October 30, 2007

12:03 p.m.

Midwest Trip, Installment One

Wednesday, October 24
Oak Park, Illinois

Call me goofy, but I've been having this shifting fantasy of lovers, making up versions of the ideal man (or, in some cases, woman), how we meet, what happens then, and then... It's a pleasant diversion and is, in some measure, keeping at bay the worry and anxiety of my body becoming soft and ordinary from not being able to run.

This car trip (Michigan for a week, and now Chicago) has been AGONY on my hip. It's like a sciatica that is brought on just by sitting in the car for over an hour. Once I can get out, move around or just sit somewhere else, I'm perfectly fine. Well, the hip is fine anyway. I awoke three nights ago with a stabbing pain in the back of my ribcage on one side, like I'd pulled a muscle. It's a little better by now but is still waking me up at night. Knees hurt a little, sometimes, for no reason (I am NOT taxing them), and the left one still snaps sometimes when I'm walking. My ankles are perfectly fine and happy -- ironic, since my joint issues began with an ankle. Perhaps I'm just working my way up; one day I'll have a hell of a headache, and then these demons will fly out my crown and go torment someone else.

I'm not ready to stop running yet. I do not agree with this decision.

Anyway I made it to Chicago today, driving separately from my bandmates. They detoured to visit relatives for a while this afternoon, and will arrive here in the next hour or two.

For lunch I stopped at a Cracker Barrel and ate comfort food. My dad used to love this place, and I could never understand why. The "Country Store" is full of kitsch, mainly stuff no one really needs, and it's always felt a little too P.C. to me. I heard a story about an employee who was fired because it became known that he or she was gay. I suspect a fundamentalist mentality but it's not overtly religious, so it's only a hunch. However, they have great, real, cooked oatmeal if you get there before 10am, and we've been known to seek one out for a good road breakfast. Today I let myself be drawn in to the Cracker Barrel hype, the overt friendliness, the cutesy home decor and olde-fashioned candies available in the store, the silent parade of rocking chairs for sale on the front porch. I wanted something predictable, like the vintage Coca-Cola posters and the diagrams of old horse buggies and the little game on every table with the pegs, where you jump them one over another and try to end up with only one peg remaining. (I hate that game.) I had a huge lunch, delivered by a very friendly waitress named Andrea, for less than six bucks, then bought an oversized peanut butter cup in the store and a couple of Christmas ornaments, and went on my way.

I thought of Dad while I was there, and because I also bought some miniature pastel mints, I thought of my Mom. It completed the nostalgic sadness in which I was already drenched. It's hard not to think of "better days," or at least bygone ones, when you're aching in several places and you can't get out of the car.

Anyway I'm here with our hosts now, in my own little room (with private bathroom, yesss) upstairs, where I've stayed before. We'll do a house concert here on Saturday, and meanwhile have another couple of gigs in this area so that we can stay here four nights in a row. I forgot a couple of things on this trip, namely my gig boots and my jacket. I performed last weekend in my sneakers, and the weather wasn't too cold the first few days. But yesterday we made it out to a big store called Parisian (I want to say it's like a Macy's), where I struck it lucky on shoes. Gig shoes are hard to find -- they have to be perfect, classy and comfortable and suitable for pants or a dress -- and they can't cost a ton of money. I found perfection for half price -- $30 -- in black, and snatched them up. One down. A visit to the Gap outfitted me with a great, soft gray hoodie (HA HA, I typed "hottie" at first) and a down vest with hood... complete with fake fur around the hood. I am class itself. I love the Gap these days.

All in all, my achy, nostalgic self is happy.

I haven't seen Wes in quite a while. I saw him once, briefly, about a week and a half ago, during which visit he annoyed me by stepping on my handmade papers which were stacked on the floor, and playing irreverently with stuff on my personal altar. I had to ask him to leave it alone. He's a dear but he just doesn't think sometimes. I consider that it might be good for me to just loosen up. I'm so flexible about some things. People touching my stuff isn't one of them.

Last week I made some more changes in the apartment. One of the reclaimed saris I bought in Texas is now serving as a sort of swag bathroom curtain -- it changes the whole space into this elegant, slightly Eastern environment, especially after the Chinese coin charm with the red tassle was hung right in front of the window, just above head height. It dangles by a red thread from the ceiling, so from a few feet away it seems to be suspended in the air by itself. It's now quite the elegant pissoir.

Thursday 10/25, early afternoon, central time

I ran today! A little ways down the road is a high school with a proper, poured-rubber track which we've used before when staying here. I got up feeling pretty good for a change, and ran down there for an abbreviated jog. How GOOD it felt. It was a brisk, sunny morning, so I wore my long sleeved gear with jacket and installed the iPod on my waistband. A couple of young teams were having football practice in the middle, so I ran around them. Coming back to it was sweet. Feeling the steady rhythm, running with or against the beat of the music; sternum up and centered, or concentrating on the pelvis or the knees, breathing, trying to make both sides symmetrical, stepping and releasing the same way each time. Feeling my feet grip, release. Breathing, swallowing, suddenly noticing the clear beauty of Autumn, the incredible blue of the sky against the orange and yellow leaves, feeling the air go in and out, the sweat begin. Noting when the endorphins start to kick in, the emotion rising, the gratitude. There is a long mosaic at the back wall of this track; I've never stopped running long enough to really look at it, but it's beautiful, mirrored tiles and many colors and shapes, and some quotations. The track is very spongy so it's probably the best thing I could be running on right now. I went just 35 minutes, and got a little lost coming back home so probably walked a good half hour on top of that. Walked through Frank Lloyd Wright territory; a lot of his houses are in this neighborhood, and they're gorgeous.

When I first ever started running, I couldn't imagine getting past the first moments of being out of breath. Why do people put themselves through this? I wondered. It takes a lot of patience to get past the first ten minutes, the first fifteen, twenty. I like the panting now. It clears the lungs and the skin. I don't know if I'll be able to safely run an hour again. But if I can do 35 minutes a few times a week, it won't suck.

We watched the first game of the Series last night, on a slightly fuzzy tv screen. Being from the Northeast of course we're rooting for the Sox, and it was great fun to hunker down and watch a game on a night off. I kept trading text messages with Dar, who was in rehearsal for a show but would send a message every break. I even sent him a little video on my phone, of somebody on the tv getting a base hit. I know this is extreme and that I should just step away from the gadgetry. She said, typing this entry onto her Tungsten T3 Palm with the portable, collapsing keyboard.

Rehearsal in 25 minutes.

Friday, 10/26

We're homing in on two of my new songs, and will likely do at least one of them on Saturday. It's a radio show out of Chicago, where we'll play a short set for a studio audience that will not be broadcast, and then a longer set that will be. It's a cool show and very well known in folk circles.

Evening, 7:50pm

House concert. We'll be starting in a few minutes. I'm wearing my new, classy, side-zip gig boots. We'll try one new song tonight. A few days ago they had just over 30 reservations; tonight there are 45. (This is pretty good for a living room concert. We've played these for anywhere from 6 to 80 people.) I feel happy.

Saturday 10/27, noonish

Abbreviated run today, 25 minutes. I listened to my body. The track wasn't available, as there was a field hockey game, so I ran around the streets.

We've packed up our instruments and now I have to pre-pack my luggage. We'll get back not too late tonight but have to leave by 7:15 tomorrow morning to get to the church where we'll play at 2 services. Directly after that we begin the arduous drive home, so I'll have to be fully loaded out tomorrow morning. Our host just cooked me a gobsmacking breakfast -- egg, sausage patties, rye toast. After several days of cereal, the egg thing is good.

I can't wait to be home. Carol is equally eager to get back to the routine. And this is my favorite season coming up! All the holidays tumbling past, interspersed with people's birthdays, a sister trip of some kind with Rose, and the transition into thicker clothes and the down comforter. Wes sent me an email saying the heat was, indeed, being done this week. All this movement in my life now. It pleases me to think about Rose marrying Marc -- my new brother in law, my new family. I have to be in touch with my neice Bethany soon, too. My estranged brother's newly ex-wife, Rianna, emailed me recently; we haven't really been in touch in the past, but I liked her a lot when she came to visit Mom just before she passed, a few years ago. Now that she is out of my brother's creepy clutches, and now that the connection has been made between me and my brother's daughter, Rianna has entered the circle of communication. All this to say that my family is getting bigger again, when for so long it felt like it was shrinking, shrinking. I love this. I just want to make books for everybody. I sense a spate of bookmaking coming up. Stuff coming out of my hands, making.

Anyway, so much to do when I get back, but all fun.

(In Installment Two: Fun Is in How You Look at It.)