isla de encanta

Drove up after work just in time for the sunset, walked to the parking lot at the tip of the island by the ferry to watch the red sun dive into the blue water, as a fellow photographer showed us supposed UFOs in the sunset on his iPhone and we gazed in wonder at the swirl of pink and grey clouds uncommonly curvy like Rembrandt models or Georgia O'Keefe paintings.

There was some terrible music coming from the bar up the street and so we decided to investigate and seeing that the Indians/White Sox game was on, my dad and I split a beer, watching the game, and observed the antics of our fellow tourist weekenders. The sound was so loud that we could hear it all the way across the island clearly and the revelers were yelling over the music about the last casinos they visited and talking about WHAT A REALLY GOOD TIME WE'RE ALL HAVING. Some really spacy girl told us she was totally glad that we showed up at this totally awesome party and we both looked confused, because it's just a bar patio full of total strangers with suntans drinking but decided that there would be amusement to be had here.

The singer had karaoke arrangements of 70's and 80's hits and was in the middle of a drunkenly synthesized rendition of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" complete with out of key keyboard lines over the prerecorded tinniness. It was like karaoke night with minimal musical accompaniment and enthusiasm that was no subsitute for the lack of real talent, though no one there seemed to mind and were dancing around to "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." He was unsurprisingly decked out in a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and seashell necklace jumping up and down and really getting into it in between talking about how awesome MTV used to be and who his favorite VJs were and his day job which somehow involves the IRS.

My hopes of sitting out on the breakwall under the stars listening to the waves were dashed by continued covers of Black Eyed Peas songs filtering through the trees, but eventually they stopped, and we built a fire and sat out there awhile talking about stuff until we all got tired.

It felt good to sleep in, spend the day in total relaxation, no phone calls, no email, no drama, just sleeping under the trees lulled by the water and the symphonic drone of summer insects, eating peaches, reading Christine de Pizan and Walker Percy, watching great blue herons glide past and clearing my head from all the clatter and chaos of the last few months.

My sister and her family unit came later, and I got to babytalk to the nephew and hang out before heading back debating whether or not I wanted to be introverted or see Jucifer play down the street and opted for the former. It was good to be away, and it's good to have returned. I needed the solitude, needed to contemplate, to cry out to God and try to listen for the intangible yet so real response that keeps my soul alive and from not slipping into total despair at what I see or total distraction to pretend that what I see isn't there. Part of the getaway, the escape, is trying to figure out how to return to the daily grind.

magic lantern show

Since I'm not the most social of creatures, and don't want to bore my real-life friends, here's what we do instead of slideshows nowadays.

Half my photos are on the Battery-Eating-Baby-Camera, but thanks to the recommendations of one of my friends who drives semis along the eastern seaboard, I exited the gridlock of I-90 for an epic jaunt through Erie, PA, past such fine establishments as the Hard Rock Motel (no pictures, sadly, as I was trying to not crash into other people's cars) and a detour to a record store stuck in an alternate 1988 where punk and thrash never happened, and there were rows and rows of still-cellophaned cassettes of Motley Crue, 12-inches of forgotten and the "alternative" section was mostly 80's new wave that even I hadn't heard of.

There were also a surprising amount of fundie churches through here, or at least the ones that said "Fundamental" and advertised it. Have I finally stumbled across the Real America? I'm not sure, because when I think of Erie, I think of the hardcore youth crew kids that used to come and fight with the Cleveland kids in the mosh pits I used to frequent. The rust belt ennui is in full evidence in a way strangely familiar and comforting, that the pain of hard economic times seems to be geographically universal.

I crossed the border into Chautaqua County, New York, which is full of vineyards and blue mountains in the distance. It was cool and breezy and I had good music in the car. Despite seeing signs for I-90 beckoning me so gorgeous that I stayed on there because it was so peaceful and love with the breeze, the greenery, the signage of gun shops and the paint jobs of stately Victorians, and the stack of good tuneage... the Clash and Stiffed, Kristin Hersh and Jerry Cantrell.

My mom had friends from college who never take an interstate anywhere and I see why they don't... when you're not in a mad hurry and give yourself time to soak in the scenery, when it exists, it changes the whole mentality of traveling. My legs got cramped from being in the same position for hours, so I'd stop in small towns to stretch my legs in forgotten cemeteries, call my lovely hosts to tell them I was running late.

Dinner was improvised and delicious, especially with the addition of Birthday Bash ice cream, which sounds like the worst idea ever but was actually kind of awesome in a Zero Zest kind of way.



Walked on the river breakwall walkway as the sun set, underneath the Peace Bridge ringed with barbed wire, ignoring the green piles of goose doo because it's not every day I get up close and personal with great blue herons.







Night drive and wanderings...



Late night conversations, oversleeping the next morning, diner food, a morning walk through the neighborhoods, being turned loose to wander through the city while my hosts were at work.



Maybe it was the weather, the sun, the new frontier of places never seen, but everything felt so bright and vibrant, there was just so much color, with the flowers, and the houses painted so brightly, murals on seemingly every other building, the people out walking resplendent.



City Hall is pretty damn amazing, with its stained-glass windows, epic murals and general art-deco swankiness.







I walked up the street, got completely lost, but somehow found my way into an old cathedral on the way to the cemetery. My inner goth kid was totally in heaven there, even if the humidity made me sleepy as anything. But not enough to fall asleep on this:











Leftist coffee is pricy.


Murals are lovely








So are old churches like St. Ann's and the people that love these places. To think about the love and care that went into this, carving every intricate piece by hand, building it brick by brick, it just astounds me.







Rooftop gardens on top of the Broadway Market... Polish flags, Stone Temple Pilots reference, made me feel right at home.



And, of course, my wonderful tour guides



The art show in the terminal was wonderful and I came out all inspired to try new colors and techniques with my work, and I love spaces like that, places that are art in themselves.





drive by photo-ing





Niagara Falls





There were other things... seeing Sharon Jones live again, sounding even better than the last time, worshiping with fellow brothers and sisters, and loving being able to sing in Kiswahili again, even if I've lost a lot of what I once knew, driving home into the sun, thankful for a change of scene, the chance to be around wonderful souls, and have my world opened up even a little bit more...

the great road trip of 2011

rust belt adventures so far:

traffic jams on I-90
excursions through Erie
driving down state routes through Chautaqua admiring vineyards and the blue of the mountains
a walk along the Niagara River as the sun set and birds swirled around us
driving through a new city at night
picking yellow and red daisies in the darkness and hanging out among the massive abandoned grain elevators and rusty bridges that made me feel so at home.
wandering through downtown through halls and cathedrals and cemeteries
a picnic of pasta salad, figs, cinnamoned almonds, grapes and peaches, sharing a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag while watching Shakespeare under stars.

This is the first city I feel like I could actually live in if I ever had to vacate Cleveland. Pictures and more lush details to come.

vacay and birthday

It's rare that I get out of Cleveland, but me and the roommate didn't get to Detroit so the islands were the next best thing. We slept, took walks around the island and into the creepy nature preserve woods, ate mulberries off of trees in people's front yards, sat on the rocks, played some Celtic music for the neighbors, and roasted marshmallows. Also discovered that long slices of banana mashed in with s'mores might be the best thing ever.



I love that the interior here is straight out of 1960 in the best way possible.



24 hours was perfect to rejuvenate us and we took the long way home down Route 2, stopping in Oberlin, driving through Lorain, and taking a walk through the Metroparks before heading back into Cleveland to get her viola fixed and so I could stop by my parents' to hang out on the back porch and give my dad his birthday gift of Jimi's "Valleys of Neptune."



We sat in his little room in the basement with the pictures of us kids and the posters on the wall listening to wailing guitar and that amazing voice from a man who never thought he could sing. He told me that his friends from high school had seen him open for Janis Joplin but that he found that Mercedes Benz song so annoying that he didn't go.

It's hard to think of him as being born halfway through the last century because he still seems frozen in time to me, with his love of playing basketball, watching Indians games, playing guitar and cranking up Led Zeppelin records in the basement, his hair still as black as it always was to the point where people ask him what dye he uses not knowing that he hardly ever combs it let alone does anything else...