How circumstances change when you force yourself to step outside of the confines of dangerous comfort zones and choose to let yourself taste something new, perhaps even exciting. I met some wonderfully interesting people at the Chautauqua Writer's Conference this past week.
Poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers. Professors, hippies, stay-at-home mothers. Grandmas, speech pathologists, reporters. People of all ages and various backgrounds. A man who spent 2 months in South India and rode an elephant into town every other day. A woman who thinks she's found the ultimate brownie, an authentic New Yorkah.
Once I let my guard down, started opening up to people, conversation flowed as freely as the alcohol that decorated tables every night.
One night, however, trumped all of the rest, easily. While people mingled with red plastic cups, I stepped outside and took a walk. My grandmother would have frowned upon this action because it was well around 11:30pm and I am a young girl, alone, at night. She has never been to Chautauqua, however, and wouldn't understand.
I found a secluded spot by a streetlamp, a place where not many cars would stumble upon me, and laid down in the middle of the road. Star-gazed. Allowed myself time to think, consider. I talked to a few people on the phone and made plans to head to Cedar Point immediately after the conference on Sunday instead of straight home. I relaxed.
The rest of the conference was eventful and certainly pointed me in a direction with my writing. Which direction, I'm not sure. But isn't that the beauty of writing and re-writing and switching and cutting and starting anew? There are so many beautiful directions that there never is one 'right one'. There are possibilities and I'm in search of them.
* * *
I don't know what it is about Sandusky. The people, perhaps? The atmosphere? The energy that surrounds Cedar Point, in general?
Regardless, stuff happens at Cedar Point. Everything happens there. No one really makes anything happen, and that's both the blessing and the curse.
What happens, exactly? Well. Everything. I am a different person from working there, and when I returned for a quickie visit, I returned to whoever that person was, whatever she did.
Everything just happens.
And then I left. For the second time. I waved, and blew kisses, and told them I would be back, I would be back. I've never felt more welcoming hospitality from people than I did when I returned for this second visit. Awry is the word I've been searching for all night; awry. And awkward. And wish.
Usted conoce a ese te quiero muchacho, caliente como Mexico, disfruta. Rejoice. Rejoice.
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