waves away

Last week I went to Chicago . Yes, at the tail end of what Seattle news was selling as a snowpocalypse marauding the eastern half of the country. But I had plane, hotel and meals paid for by professional development funds, and plans to develop quite professionally via literary sessions at the Modern Language Association conference, so I was not to be deterred by wind chill nor ice pellets. Plus, I had an escort. Walter and I arrived at SeaTac with time to spare before the delayed flight out, and we started things on a high note. I had missed the memo about revised security protocol and so was elated at the surprise of not having to remove my shoes or laptop. Also delightful was the twittering live bird the woman behind me in line was traveling with. A Bloody Mary topped with a prawn skewer completed my flight prep, and we finally boarded to find the plane only 2/3rds full. The empty middle seat seemed lavish; the four-hour ride was a breeze. Descending over "the city...

Here are a few things: 1. The first post in quite awhile. I have wandered very little outside my home base since spring, physically. On the other hand, I've been on a great big soul journey, maybe one of the biggest inside trips there is. Okay, Cancer, I get it, no one escapes -- you are going to sequester every single one of us at your ugly party for at least a little while. 2. The cancer log. When you're on this excursion, even as care-taker you're somewhat compelled to write about it, because writing is real good anchoring, relinquishing, sorting, sense-making therapy. Many a blog has been born from cancer. You should write about it, Robyn. Yeah, but I don't want to. I don't know how. I won't. 3. The NANOWRIMO effort. I had just been avowing to my good-night journal how I was not going to write about cancer, when the peeps at the Halloween party asked, what artsy thing is everyone going to do once a day in November? The original nationally sancti...

September 17 When I open my eyes I could be in Arkansas again, with tart juice in a urine sample cup and noxious light in the bathroom. Except now I don’t even have Kansas City and Colorado ahead of me. Only ten hours of Columbia Plateau. When I get home everything I left there will be waiting, withered; everybody’s life will be plodding forward, while I'm pulled back through a geography strewn with new views of a collapsing world.               We pack up our bags for the last time. I arrange my contents in ways that will be easiest to unpack, since I am kind of compulsive about unpacking the minute I get home. Before a trip, I have no problem slowly adding to an open suitcase on the floor of the bedroom over the course of several days, but I don’t want to be visually reminded that a trip is over instead of ahead. Brian (like a lot of people probably) is the opposite—he won’t need these summer...

September 15 Saturday brings room service: espresso and Eggs Benedict in bed (funny, how overpriced food and beverage, unlike fancy cabs and canvas campground tents, never seem too indulgent for us), and a gleaming dual-head shower. Then, bemused, I’m back on the road, and I miss the Chevy Venture, whose passenger seat foam had cast itself perfectly to my behind. I don’t care about the fine safe hotel once I’ve left it; I can now conjure the totally non-synthetic splendor of The Outer Banks and Savannah , the Southern places where I found the formula that was just right. I miss them. I miss the Atlantic spray, the weeping willows and Spanish moss, the hushpuppies and booze-walking, and I miss the Twin Towers , which is a weird sensation since all these things meant very little to me back in August.             The edge of Kansas City , and of Missouri for that matter, is tenuous and confusing, as there are two cities nex...