a great trip
Jun. 27th, 2007 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI'm packing up to return home after a very full and busy week in Austin, teaching a storytelling class with the amazing and talented ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morrigandaughtr. Looking back, this week has been full of peak experiences, wonderful, delightful, perhaps my favorite trip to Austin over the years.
And...I am so very ready to be back home with my loved ones and on my land. The longer I live there, the harder it is to leave. I love Austin, and the nearby Hill country, they really speak to my soul and feel deeply welcoming and familiar in a way that has always seemed surprisingly natural to me. I feel so glad to have had the excuse to come back here repeatedly, and I hope that pattern continues. I seem to have more and more dear friends in Austin, some of whom I didn't even get to talk to this time around because of my schedule (sgreer and christeos_pir, in particular, I knew I wasn't going to be able to touch base this time around, but next time...)
And there's also no question that home is the deep, green, wild woods of New Hampshire where I live. I figure it's purely a good thing that being away, no matter how good a trip, just makes me miss home all the more. As Solas sings, "There's no sadness in leaving if you leave for a reason / The best of all reasons is to come back again"
Aside from the wonderful storytelling class, which there may already be plots afoot to repeat closer to home, memorable moments of the trip included:
-- exploring San Antonio, the absolute highlight of which was getting to hear what was without a doubt the best live jazz/blues band I have heard in my life, bar none. Jim Cullum's six-man band at his club, the Landing in San Antonio, is just as good as it gets, and I don't say that idly. Jim is also the father of the dear friend I was travelling with, and had spent a good part of the earlier part of the day showing us local landmarks and old houses, taking us to the best hole in the wall Mexican restaurant dive I've been to, and telling marvelous stories about legendary jazz greats. During the evening's performance, when he and the band dived into Django Reinhardt (a recent musical re-obsession of mine), I was in a state of total bliss. The near-perfect Montgomery martini didn't hurt either. Yum.
--Amy's ice cream (Mexican vanilla and Guinness flavors rock)
--Taking the long way to San Antonio, exploring the Devil's Backbone, the Blanco River, and many other beautiful places along the way.
--Exploring the Texas State Capitol building in Austin, an immense and wonderfully-restored architectural marvel, inside and out. On the floor directly under the massive rotunda is a huge marble pentacle (the Tejas star, natch), which we used for guerilla ritual and walked the Iron and Pearl pentacles as Texas Rangers and other tourists looked on in some degree of mild confusion.
--Waiting for the bats to emerge from under the Congress Avenue bridge.
--Potstickers, spring rolls, hummus, and macadamia-encrusted trout in a coconut-milk sauce at Mars, one of the best restaurants I've eaten at for a long time. Their Marstini (Citron + Grand Marnier) is also an alchemical experiment I will have to experiment with at home...
--No less than three meals at Polvo's, an old local Austin standby for Tex-Mex, each time with dear friends
--Hanging out at the Vortex, my favorite experimental theatre, and watching on DVD the production of Trickster I'd been involved with in its very early stages, and tried but not been able to come out and see performed live.
--Central Market and Whole Foods. Our local Co-op at home has the same level of fresh produce (and farmer's markets are even fresher), but CM and WF are like theme parks by comparison -- something like 50 feet of meat counters, the same for seafood, and about as much for cheeses. Damn. And I found a wine to take home that I've been looking for but can't get in New Hampshire.
--Dancing to the Asylum Street Spankers, one of my favorite bands, playing at a wedding of two Vortex people, where the guests were half theatre folk and half Army JAG people. Weird and wonderful.
morrigandaughtr. Looking back, this week has been full of peak experiences, wonderful, delightful, perhaps my favorite trip to Austin over the years. And...I am so very ready to be back home with my loved ones and on my land. The longer I live there, the harder it is to leave. I love Austin, and the nearby Hill country, they really speak to my soul and feel deeply welcoming and familiar in a way that has always seemed surprisingly natural to me. I feel so glad to have had the excuse to come back here repeatedly, and I hope that pattern continues. I seem to have more and more dear friends in Austin, some of whom I didn't even get to talk to this time around because of my schedule (
sgreer and christeos_pir, in particular, I knew I wasn't going to be able to touch base this time around, but next time...)And there's also no question that home is the deep, green, wild woods of New Hampshire where I live. I figure it's purely a good thing that being away, no matter how good a trip, just makes me miss home all the more. As Solas sings, "There's no sadness in leaving if you leave for a reason / The best of all reasons is to come back again"
Aside from the wonderful storytelling class, which there may already be plots afoot to repeat closer to home, memorable moments of the trip included:
-- exploring San Antonio, the absolute highlight of which was getting to hear what was without a doubt the best live jazz/blues band I have heard in my life, bar none. Jim Cullum's six-man band at his club, the Landing in San Antonio, is just as good as it gets, and I don't say that idly. Jim is also the father of the dear friend I was travelling with, and had spent a good part of the earlier part of the day showing us local landmarks and old houses, taking us to the best hole in the wall Mexican restaurant dive I've been to, and telling marvelous stories about legendary jazz greats. During the evening's performance, when he and the band dived into Django Reinhardt (a recent musical re-obsession of mine), I was in a state of total bliss. The near-perfect Montgomery martini didn't hurt either. Yum.
--Amy's ice cream (Mexican vanilla and Guinness flavors rock)
--Taking the long way to San Antonio, exploring the Devil's Backbone, the Blanco River, and many other beautiful places along the way.
--Exploring the Texas State Capitol building in Austin, an immense and wonderfully-restored architectural marvel, inside and out. On the floor directly under the massive rotunda is a huge marble pentacle (the Tejas star, natch), which we used for guerilla ritual and walked the Iron and Pearl pentacles as Texas Rangers and other tourists looked on in some degree of mild confusion.
--Waiting for the bats to emerge from under the Congress Avenue bridge.
--Potstickers, spring rolls, hummus, and macadamia-encrusted trout in a coconut-milk sauce at Mars, one of the best restaurants I've eaten at for a long time. Their Marstini (Citron + Grand Marnier) is also an alchemical experiment I will have to experiment with at home...
--No less than three meals at Polvo's, an old local Austin standby for Tex-Mex, each time with dear friends
--Hanging out at the Vortex, my favorite experimental theatre, and watching on DVD the production of Trickster I'd been involved with in its very early stages, and tried but not been able to come out and see performed live.
--Central Market and Whole Foods. Our local Co-op at home has the same level of fresh produce (and farmer's markets are even fresher), but CM and WF are like theme parks by comparison -- something like 50 feet of meat counters, the same for seafood, and about as much for cheeses. Damn. And I found a wine to take home that I've been looking for but can't get in New Hampshire.
--Dancing to the Asylum Street Spankers, one of my favorite bands, playing at a wedding of two Vortex people, where the guests were half theatre folk and half Army JAG people. Weird and wonderful.
