What NY is to you, Pamfas is to me

This post has been a long time coming. I'm in the midst of my third week back since I went to the town with the pseudonym, to see the ranch where I'll live for October and November. About every other night, I sit down and chip away at an entry, but it never seems to get done. So tonight I'm just going to sit here until it does.

People keep asking me how the trip was and all I ever seem to say is “It was beautiful/great/I loved it.” All of which are true, but seem so weak in comparison with what the experience was, and I feel a little guilty everytime I see the little sad look on the face of whoever I say this to. It's like they are saying to me "You went all the way to Colorado and all I get is this crummy slogan?"

When someone asks me how the actual writing workshop was, then I branch out and say “It was really helpful”. And it was. But again... that isn't much of a keepsake either.

There's a thought I keep having, which I think of as a symptom that might lead to some diagnosis of whatever keeps me from being able to breathe life into a description of my trip.

What I keep thinking about the trip is this - the photos are so gorgeous they look photoshopped.

Think about that for a moment. I could have described the sky as being the color of the kind of swimming pool that’s always the perfect temperature, or the color of the way you feel at sea level after you’ve been living at high altitude for a while.

But in my head, the description of the landscape is “photoshopped”.

There are other symptoms.

Like, how while I was there I would find myself sighing, and that sigh would be coincident with the thought “I’m so happy”, but thenfollowing thought would be “I’m probably sighing because I’m not getting enough oxygen”.

Then there was the fact that I had some sleepless nights. And some weird dreams. Like the dream where the town with the pseudonym was a big carnival for the weekend, and I went into town and got plastered (even though we know I only get plastered at the Loggerodeo) and danced with someone else’s husband (another thing I'm unlikely to do) and paid the price in town the next morning when I found myself shunned in that way that only a small community can shun you. Thoroughly, seemingly irreparably.

There was also the dream where there were horses almost drowning in the river. Big powerful horses that I seemed to have spooked somehow, horses which nearly trampled me as they clambered up the river bank.

You don’t have to tell me what the dreams meant. I know, or I know as much as I need to.

Karl used to say I was better in the bad times. I never could disagree with that. In a way, I'm sorry that I was a better bridesmaid to the friend whose wedding I cancelled than I was to my sister, who glowed, and danced all night, and is still gloating over the groom she snagged. But sorry or not, I think I was better in the worst case.

The good times, sometimes they leave me sleepless, unsettled, dreaming about all the things I could lose, now that I have so much of what I want. All the symptoms, what they really tell you, ironically, is just how good a good time I had.

But the photos? They aren’t photoshopped. I’m not even a good photographer. It’s just that beautiful there. And even though I had some sleepless nights and my vision went all fuzzy and white around the edges at the top of our long hike, and I fumed over some slights I’ve suffered in the past few weeks, and wished that I could forget the things from my Seattle life that were troubling me, it was still that beautiful. Any time I doubt that, I see the photos and they prove it.

And no matter what my anxieties are or were, the fact remains that I spent a week eating incredible meals made for us by Pam herself – that gorgeous lamb, polenta with wild mushrooms picked that day on our hike, Thai shrimp curry, a fantastic salad with nearly every meal, homemade ice cream and lots and lots of cheese.

The food was enough art and pleasure for a week in itself, but of course, still there was more. We read writing so powerful that it left some of us sitting on the couch with tears streaming down our faces. We also read some damn funny things, and laughed out loud, and added to the list of running jokes that we’ve got going. We hiked and took naps and drew animal cards and thought about dreams and metaphor and love and Jazz and writing and writing and writing.

Add to all of that the fact that I haven't even started to tell you how much I love the women in this group. I love them a million little knit stitches worth, because they are writing things that are clever and poignant and ruthless and beautiful, and they are generous with their praise and brave with their criticism and I am so grateful for that. And when I tell you that they are a credit to the woman who leads them, I am saying a lot, because there is no superlative strong enough to express our gratitude for the way in which she is so smart. Towards the end of the workshopping, Tami said, with great passion and a hint of frustration, "Pam is so fucking smart!" and we all lost ourselves to laughter at that point, because it is so so true, and it certainly captures the feeling I have, that any attempts to articulate how great she is will only ever leave me frustrated.

But maybe a way to say a little part of it is that Pam is smart in a way that is Good, in a way that helps us all be better writers, and gives us room to be ourselves.

So, it was a dream week, but a dream week in the most complex sense. It was strange and surreal, beyond anything I could have imagined for myself a year or two ago, full of anxiety and joy and deep satisfaction and the spiritual peace you sometimes have after the kind of dream that helps you resolve something you've been worrying over for weeks.

Do you know the kind of dream I mean? The kind of dream that transforms you, that makes you feel like there's a real world inside dreams, that makes you believe that some dreams are experiences that really happen to you, rather than just the sets of images that flit through your sleeping self most nights, without leaving a mark on your memory.

See the truck in the photo above? That truck is exactly the kind of vintage, impossibly blue, photogenic truck that I dream of when I dream of a ranch life. But someone lost the keys to it, so now, it just sits in the driveway. And of course, I like that fact. It keeps it all from being too perfect, too photoshopped, too cliche.

I can have the dream, but only if I bring my own wheels. For someone like me, there's something comforting about that.

Especially when the wheels come attached to an almost-new, turbo-charged, all-wheel-drive sport wagon named Mo.