Recall the Beginner's Mind

I always promise myself I'll keep my 'vacation brain' when I arrive home. But within minutes, I'm opening the mail, cleaning out the fridge, putting on laundry. Come the next day, there I am, sitting at the little desk in our spare room, furiously plowing through my writing. Getting back into the rhythm of every day life.

I guess that's no bad thing. We don't we want to escape. Still, 'getting away' is an opportunity for expanded perspective. It's a little like the Eastern notion of the 'beginner's mind.' 

Austin definitely freshened up our minds. I remember afternoons outside Jo's Coffee sitting across from the interminable Adam, focusing with absolute intensity on his book in the way that I never can. And the two of us eating spicy tacos under the white hot Texas sun. Swimming in Barton Springs, walking through an art show in the palm woods with heavy sculptures breaking down in the damp earth. 

I remember pulling up at a French food trailer on our drive back to San Antonio. La Boite was done up in corrugated aluminum with enormous, sweeping sun shades. Austin chic. Sweet macarons and iced coffee are enough to get us talking big. Couldn't we see ourselves moving here someday? 

Instead, we're home with beginners' minds, getting fresh takes on our own world.

Austin II

Yesterday, Adam noted he seems to like places that others describe as 'weird.' Portland, Asheville. Cities well-known for quirky culture, creativity and laid-back sensibilities. Certainly, Austin has a corner on these elements.

Here, we have found ourselves with easy access to outdoor art, nighttime bat watching, big burgers, beef BBQ and local beer, shady running paths, palm trees, free hugs, scruffy cats and live music. The area where we're staying is a panoply of Spanish language churches, independent grocery stores, pet peacocks, girls on bikes with dogs in baskets, food trailer parks, homemade dune buggies, vintage Vespas, and streetside domino games.

So, yeah. Weird.

We like it. We like vacation.

San Antonio/Austin

Howdy y'all!

After months of thinking about it, Adam and I are finally in Texas.

We spent Sunday night in San Antonio at the gorgeous Hotel Valencia. We snagged our room for a song (thanks to Adam's savvy work on Priceline) and quite enjoyed the lux amenities: valet parking, cold aqua fresca, dark wood window shutters and a secret view of the lazy river.

Around dusk, we visited the legendary Los Alamos. The sky was spitting rain and hundreds of great-tailed grackles swooped overhead like screeching streaks of indigo ink. Afterward, we walked quickly through deserted streets to an incredible outdoor watering hole called The Friendly Spot. Here, dozens of tables fill a dusty yard and patrons line up at at a bar housed in an old ice house for cold draft and wine served in plastic cups. Dogs, kids, birds and fat gray squirrels share the playground equipment at the front of the property and a middle-aged Latino guy DJs from a laptop and a single speaker. Halfway through our drinks, we started talking about quitting our lives and moving to the South of France to open a cooking school, so I'd say the booze had the desired effect.

Come morning, it was still drizzling and so we ambled along San Antonio's famed 'river walk' to the Guenther House (America's oldest working flour mill!). We were the youngest people there by about thirty years (further evidence, as if I needed any, that I am often drawn to activities that interest women mostly of my grandmothers' generation). The gift shop and cafe are housed in a beautiful nineteenth-century home at the front of the property and it turned out well, I guess, because I picked up a bag of sweet cream waffle mix for Sarah Minor while Adam sampled chocolate chunk cookie bars made from fresh milled flour.

Yesterday, we drove to Austin where the local slogan is 'Keep Austin weird." Our apartment is instantly comfortable, likely owing to its enviable design: fourteen foot ceilings, a raised 'pod' bed and polished concrete floors. Our landlord is an artist and furniture maker who lives upstairs and works in the giant warehouse studio to which our apartment is attached. To my unending delight, there are also three cats and a dog on the property. The friendly Siamese mix often ends up in our private pebbly courtyard, pestering me for food (cats know suckers when they see one).

So far, we're really digging the outdoor coffee houses (dogs [yay] & smoking [boo] allowed), addictive fish tacos, abundant food trailers, overgrown agave plants, Spanish architecture and laid-back vibe. Not to mention gun stores that also 'process deer,' butcher shops that sell ammo, girls wearing pretty dresses with serious cowboy boots, art galleries proffering tattoos, barbershops that serve cold beer while-you-wait and the oddly cloudy sky holding back the coming heat of summer.

Quiet Riot

As for those delicate cherry blossoms, they're mostly white with a faint blush of pink and cover the treetops like soft clouds. But the effect is surprisingly weighty and prompts a feeling of quiet -- in the same contradictory way that softly falling snow blankets the woods with a heaviness and hush.

Perhaps not difficult to imagine if you're Canadian?

Full Circle Evening

Tonight, I came almost literally 'full circle.'

Some of you might remember our house hunting trip here in DC at the beginning of January 2011. Two days before that trip, Adam got maybe the worst flu I have ever seen and I wasn't feeling too hot either. But we really had to come down here and find a place to live! So, we loaded our achy bodies onto the plane and threw down stakes at the Carlyle Suites in the heart of DC's incredible northwest quadrant. For the next week, the Carlyle was our urban hideaway. We were so sick that, besides finding a place to live, we did next to nothing. Our days consisted mostly of watching football on TV and walking to Whole Foods on P Street for lunch.

But, for some reason, it was a magical time. Maybe because things sort of stopped moving for a few days (at a time when our stress levels at home were through the roof). Whatever the reason, in my mind, that week felt like a turning point away from one place and time and toward another here in DC.

After dinner tonight, I nipped out the door to a nutrition class at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts.

First, I zipped up M Street, past the hotels and condo buildings, turned left at Meiwah Chinese, headed up New Hampshire and crossed Dupont Circle, stopping for a moment to take off my cardigan. The temperature got up to twenty-six degrees today and the whole neighbourhood came out to relax in the circle. Bikers, chess players, people on iPads, even ducks in the base of the fountain.

Past the circle, I passed runners and yuppies with yoga mats, people carrying grocery bags and couples coming back from the off-leash dog park. Then, on my right, a small hotel began to stand out from the colours and rhythms of the street. I noted nothing particularly special about its tidy architecture, but it seemed somehow to possess an extraordinary character. As I walked closer, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was the Carlyle, my former (albeit brief) stomping ground, and the place where this journey began.

I then smiled as I realized that now I too, have become a quietly extraordinary part of the landscape of the city.

Writing It Out

For a writer, there is no greater way to work things out than by writing them out. In emailing a dear friend today, I realised some valuable insights about our experience in DC.

Here's the final paragraph of that message.

"Our time in Washington is now half over and half is yet to come. This semi-nomadic state of affairs is so exciting...and at times, tiring and, obviously unsettling in a material/practical sense. But for us, it is so worth it. We have, I think, come to see our move not only as a physical relocation, but also an experiment and revelation of self. So, in that respect, this experience has far exceeded our expectations."

As our journey here has unfolded, I've often struggled to explain why we love it here so much. Admittedly, DC has undeniable charms (free museums and galleries and a pool on the roof of our building are chief among them). But, it's so much more than those tangible things. The chance to take chances and grow has been one of the greatest rewards of our young lives. And so, we can't but help but to feel right at home.

We heart DC.

Too Fool For School

Someone in this house has a hard life.