Week 11, Part 1: Massachusetts

When we booked a room in Plymouth, Massachusetts, we weren't thinking about the Pilgrims. We just wanted to find an inexpensive Airbnb room that would be within close driving distance of both Cape Cod and Boston. But we were delighted to find ourselves in the beautiful town of Plymouth and to wind our way down the backroads of town to a little secluded property where we stayed in a basement apartment for three nights. Lorna was our host and her house and gardens were beautiful. We were seeing the last of the fall leaves and parked every day under a bright red maple tree. Every morning we'd come out and there'd be a flush of leaves on our truck. We even had a few tucked under the windshield wipers that rode with us to Maine. I think there's still a tiny one clipped under the right wiper now.

View out our apartment, Plymouth

When we opened the door and explored the apartment, I was thrilled by a Chagall print in the hallway--he's my favorite artist. Then in the sitting room was a mandolin (Lorna left me a tuner later and I fooled around with it a little bit.) I'd been threatening to take up mandolin since we saw "The Broken Circle Breakdown" -- and had, a few years ago, taken one mandolin lesson. There was also a print of Titania from "Midsummer Night's Dream," a role I played about a year and a half ago.

Titania

That night, at Lorna's recommendation, we went to a local pub for dinner. Larry wandered into the back of the place to see if there was music and saw it set up as a small theater. It was a Monday night, but they were putting on an early show of four one-act plays. Since we'd gotten hooked on going to live theater in New York City, we decided to eat our dinners quickly and pop into the back for the plays. The quality was mixed, but when they were good, they were very good--and we had a good laugh in the end at the comedic works and performances. Before we drove back to the house, we drove down to the waterfront, where the Mayflower II sat, along with Plymouth Rock, which you couldn't see because it was in a tiny enclosed cage. We decided we'd see it another day.

Mayflower II

The next morning, we woke up to our first snow! I love snow and feel like a little girl whenever I see it and ran out into the yard in my pajamas to take it in. We decided to spend the day driving to Provincetown.

One thing I love to do is to go to cities in their off-seasons--I went to New Orleans in August and now Provincetown in the snow. It was mostly closed for the season, but we found a place called the Squealing Pig to get some fish and chips before walking around the nearly deserted town. I thought of my friend, Monica Wesolowska, who had a writing residency at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center for 11 months some years ago, and wondered how many of the the folks strolling around town might be up and coming writers on residency through the fall and winter. I thought of Anthony Bourdain, whose Kitchen Confidential I just read half of and who got his start cooking in Provincetown. A strange little town. My guess is I'd hate it in the summer. I tend to hate throngs of tourists, even lately I'm adding to those numbers wherever I go.

Provincetown Alley

Provincetown, Pilgrim Monument

Provincetown

That night, we went to hear a rockabilly band play at another local restaurant in Plymouth and visited a bit with our host, Lorna. It was a fun night.

The first day we were in town, at a coffee house, we met a local woman whose senior class had dynamited Plymouth Rock on Senior Skip day when she was in high school. She said their class was responsible for the fence around the rock. We were looking forward to seeing the crack they'd made along with some of the older buildings and landmarks. We had no idea that the whole Plymouth Rock thing was more a symbol than a proven thing. It wasn't mentioned in any writings until the 1700's which, unless it was passed down through oral histories, makes it a suspicious story of what the Pilgrims first stepped on.

Notice the crack

Our walk around town was really beautiful. We loved the old buildings and reconstructed mill wheel, the old church and the beautiful cemetery. It was just a lovely town full of history. I have pretty complicated feelings about the history of this country but I still loved the beauty of the town and last of the fall leaves coming down as yesterday's storm had cleared up and the sun was now out offering a late fall day.

Oldest building in Plymouth, early 1600s

The next day, we took a drive to Boston, about an hour away from Plymouth. Neither of us had been to Massachusetts (except Larry was born Wareham but his family left before his first birthday), and this whole trip was way too brief. My mom was born in Massachusetts and I would love to come back to visit her hometown.

We started our day in Boston with a visit to Fenway Park, where we had lunch at the Bleacher Bar, which was the old batting cage at the park. Larry loves baseball and we will come back to Boston for a longer visit, during baseball season!

Then we walked around Boston Common and the Gardens and around the Beacon Hill area. People seemed friendly. The squirrels were also super friendly:

George Washington statue

Beacon Hill neighborhood

Boston Gardens

Beacon Hill neighborhood 

Older Church, Boston

Cheers! 

We finished out the night in Boston seeing a movie, "The Dallas Buyers Club," a movie that I'd been really looking forward to seeing and that is really close to my heart. I loved it even if it rattled me quite a bit. We went back to Plymouth for an early night's sleep so we could leave the next day for Maine.

Week 10: Danbury, CT & Providence, RI

While we were in Brooklyn, I toyed with the idea of not going on to New England. I felt like I was pretty much done with being on the road and needed to lean into big spaces of rest and routine. I've been able to eat a lot of wonderful things and have been cooked for and treated to amazing meals, but I miss the grounding of cooking my own meals. We didn't have to be in the car in New York, so I didn't have to face the panic episodes I'd been having--and I always felt at home in New York, more at home than I feel anywhere else--so I thought about spending the next few weeks in Brooklyn to rest and write. My friends were on the ready to help me find a cheap sublet for the rest of the month. However, I was worried if I stayed in Brooklyn, I'd want to take advantage of all that New York City has to offer, and I wouldn't get much rest after all, so I agreed to head up to Connecticut for some down time. 

View out our hotel room, Danbury, CT

Danbury was a strange town. Landing in Danbury, the downtown area showed signs that it's been hit hard by the economic crisis, but then, after a day off on a country drive, we came upon on this grand mall and the upscale houses. But it does seem like all across the country, we are noticing a lot of houses for sale, particularly in areas where people might have their second homes. Though most of the fall foliage we saw was in New York--some of the trees were already bare in Connecticut--there was still plenty of fall in the air as we spend four days in Danbury. 

We stayed in a hotel with a fitness center and I finally had the chance to exercise. I was able to realize that exercise roots me in my body and makes me feel at home wherever I am, but that I really am a person who loves to work out in gyms, so I'd have to wait until we were stationed in one place for awhile to have that experience again. I'd have to find others ways to feel at home in my body--stretching, doing the seven minute workout in our living space, some other home exercise routine--if I wanted to feel that grounded. 

 Country drive

The countryside was just beautiful--as was the drive along the southern route of Connecticut, through New Haven, and eventually to Providence. I've always been curious about Providence as I know it has so many universities and a vital arts and food scene. Providence is downright beautiful. The waterways and the cleanness are stunning. Plus, we were now in a part of the country where there are just lots of old beautiful buildings and churches. Providence also seemed full of giant stretches of old cemeteries. 

Providence

We stayed at a spacious Airbnb apartment (that doubles as a yoga studio) in Pawtucket, just a fifteen minute drive from Providence and very working class. Downtown Pawtucket is nicknamed the Dead Zone by locals. I loved our apartment, it was a very healing space, full of inspirational wall hangings and beautiful art. There was plenty of room to stretch out in the living room, which the landlord uses as a yoga studio one weekend a month. 

Mall store display: Larry misses dogs so much he was happy to see this one

Our first day in Providence was spent at this giant mall. I particularly hate malls, but I needed some new shirts and there was a comfort in just being in a mall, a place that could've been in any city. This was one of the most complicated malls I'd been in, but we managed to buy some clothes, have lunch, and see a movie before heading back to our place. 

The next day, Saturday, I went to a salon to get my eyebrows waxed. I know that's a detail that sounds mundane, but this was a cool little place in Pawtucket that was blasting salsa music. The stylist sang to the Puerto Rican music while she waxed my eyebrows. I loved being there and having that experience. 

One thing that's so exhausting about being on the road is having to make every decision all the time. Usually, things like what you are going to do in a day or what you are going to eat become routine, leaving energy for other stuff. It was nice to have a fully equipped kitchen where we could have a normal oatmeal breakfast--and even a home-cooked dinner. 

We walked around a rather hip shopping district, me looking for gifts for my family for Christmas and us trying and falling in love with Seven Stars Bakery. Though Larry and I have each been, on our own journeys, people that have been on and off flour and sugar for different stretches of time, I decided to take the restrictions off my eating on this trip. It's been an interesting experience, to stop judging certain foods as good or bad, and to start to find myself craving celery and tomatoes and oatmeal, to start craving the restrictions I'd put on myself over the years. But to want to eat that way not as a punitive response to some kind of bad eating behavior, but out of self-care. 

On Saturday night, we had tickets for "Good People" at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theater in Pawtucket. I'd loved David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" and was excited about the chance to see another play by him. The theater was professional--most of the actors were Equity. And the play was brilliant. We loved it so much that the next day, we decided to go see another play--"Streetcar Named Desire" acted by Brown University undergraduates. Also fabulous, even if the students were young for the parts. They really did an amazing job and I was thinking that I was watching student theater. 

Clock Tower, Brown University

It was awesome to hang out at Brown University before the matinee performance. We then went home, cooked a meal together, and watched a DVD. We were able to have a bit of routine in Providence because we had a big comfy place to spread out and a full kitchen -- and we didn't feel a lot of pressure to see sights. We thought about going to the world class art museum at Rhode Island School of Design, but opted out of another museum for theater. We are loving the fact that we are discovering a passion for theater as a pass time we can share. 

Gate, Brown

Library, Brown

On Monday, with another stop at Seven Stars for coffee and a pastry, and some shopping, we headed to Massachusetts, where we booked a room in Plymouth, mid-way between Cape Cod and Boston. 

Week 9: Brooklyn and Manhattan and Jersey City

We returned to New York on Sunday, this time booking a week-long stay in a studio apartment in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. We wanted to arrive early as our Airbnb host had a busy Sunday and we didn’t want to keep him waiting. We walked around the neighborhood, eventually stopping for a cup of coffee and a sit at Blue Marble Ice Cream which has an inspiring initiative:  http://www.bluemarbleicecream.com They also created http://www.bluemarbledreams.org, a non-profit initiative, and this has gotten me thinking about how my Sweetie Pie project could become partners with a nonprofit initiative, helping to create awareness about food deserts and help feed people in America. I started researching American-based end hunger initiatives. My friend Kendra in Chicago had planted the seed by posing the idea that it would be great if Sweetie Pie could help create awareness about food deserts in America.

At Blue Marble, we were asked if we wanted to paint pumpkins, miniature ones, in preparation for Halloween. I’m not big on dressing up for Halloween, but I love pumpkin carving and this was as close as I’d get to it this year. I sat there and painted a pumpkin and chatted with the pumpkin-painting host, Brianna. She and her sister both work at the shop, having moved to Brooklyn from Northern Wisconsin.  Though they’re on the East side of Wisconsin, they’d heard of the towns we’ll be visiting this winter.

Sunday night we wanted to have a simple night so we walked around Union Square, popped into this place:

And then had dinner where we could watch a little of the World Series.

On Monday we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is so amazing and so full of important works, it’s more than I could take in in a day. Here’s a sampling:

 They also have a new acquisition, in collaboration with San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by William Kentridge: http://www.metmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/listings/2013/william-kentridge

If I had to name the one most joyous moment during this trip to New York City, it would be hard, but while we were in the contemporary exhibition wings of the museum, we kept hearing this circus-like music coming from somewhere, and anyone who knows anything about me, knows I’m crazy about all things circus. When I found the source of it, William Kentridge’s 30 minute video/installation piece, I was filled with such delight. I just loved all the things going on at once, the music, the different videos projected on the wall, and the giant breathing machine in the middle of the room. School chairs were scattered around the room and people sat for varying lengths of time while the videos and music looped.  I ran out and got Larry, and was happy to see his delight as he walked in and took it in.

After that, we took a beautiful fall stroll through Central Park, rambling through the rambles, the Shakespeare Garden, and Strawberry Fields, until we made our way to 7^th Avenue, cutting across to 9^th, and headed down to Theater row on 42^nd Street passing through Hell’s Kitchen. 

We’d decided this time we wanted to see some off and off-off broadway works, but the listings were so vast, we became overwhelmed. I finally searched for solo performance  works, as I used to be a solo performance artist and Larry loves that kind of work. It turned out the United Solo Festival was going on while we were visiting which showcases 120 works over 8 weeks. But how to choose one? That turned out being easy: we quickly searched the work being performed during the week we were there and found out Larry’s friend from San Francisco, Lorraine Olsen, was performing her solo show on Monday night, so we got our tickets online and went to see a wonderfully performed piece about Olsen’s life as an artists’ model. http://www.theatrevalentine.com That was a wonderful coincidence and Larry and Lorraine were so happy to see each other.  She is an amazing performer and actress and if you get a chance to see her work, we highly recommend it.

While we were waiting for the performance, another, off-broadway show caught our eye, Beth Henley’s “The Jacksonian.” I’ve always loved Henley’s “Miss Firecracker Contest” and “Crimes of the Heart” and had the chance to act in  “Crimes of the Heart” in 2004. This play starred Glenne Headley, Bill Pullman, Ed Harris, and Amy Madigan. Wow. We found out it was playing in previews this week so we got tickets for the following night. This is an amazing article about the play:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/theater/in-the-jacksonian-beth-henley-confronts-violence.html?_r=0

Tuesday, we met one of my friends from San Francisco for lunch in Chelsea. She happened to be visiting her daughter. Another lovely coincidence. Then we dropped down to the Lower East Side to our favorite movie theater, Sunshine Cinemas, where we saw Daniel Radcliffe in “Kill Your Darlings” before heading back up to midtown for another night of theater.

We absolutely loved the play and were delighted by the surprise that there was a question and answer session afterwards with Bill Pullman and Beth Henley afterwards. It was a beautiful night. Since the play was based on Henley’s life, and the most autobiographical of her works, she said a lot of inspiring things about telling the truth and the freedom it offers. Her words give me courage as I launch on my memoir writing project.

Wednesday was this great full day of meeting with friends from my days at University of California, Irvine’s graduate program in creative writing. These friends fill a special place in my heart. I don’t know if it’s because we all share such a passion for writing, or if they saw me at my worst—my most depressed, my meanest, but I always feel very full and alive spending time with friends from UC Irvine. We took the subway up to Bushwick in Broolyn to meet my friend Brando and his girlfriend Erin. Brando was less than 24 hours from final deadline for his second book, Five Fathers—his memoir and follow up book to his novel The Madonnas of Echo Park. He is a super talented writer and I’ve used Madonnas in my college classrooms. My students absolutely adore his book.  He and his lovely girlfriend Erin, a poet and editor, treated us to lunch at Roberta’s, Bushwick’s famous pizza joint: http://www.robertaspizza.com. We had a lovely visit over a delicious lunch and then toured around the upcoming neighborhood of Bushwick where we felt right at home since it’s Latin working class slowly being filled with hipsters, just like our Mission neighborhood in San Francisco.

Then we let Brando get back to the last twelve pages of edits. I read an early draft of this book and can’t wait until the finished product comes out on Father’s Day of this year.

We then took the L train to Williamsburg, because we just had to see the neighborhood that is first to the San Francisco Mission’s second in hipness. A bit like Valencia Street in our city, we found our way to the Williamsburg Bridge and crossed over on foot to the Lower East Side, finding our way to the famous Donut Plant for peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter and banana cream donuts. The best we ever had.

Then we headed down to Jersey City to meet with Kitt, another friend from graduate school whom I delighted to be able to get to know more on each trip to New York City. Kitt is my age and an inspiring woman, being a late mom—she has a two and a half year old, and living through a cancer diagnosis during her pregnancy. She’s also a brilliant writer and has worked in publishing for years and years. She’s also working on a memoir and is taking a memoir-writing class right now and has been feeding me the assignments as well as her versions of them. I can’t wait to read her memoir about her difficult but loveable Australian Shepherd and how Georgie stayed by her side and how her partner Jim stayed by their side through all of Georgie’s training. This was my first time meeting Kitt’s partner Jim and I just loved him. He is an electrical engineer and stand up comic and just a really down to earth guy. I couldn’t be happier for my friends that they have such solid partners in their lives.

 

 The next day we were really tired from that full  and fun day, but we decided to brave the rain and walk the Highline, my absolute favorite thing to do in New York City. It was a lovely day and the fall foliage on the Highline was amazing. It’s an abandoned elevated railroad that was renovated in 2009 as a park and it has amazing landscaping, innovative design (like places to sit), and tons of art along the way. With views of the Hudson and overlooking the City on the other side, it offers a peaceful perspective on the City. Photos are below. We took a detour on 23^rd Street to see a little of Chelsea, including the Hotel Chelsea, where many artists lived and which had a Lou Reed memorial outside of it. We sat in the Donut Plant next door, taking a rest and drinking coffee. Then we went back to walk the rest of the Highline.

By this time, it was late afternoon on Halloween, and it was great to see people appearing in costume.

We headed up to Times Square after the Highline, had an early dinner, gawked at the many people in costume, and ducked into a movie—“Don John” which was quite delightful. I love love love Julianne Moore and loved the way the movie turned on its head the younger woman cast beside older man tradition.

Then home to bed and a day of rest on Friday, doing laundry at the downstairs Laundromat with the nicest bunch of neighborhood folk I could imagine. We felt a part of such a kind community the whole time we were in New York. People were so helpful and would stop to help if we looked confused or lost. Which we did a lot!

Friday night, I was excited to have dinner with another friend from graduate school, Genevieve. Originally from a small town North of New York City, Genevieve inspires me because she has reinvented herself more times than I have and has lived in so many cities and done so many things. Three years ago, she moved to New York City, leaving her job at Mattel Toys in Los Angeles where she named dolls. In New York, she trained to teach ESL, which she now does full time, piecing together jobs at different universities throughout the city. She’s also an amazing poet. We met in Nolita, where we’d first hung out in New York in 2005 for a friend’s wedding, and we traipsed the same streets we had walked on that trip. It was nice to have some girlfriend time. Then Larry joined us for a walk to Greenwich Village and a coffee before we said goodbye and headed to our homes.

Saturday was our last day  in town and we wanted to see the Belgian blue grass movie, The Broken Circle Breakdown, which we’d been seeing previews for since our last trip to New York. Our only regret was that we didn’t change our plans when we saw that the filmmaker was going to be at the 7 PM showing for a Q&A. We’d rushed to the theater and were just on a trajectory to get there on time, that we didn’t pause long enough to discuss a change in our days plans. This film blew our minds. We both love music and it gave me a new appreciation for bluegrass. The acting was phenomenal and I don’t even remember subtitles. So much of the work was done on the faces and in the visuals. It’s based on a play and it’s not necessarily all told in sequence, so it helped open my world, just like the Henley play we saw, which also wasn’t told in sequence, about sequencing narratives as I begin to prepare for that feat this winter. We strongly recommend this film if it comes to your town.

Later, after walking awhile, we had one last dinner at Katz’s deli. A super fun New York experience. Then we went back to Brooklyn.

We were originally going to leave on Sunday, but it was the New York marathon and we thought we might have trouble getting out of town, so we decided to stay until Monday. I had breakfast with my friend Whitney, who was a close friend when I lived in Marfa, Texas and who now lives in Brooklyn, just walking distance from where we were staying. She is looking and doing fabulous, working as a writer for Marie Claire. She was joined by Marfa’s Tom Michael, who I hadn’t seen since I lived in Marfa seven years ago. He’s been busy running Marfa’s NPR station and nurturing his growing family. He’d come to New York to run the marathon, but an injury kept him from participating. It was a great chance to get to know him a little bit, and to catch up on Marfa gossip, which I realized was much more fun to do from a distance. Sometimes, I miss Marfa so much, it’s painful. It’s the most beautiful place I ever had the chance to live in and the sunrises and landscape there is breathtaking. But I am truly a city girl—the bigger the city the better—so it might be hard to live there full time again.

We went to yet another movie on Sunday, in downtown Brooklyn. We saw Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips then ate a local pub before heading back to our studio for one last night. I was so sad about leaving Brooklyn that I cried that night. But Brooklyn will be there when I want to return—and we headed onward the next day—to Danbury, Connecticut. 

Week 8, Part 2: Lancaster County, PA

We decided, after we'd stayed in Indiana Amish Country, that we'd like to spend a little more time in an Amish community. We found the farmland near sunset in Lancaster beautiful as we took a long drive to a giant local smorgasbord. For awhile, we found ourselves behind a buggy with a window in the back and two little girls kept looking back at us, but I couldn't bring myself to lift of the camera and take a photo of them. It made me wonder how photographers do that. It seemed like something I would've had no qualms doing when I was younger, when I had a telephoto lens, when I had my own darkroom. But something felt sacred to me about the Amish, like it was somehow wrong to photograph them. So I handed the camera to Larry. We had a really restful and peaceful overnight stay in Lancaster County, and a beautiful drive the next day back through the Amish farmlands and then onward to Brooklyn. Larry's wonderful photographs of Lancaster are below. Larry spent his high school summers working farms in Yale, MI and was particularly moved seeing farm work done with horses, especially the farmer baling hay with a horse drawn baler.