by G. Sax
I love me some St. Paul, Minnesota, but I also love me some travel time. I'm something of a collector of places, going so far as to move to places in order to get to know them better. If you've read anything I've produced on this blog, you know I'm subject to flights of flightiness.
Places. The other cool thing about going places other than seeing them is the fresh perspective it gives you about home. I went up to the North Shore (Lake Superior's northern shore above Duluth, Minnesota, for out-of-state readers) a couple of weeks ago, and things are about as different up there compared to St. Paul as Bakersfield is to San Francisco. Same state, different vibe.
The pace makes a welcome downshift to third gear, the vastness of sky blue sky and piney treetops inspires easy breathing, and you can imagine yourself out of whatever quandary you've found yourself in back home. This is why people continually return to places like Palm Springs, Martha's Vineyard, Kauai, and Burning Man. Find your peace and roll with it.
Yet if you ask a local in Lutsen, Minnesota, how they're handling the recession, they respond, "We're always in a recession up here, so we're doing just fine." Whoa.
When you ask your waitress questions about Grandma's Marathon, the famous jaunt from Two Harbors to Duluth, she tells you that it's a great time and that she ran it last year after a night of drinking, smoking, and boneless chicken wings. Whoa.
Places. Last week I got nice life lessons in Colorado Springs, Colorado, by way of cabbies. Cabbies in The Springs all seem to be independent contractors, they'll chat openly about this and that, and they seem to be allowed to do whatever they want to their cab interiors.
I got into one cab that had high-definition TVs embedded in the back of the front seats, a full surround-sound system, and an audio-visual prism of a DJ spinning in front of thousands of ravers at an outdoor festival in Europe. That's a pretty effing weird world to enter into after a Monday night of trouble-searching.
I had to get the lowdown from this guy, so I brain-pulled whatever DJ knowledge I had in order to engage him. At first he laughed at me, but then I dropped a couple of names that showed I paid SOME attention to his music of choice.
Dude had a lot to say about the power of electronic music, doing what you want with the life you have and the workspace you occupy, and living rich and free. Just short of the drop-off, and after a pregnant pause infused with cheering throngs and drum n' bass, he said, "I've never met anyone like me."
I support this sort of self-awareness. And though I may not have anything to say about St. Paul this week, I returned to St. Paul with a stunning sense of self-awareness. I am St. Paul, and St. Paul is good.
