Until last week, I hadn’t been on the road for more than a day in two years. I used to spend at least a month a year on the road, if not longer. There were a variety of reasons for this life change, but two big ones stand out in my mind. One, after I spent all that time in a cast, alone in Los Angeles, high up on that hill in Silver Lake, all I wanted to do was come home and be in my spot and surround myself with my people. And two, I decided not to do that much to promote my last release, which was the paperback of The Melting Season. I was burned out on touring and self-promotion. When I took these journeys I always felt different and better when I came out the other side. But it was exhausting too. There were a lot of moving parts to planning and maintaining a trip like that. For better or worse, I needed a break.

So this last week was a taste of it again, just five days on the road, but I felt all the familiar sensations. There was the token car trouble which lingered for days, the hyper-alertness about the gestures of my hosts, the fried food in every town, the amusement with conservative talk radio, the revelatory NPR show during an early morning ride, the old Alanis Morissette CD discovered in the back seat, the shockingly comforting home-cooked meals, the surprise cold snap that caught everyone off guard from town to town, the failed hunt for a decent coffee, the deep conversations at just the right moment in my life, the vibrating sensation felt for days ever after the driving was done. Personal histories revealed. So much kindness bestowed on me by friends and family. One perfect yoga class that almost felt stolen so desperately was it needed. Hugging people I’d only just met. More fried food. Seriously, something called chipotle aioli is spread on pretty much every sandwich in America right now, but just try to find some decent coffee on the road. Drinking red wine every night, except on the nights when there was brown liquor involved. Contemplating my thighs and their spread on the seat beneath me. Feeling genuinely entertained by humanity. Thinking about books and talking about them and loving them and loving the people I was talking to about books.

And now, thanks to the radio, I know everything about all the Republican presidential candidates which is almost the same as knowing nothing about them.

Anyway I made it, I’m here now, in New Orleans. My apartment is perfect, spacious and clean with high ceilings and a second floor and a washer and a dryer and a dishwasher, which might be normal for the rest of America but for a New Yorker it is like living in luxury. The apartment is part of a house owned by two extremely lovely people, who greeted me with a glass of wine on my arrival and have loaned me a bike for my stay. The street is quiet. I have a dining room table to type-type-type on and also a desk, too, if I choose to use it, but I like this spread out feeling, books everywhere all around me.

Today is my second day here. This morning I will bike to the Bywater and read and have coffee and nose around and take pictures. Later I will go to lunch with two ex-New York writers at Liuzza’s By The Track. After that I will write into the night. Then I don’t know what. But I am here.

(01/05/12) | 2 Comments »