat, rainy terminal--a placeless community in the midst of a vast, beautiful state many call home.
I like flying because even though we will never visit all the acres on the globe, flying allows us to see so much of it. I love seeing the little plots of farmland sectioned-off so perfectly below, the circles and squares and subdivisions that make up all the tiny slices of the American dream. My writing is interrupted by an adjacent flight announcement to "Portland, Oregon, now boarding." My heart leapt and I found myself wanting to follow it and slip onto the other plane. I think Portland will always be home, no matter where my home is. I love flying into Portland. The route varies, but I always catch a glimpse of the Columbia river carved anciently into the rolling hills of evergreens. It is heavenly, if you don't mind the weather that comes along with the green.
...
I finished a whole book on the plane, gazing across the top of the sun-kissed clouds.
...
Sitting in my Hotel in Boise Idaho. Feeling aglow from successfully maneuvering my first actual car rental, along with booking the flight and hotel, and feeling very much like a teenager that got away with pretending to be an adult. Worked out in the tiny closet of a gym here, showered, ironed my clothes and paced. Often. It turns out when I'm away from the kids, I iron. Who knew.
I have to admit that at times I day-dream about such a getaway...just getting in a rental car and cruising wherever the road takes me, exploring the states. But like many dreams, when the real thing is offered up on a silver platter, it suddenly tastes different than you imagined. Of course. The dreaming is often the fun part!
The hotel, although nice, is not the oasis of freedom I had envisioned, but rather, already pretty lonely without my family in it. It is very quiet...something I've been craving for so long...but the quiet feels empty, whereas my children, even when wild, keep things feeling very full. I'm already grateful for the small amount of perspective.
0 comments:
Post a Comment