What I learned on my summer vacation

Usually the question is: what did you do? But for me, this summer has been a set of lessons. I learned so many things and much of it, I am certain, will find its way into my novel, Scags at 18. I mean how could it not?

This summer I have looked at death with a relative I love very much. I have learned how to listen to an estranged cousin who just needed nothing much more than that from me. I learned how to sit patiently on trains as we made our way from Seattle to LA and then from LA home. I learned so much from all the people we met en route that it is going to take a good long time to process their stories and see what I can use of them.

My summer has been full of very long nights when I sat up thinking. I had that luxury. The time to think is really precious and more of us should take the time to do it. Not read or write or play a game or even talk to anyone. Just sit quietly and think.

Maybe due to the amount of time I had to just be away gave me that freedom. The normal anxiety of work and schedules and wanting to accomplish things drained away. For several days I was just in a state of suspense to see where the unscheduled time would lead me.

Suzanne and I tramped around Seattle. We saw lots of that city by foot and it was a lot like walking around San Francisco, i.e., lots of hills, steep hills. But we walked and the weather was fine and our legs carried us.

Being on the West Coast for a couple of weeks made me feel as if I were in a foreign country. Partly that was due to the time change and the radical change in weather. In New York, the summer was so hot and unbearably so, while out west, the weather was cooler and drier. Seeing the sun set in the ocean as opposed to over New Jersey also made the places seem foreign.

Friendliness goes a long way. As does a slower style of living. As does living in or near gorgeous landscapes that are easily accessible by anyone. That too was what we experienced in Seattle. Holidays should do that, take you out of yourself and into a place where you want to be. I always know when a place makes me happy–I want to live there for a year or at least 6 months so I can see what it is like on a longer term.

Being on a train for long distances isn’t quite romantic; it is mostly just fun. The windows are like giant screens onto the immediate world. Rarely do you see billboards, so you aren’t being sold something all the time which was quite refreshing. New York City is one big billboard. It is impossible to walk anywhere without someone trying to sell you something. Every surface is seen as a potential billboard and while it may raise some money for the city, it diminishes the quality of life in it.

Scenery is meant to just be that, the great outdoors, with no encumbrances. Even when the landscape was industrial or just plain degraded, with abandoned vehicles and appliances, it was real and not about to be something else or try to feed a fantasy.

Most of what I saw, I couldn’t see enough of. I wanted to have an internal camera that could hold in it every sight I saw, every color, every change in landscape, every shadow the clouds made on the ground, every ravine that made me feel both nervous and excited. I couldn’t hold it all but so much of it now sits in some memory place, retained for when the stories begin to unfold for our friends.

I realized, as novelists do, that everything was feeding that story I am writing. Living with a novel means life is a time of connectedness with everyone I meet and everyone I listen to. Each seems to be speaking to the issues I am writing about because they are the eternal verities of life–either we pay attention or we miss out on so much that never really changes in life.

Many years ago, I met a man who lived in a small town, a very small town. He told me he woke up very early every morning. I asked him why. He said he was afraid of missing out on things. At the time I thought he was joking. Now I know he wasn’t.