Best Egg Roll in Wyoming

Best Egg Roll in Wyoming

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I’m taking a virtual vacation today, remembering the June trip out West, stopping for the evening in Gillette, Wyoming, after a late-afternoon stroll around Devil’s Tower.

There had been that feeling at Devil’s Tower, one I hadn’t experienced in a while, of being truly free. Usually I book accommodations in advance, but this was the last full day of the trip and I wasn’t sure of the itinerary. So there were 50, 70, maybe even 100 miles of open road ahead and no sure resting place. I knew there would be some place, of course, but wasn’t sure what place.

The place became Gillette because the bones were weary and the motel was the right price range (cheap!). And the restaurant became Chinese because it was the one across the street. 

But the waiter — he was the magical player in all of this. “Have an egg roll,” he urged, his smile lighting up the almost dining empty room. “We don’t just have best egg roll in Gillette; we have best egg roll in Wyoming.”

Well, that did it. The egg rolls came, and they were indeed delicious. And I thought about the randomness of travel, all the fun and funky experiences it opens you up to. All day there had been red rocks and curving roads and grand open spaces. And now, on top of all that, I was tasting the best egg roll in Wyoming.

Appearance of the Bull

Appearance of the Bull

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“There’s an old Mexican adage,” the doctor said. “The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the arena.” He admitted he could find no confirmation of this saying or its lineage, but it’s something he thinks about when he talks to patients and families. “It’s something I try to keep in mind,” he said.

What he meant was that it’s easy to say you want no extreme measures taken at the end of life when you’re not at the end of life. But when death is pawing the ground in front of you, when it’s charging right at you, when it’s close enough that you can spy its wild-looking eyes, its flared nostrils — well, that’s another matter.

“Yes,” he said. “I try to keep that in mind.”

And now I’m keeping it in mind, too.

View from DAR

View from DAR

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A wedding Saturday at the Daughters of the American Revolution headquarters building in downtown D.C. Temperature in the 60s, crisp flag flying, the Washington Monument etched pure and clean against an October sky. This is what I saw from my seat on the portico.

You know, you live here for a while, you deal with the traffic and the cost of living and the general headaches of a major metropolitan area — and you forget, far too often you forget, the beauty.

But on Saturday I didn’t forget. How could I? I took it in, deep breaths full of it. And I took a few photos to preserve it.

Big Magic

Big Magic

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I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic at the library this weekend. It’s new enough that I was surprised to see it — and I snapped it up, even though it’s a 14-day-only, no-renewal book.

When it comes to books that suddenly appear on library shelves long before I would ever expect to see them (I just read a review a few weeks ago), I suspect providence at work. Why this book? Why now?

Big Magic is about the joys of living the creative life and the need to persist in it despite all obstacles. It’s not a perfect book — it’s more pep talk than anything else — but it’s honest and encouraging and bighearted. And it makes some important points about finishing projects (better to be a “deeply disciplined half-ass” than a lazy perfectionist) and why it’s unwise to give up the day job (it would put too great a burden on the writing, sculpting, cello-playing or other creative impulse that must be pursued with lightness).

As I struggle to balance family responsibilities with a new set of duties in my day job, as I think about what I can give up to make this all work, I realize one thing that can’t go is this blog.

It’s as close to “big magic” as I can get these days.

Somewhere …

Somewhere …

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I drove in from the east today, a feeling I always liken to being on the other side of the looking glass — or the rainbow.

And as if on cue, the few drops sprinkling us on the vast, parking lot of a D.C. highway did whatever it is they must do to form a rainbow. And we work-weary, week-weary commuters were treated to a celestial show.

In the Bible, God sends Noah a rainbow as a token of His promise never again to destroy the world by water. But I took today’s rainbow as a reminder that there are forces beyond the ones we see and hear that will have their way with us.

Sometimes they batter us, sometimes they buoy us. But they are always there.

Garden in Autumn

Garden in Autumn

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Yesterday I took a midday walk in balmy D.C. The trees were turning enough to remind me it’s fall and not late summer. The air was that way, too. Warmth without weight, which meant I kept taking off my sweater and putting it back on again.

In the botanical gardens a group of schoolchildren played on the lawn. They were clad in red t-shirts, and were running back and forth, panting and laughing, following the instructions of their teacher. “O.K. This time I want you to find a partner and run together.”

A few steps away was the rose garden. I sniffed around for the most aromatic flowers and found a couple that made me inhale long and deep.

Apart from the roses’ pinks and yellows, the rest of the autumn garden palette was a muted one: lavender asters, russet leaves and the fuzzy fronds of tall grasses.  It was a faded look, mellow and complete.

Leaning Tower of Books

Leaning Tower of Books

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Thinking about the books and magazines I grew up with — and the ones my children did, too. Bookcases stuffed full,  nightstands spilling over, newspapers strewn across the kitchen table. My grandfather had a reading stand so he could prop up the paper and scan it as he had breakfast.

Reading is a solitary act with social potential — especially, I think, when the written word is on paper and more easily shared. When kids see their parents reading they are more likely to read themselves. But what happens when the words are on a device, ephemeral and inconstant?

I guess it makes the kids want the device, and this is undeniably true. But how do we measure the effect of the device itself, and the fact that it can be everything — book, magazine, newspaper? How does this change the reading equation?

There are answers here — and one day we will know them.

Retracing My Steps

Retracing My Steps

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My office key is lost. It must have slipped off the new lanyard I picked up yesterday. A lanyard that apparently didn’t fasten properly.

Meanwhile, I have walked up and down hallways and sidewalks and garage corridors, retracing my steps. What a concept — retracing one’s steps. Going back over what was done before. Ultimate inefficiency.

Or is it? Perhaps a mindfulness exercise could consist of just this practice, walking back over what I walked before, looking for what wasn’t seen previously, realizing that instead of being present in the moment of walking, I was actually daydreaming, fretting, letting the scenery pass in a blur.

As it turns out, I did find something. Not my key but a colleague’s identification card. If I found her card, maybe she — or someone else — found my key. And in this sideways, sliding, inefficient way, we will all be rescued somehow.

(This photo from outside Medora, North Dakota, has no relevance to retracing my steps. I’ve just been wanting to use it.)

Drowned Roses

Drowned Roses

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The living is easy for first-bloom roses. Born in late May, days
past the last frost-possible day, they inherit late evenings, balmy air and no Japanese beetles. They can look forward to a long,
splendid life. (That’s in rose years of course.)

 But second-bloom roses emerge when the sun tilts lower in the sky, when the nights become
nippy, and — this year, at least — when autumn rains mat the grass and rattle limbs loose from the tall oaks.

They may not always hold their heads up like their spring brethren. But they should. Theirs is the harder lot.  Second-bloom roses are the bravest.

Sounds and Comforts

Sounds and Comforts

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It’s 48 degrees outside and 65 in the house. I have nothing I have to do today, no place I have to go. I’m hoping the rain slacks off enough to take a long, brisk walk. It’s been a while since I’ve contemplated the passing landscape with hands tucked up into my sleeves.

Until then, I’m enjoying the quiet morning, the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the cuckoo clock the only sounds I hear. Piles of books and papers on the coffee table, a pot of tea brewing in the kitchen.

Perhaps the reason we appreciate the everyday more as we grow older is because we have learned how uncommon it can be. Days when nothing is expected of us. The comforts of home.