Landscaping My Life

KATHERINE TODAY.

We've just returned from a week in NYC.  Jim loves the city and loves the bustle and hurry and the restaurants and the museums and theaters.  He doesn't think people there walk fast enough.  He can walk down the street and no one notices him.  He fits into this landscape as though he was born there.

I loved our trip.  It was wonderful.  NYC is not my landscape though.  We walked from our Central Park Hotel out to the East Village for Nate's food tour.  Lots of folks stopped me and wanted to know if I wanted a "deal" for a bus tour, an Empire State Building tour, a MOMA early pass--things like that.  I was walking fast, looking straight ahead and yet they all knew I was an out-of-towner.  Even when we were separated by a mob by the Empire State Building, the barkers left Jim alone and honed in on me.  

I was pretty nervous the first two days.  I don't do maps well and the constant reminders from Nate and Jim about the wonderful NYC grid and how great it is (except where Nate lives, of course) and my constant sense of being lost made me edgy.  I like to know where I'm going and we were always going new places and all the buildings look alike from the ground and navigating by landmarks wasn't doing it for me.  I mean, when the only landmark you recognize is Central Park and you are always walking away from it and in all directions, well--a girl like me feels lost a lot.

I finally gave up and decided JIm would not lose me and just walked wherever he aimed us.  It was hard though.  Jim will tell you that I'm a girl who knows where's she going even if I don't know where I'm going.  Landmarks are wonderful things.

The whole experience has made me mull over my friends and the landscapes that call them and the landscapes that call me.

Barbara loves mountain valleys like up at Steamboat.  She grew up in Montana and there's certain rounded mountains surrounding a valley that just stop her.

I imagine Bud and Janet on some sort of old-fashioned movie set where they have a couple in a car with rolling scenery going by in the background.  They left yesterday for a month that covers Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Bali.  Though they return to places, their best place is always the place they have never been.

I see Jerry driving between historical sites and then finishing the drive somewhere by the Pacific Ocean so Cindy can gaze at the ocean as she knits.  I'm not sure I'm right about this, but I'm pretty sure the Oklahoma and Texas landscapes do not call to them these days.

I like landmarks in my landscapes.  I like sky and mountains and oceans certainly work,  but it's the sun that calls me more than water usually.  I like the sun- I'd like to rationalize and say it's medicinal.  It helps my mood and some of my radiation caused skin issues, but the truth is that I've always loved the sun and the outdoors.  I like nature.

I appreciate NYC and I truly want to go back.  It is a landscape that I can see easing into better and better with each visit now, but I can't ever see it being home like Jim could.  It's one of the few things that if we had to make a choice. we might really disagree here.

There are a few landscapes I ease into that I feel like me still and that I'm in my own element.  These places call to me and I miss them when we haven't been there in a while.

First there is, of course, The Tetons and Bluebell Cabin at Jenny Lake Lodge.  I can sit on the porch and see Mount RockChuck and Jim can predict the exact time the sun will set.  I can walk from that porch to Lake Solitude and see, for me, the best Nature has to offer.  I love it when the timing is just perfect for an almost too-hot hike, but there is still snow next to the trail that I can put down my back as I walk the next stretch.  I can know before I leave Bluebell's porch if that will happen.  I know already there will be too much snow to hike up over Paintbrush Divide.  I love that I know this.

I am at home on the beaches and streets of San Pedro in Belize.  I can walk the beach from where we stay to town or out to the south end of the caye.  I can ride a bike the length of the island and I know all the spots I could stop for a beer if I wanted one.  There are no American restaurants.  The fried chicken at Elvie's Kitchen and breakfast at Estelle's and the fish at The Blue Water Grill are required for any visit. We really know a local fisherman and we go out with him each time we visit.  His name is Felipe and he is such a wonderful Zen-like little guy.  We are going back to Belize next year after a two year break.  It's been calling both Jim and I.

Though Jim doesn't love it the way I do,  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico is easy for me to fall into and enjoy.  We don't stay at a fancy place and the food ranges from okay to incredible in PV and there are awful smoggy days and incredibly clear sparkling days and the whole place is a juxtaposition between crap and beauty.  I can see a family fishing or a monster private yacht on our daily morning beach walk.  I love the bumpy busses and the street food and a great beachside restaurant we've found.  We've eaten at every Tino's Fish Place in the entire area--we might be the only Americans ever to have done that.  I love that an artist stopped me and told me I was beautiful.  I love walking the Malecon and looking at the human statues and the sand art and the stacked rocks and the colorful people and the art.  I love the art in PV.  The only thing I don't like is American stuff.  The Hooters there almost makes me cry.  At least The Hard Rock Cafe hit hard times and is no more.

Santa Fe is calling and I think will be part of my set of landscapes.  I keep trying to figure out how to find the funds to get there for another opera this summer.  The light and the food and the opera and the art and the hotel we stay at--there are a lot that tells me I could be returning again and again.

I'm not sure what makes each of us adopt certain places as alternative homes.  I know Vail and Steamboat were places like this in my past and are no longer.  Vail grew corporate and big and doesn't even resemble the place I once loved so much.  My God--The Golden Bear moved.  Steamboat might still hold its magic.  We just haven't been that way in years and it's not nagging at the back of my mind the way other landscapes do.

I'm happy for Jim and how he felt in NYC.   I'm vowing that he gets to his landscapes more often.  Next up is our beloved Tetons.  I'm pretty sure that our love for those mountains is a good identifier for our long and happy marriage.  Another is that he always makes me coffee in the morning.  A good landscape always begins with a fellow bringing you a great cup of coffee.