Trips...

I was in Minneapolis last week-end.

This is a picture taken from the plane--either during the flight to Minneapolis from Columbus, Ohio or during the flight from New York to Columbus(I will explain why I am in Columbus presently)....I don't always have a clear memory after flights these days. The xanax has allowed me to become quite comfortable with flying--even to the point of peacefully enjoying the views the experience at 30,000 ft. provides--but I don't always remember that experience SUPER clearly. I love flying now. I love to be able to be somewhere so new so fast and I love seeing the world like that...I particularly love seeing the large cities as we land--I'd like to take pictures of those cities, but the cities are generally in such proximity to the airports that by the time the city is in view from my 3"x 5" window the head flight attendant has announced that "ALL electronic devices must now be placed in the off position." ALL electronic devices! I was trying to take a great shot of the Chicago skyline with my beloved Lake Michigan beyond as we descended into O'Hare when the otherwise pleasant blonde attendant snapped "Sir, you HAVE to turn that off NOW!"
GEEESH! (Maybe my memory is pretty clear)
So, here is one shot...more a little later

So, I flew to Minneapolis!

It was VERY cold. But being there was really fantastic. Its been nearly 8 years since I've been to "the cities", as Mpls/St. Paul were always referred to in my northern Minnesotan youth.

As you may know, I began working with a very exciting theatre company, known as the TEAM, as an Artistic Associate (writer/collaborator) last year. And ostensibly, it was work with the TEAM that brought me to "the cities". The TEAM's latest show was having a run at the new Walker Arts Center Theatre and we were also taking the opportunity to spend some time working on the current, in development, play ARCHITECTING, which I am helping to write and so blah blah blah....I came to Minneapolis (most of you who are reading don't really care much about the specifics of my writing career--just that I am doing it, right? If I am wrong, please let me know and I will explain further about the exciting things happening)

So, I came to Minneapolis. It was very cold, and I was so often concerned with keeping my extremities from this cold, that I too often did not take my camera out... I am much more disappointed in my self than you are in me...

At any rate--I stayed with our great friends, Linda and Deb (of Old Mission, Michigan fame) who live in south Minneapolis. They, and their two daughters, Kylie and Allie, were SO helpful and generous. It was great to see them and spend time with them. They picked me up from the airport, let me stay in the topmost room of their beautiful home, even let me use their mini-van on Saturday night to go see my best friend from the Crosby-Ironton Jr. High days, Maggie! Or, more accurately and currently, Dr. Maglina Lubovich, Visiting Assistant Professor of English Lit. at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

I got to see her parents, Barb and Steve again. It was a great visit--always laughs with the Lubovichs...



I went to dinner with Maggie and her husband, Beau--a great guy from Duluth, who was born in Hibbing, Minnesota--for all you Dylan fans... in fact, Beau's grandma used to play bingo with Bob Dylan's grandma--or mom? At any rate, there's a connection there.
I say I went to dinner, but Beau and Maggie TOOK me to dinner. At a Russian restaraunt named "Moscow" and the food was reasonably authentic I must say. I had some great pelmini---


The food was good, but, of course the GREAT joy was spending the time with Maggie, Beau and their friend and neighbor, Lisa (?)--I feel like an ass for not remembering her name (your name if you're reading this) because we had some great laughs!



Its hard to explain just HOW good it was to see Maggie, so I won't try too hard.
Here's a stab at it:
I am always a little unsure of what to say when people ask me where I grew up. I spent my childhood and Jr. High years in Crosby, MN and spent my High School years and the next few in Utah...
So, seeing Maggie--doing all that laughing and recalling all those memories, albeit rather foggily--like coming off of xanax a little--helps me feel more confident about including Minnesota when I am asked about where I come from. Its not just that I have a past there and that Maggie reminds me of that. That is part of it, yes. But more so, its that being there with her, sharing bits and pieces of our lives, seeing the beautiful woman she has become, laughing with her parents and listening to their advice and genuinely getting to re-know Maggie a little allowed me to re-see myself as I was 16 years ago in the context of who I am today...
I did a lot of changing and growing when we moved to Utah, and thankfully so, but who I am and who I have become has so much to do with those years in Crosby...some of the best of which were spent with Maggie as my best friend!


The rest of these pictures are, conclusively, from my flights from Minneapolis through Chicago and back to Columbus.... see these last two are of the southern Lake Michigan shoreline--all blue and white with icy flows...
oh and I remember taking that first photo now--I flew LGA to Kansas City and then to Columbus on the way here--that first photo is from that trip (yeah, Kansas City, MO...now there's a cool skyline, y'all)


And lastly, the view I see right now as I finish off this blog from the 2nd floor window of an old restored farmhouse in Gambier, OH, where I am assisting my good friend, Molly Rice, who is also a Visiting Assistant Professor, but of Theatre and at Kenyon College...which is in Gambier, Ohio....which is where I am...right now!