The Everywhereist

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When I first starting dating Rand, during my junior year of college (for those of you keeping track at home, it was approximately a lifetime ago), I lived in a windowless apartment.

I may be exaggerating slightly. It wasn’t exactly windowless – it had three, to be precise. But each and every one of them looked out on to an air vent, and beyond that, into my neighbors’ apartments. Never mind having a view; to even see sky, I had to stick my head out the window and crane it upward.

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Cave paintings at the Kloof.

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In high school, I had to be at school by 7:25. IN THE MORNING.

I know, I know. It sounds positively inhuman, doesn’t it? I’m fairly sure that in most parts of Europe, it would constitute child abuse (like Spain. Seriously, next time you have to get up early, think WWTS -What Would The Spanish Do? I’m pretty sure that after eating dinner at midnight and going to bed at 2am, they would NOT be getting up at 6).

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I don’t really know how to begin telling you about Bushman’s Kloof.

Words don’t usually fail me. In fact, I often have them in excess. They dribble out of my mouth at particularly inopportune times. Like when I’m telling a story at noisy party, and I find myself shouting the gory details in order to be heard (my stories always have gory details, you see), and at that precise moment because of what I can only assume is a decades-old-curse that was placed on my head, the entire room sort of goes silent.

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Last week the blog was a little thin. I was so busy, I was only able to get one post up. It wasn’t that I had a ton to do, or that I didn’t feel like writing. It’s because I was getting ready to speak at Ignite Seattle.

The Ignite Conference series is built around the following premise: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.” Speakers have 5 minutes and 20 slides (which auto-advance every 15 seconds) to tell a story. They can talk about virtually anything.

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Folks, I am a bit of a thief.

No, I’m not referring to that one time in Barcelona (though I must say, the sheer amount of hate mail I got over that post was both unexpected and delightful).

My sticky-fingeredness occurs far more often than that. I steal from friends, from loved ones, from both those closest to me and those I’ve never met. Sometimes, it happens without me realizing it. Most of the time, though, it’s completely intentional.

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Have you ever fallen in love with a place that you’ve visited, but you can’t really figure out why? There’s just something inexplicable about it that makes you happy to be there?

And the more you try to describe your rationale for loving it, the crazier you sound? To the point where you might be clutching someone’s hand, trying to convince them of the magic of this place? And because you’re so damn passionate about it, you fail to realize that the person you’re talking to is somewhat scared for their life? And that you’re now frothing at the mouth and screaming about homemade fudge and free parking on weekends and you look positively mental? This doesn’t just happen to me, right? RIGHT?

Well, that’s kind of how I feel about Jacksonville, Oregon.

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Every time that Rand and I stay in an old hotel, we have a similar exchange:

Me: This place is nice. Too bad it’s haunted.

Rand: Baby, this place isn’t haunted.

Me: You’d like for me to think that, wouldn’t you?

Rand: Yes. Yes, I would. I would very much like for you to believe that this place isn’t haunted, because it isn’t.

Me: Whose side are you on, anyway?

Rand: Um … logic’s?

Me: SO NOT MY SIDE, THEN.

Or something like that. The point is, I’m rather steadily convinced that every time we stay at an old, remodeled hotel, we’re going to be haunted right out of there, and Rand’s convinced we aren’t.

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While walking around Madrid, Rand and I saw this sculptural relief on the facade of the building, done in the classical style (is it ancient Roman in its influences? Let’s say yes, because I know squat about sculpture):

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And then we saw the same relief, this time rendered with a Cubist slant:

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And I might have geeked out, because seriously, how cool is that?