Vacation Away

North Carolina, Oregon and Creating a Book Proposal!

 

Rob Droste - Wrightsville Beach, N.C. (after Edward Hopper)

 

We’re back from our vacation! What fun we had at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina with Rob’s sister and her wonderful husband and our darling, darling beloved nieces, Faith, Mimi and Helen! We spent most of our time at the Wrightsville Beach Yacht Club, established in 1853 by a group including our brother in-law’s great grandfather! This place has a strong sense of history and soul, no doubt about it. Haywood has been going there since he was a boy. We spent three lovely, lazy days, lounging on the beach by the water tower and cooking in the spacious, shared kitchen in the evening, sitting down to a feast of fish and shrimp tacos with all the fixing’s on our last night, in the vast dining room underneath graceful ceiling fans amidst the squeals of tow-headed kids and their elegant Southern parents. What a wonderful life they live! What a different life than I have ever experienced!

Elise, Haywood, Rob, Faith and Mimi

 

 

The Sky at Wrightsville Beach

Mimi, me, Faith and Helen

 

Then, it was back home for a day to pack and an early start the next day to Oregon; hurtling up I-80, empty, wide open I-505 to I-5, past the grandeur of Lake Shasta, Grants Pass, Siskiyou Pass, stopping in Ashland for an iced latte, (and spilling it down the front of me on our lovely new car upholstery!), continuing on through the sleepy Willamette Valley, past Roseburg, Myrtle Creek, Cottage Grove and arriving at our dear friends’ home; Clare and Jude, in the cool of a Eugene summer evening. Jude, bless his good heart, had fixed us two kinds of Asian inspired chicken, and we sat out on their lovely deck, overlooking the whole of Eugene and talking and laughing the evening away . . .

 The next morning at 7:00 am, (yes, I will get up at dawn on a weekend if there is something fun to do!) found Clare and I at the Oregon Country Fair; located 13 miles west of Eugene on 280 wooded acres along the Long Tom River. You simply must go if you’ve never been! It is an adult Disneyland for the artists and hippies; (and wanna be artists and hippies), chock full of colorful people (clothed and semi-clothed), rambling through a magical land of a dozen plus musical stages, booth upon booth of jewelry, pottery, art, tie die and batik, environmental, educational and political groups; and the food, oh dear God, the food! You just simply must go! It is a world within a world, wide open with stimulation, sunshine and energy.

 

 

 

Color at the Oregon Country Fair

 

A Great Find at an Outer Stage

 

Jesse and Me

 

Robbie and I with Jesse's Bowl!

 

I got to see my dear friend, Robbie – she works at The Ritz – a wonderland tucked into a corner of the fair, with a glorious dry sauna, showers and a big open fire pit in the middle, surrounded by happy people singing and chanting. There was even a piano, I kid you not! We spent time with her way cool, glass artist son, Jesse, too! He gave me a beautiful bowl that he created; a gift I will never forget that now sits proudly on my meditation mantle.

 

 

 

www.oregoncountryfair.org

www.theritzsauna.com

 Another treat was a two hour plus brunch the next day, with dear friend, Valerie Brooks, the writer from Eugene, who has been such an integral part of the early stages of Vacation at Home; a wonderful friend through the years and an enthusiastic supporter of my writing. She was one of the first people who really believed in me as a writer. I love her!

You know what I think was the coolest part of our vacation? The juxtaposition between the yacht club, established in the Deep South before the Civil War and the Oregon Country Fair, established in the freewheeling, anything goes, late 60’s. This is the same country? Really?!? 

Next up was Ashland, our beloved Ashland, vacation place away extraordinaire! Ashland holds wonderful memories for us. Located in southern Oregon, only five hours from the Bay Area, we have made many trips through the years; visiting our friends, Del and Lydia, wandering through Lithia Park, enjoying Shakespeare, (a fabulous King Lear this year), shopping, and this year, working on my book proposal in Bloomsbury Books, sipping their really good iced coffee with coffee ice cubes and of course, a baked good!

 

Redwoods in Lithia Park

 

Del and Lydia in Ashland

 

Pond and Waterfall at Lithia Park

Yes! You read that correctly. My book proposal! It’s time! In the same spirit as we created in Paris; writing my blog in parks and green spaces while Rob sketched and painted, I have created a book proposal on this vacation! Thanks to the guidance of my good friend, John Mabry, a professional writer and priest, who owns a small publishing company, I got started. God bless his good soul, he is also on vacation with his wife and parents in Europe and he still found the time to coach me, reading drafts and sharing ideas and suggestions via E-mail. You have to understand; I started this, having no idea what a book proposal even is; how it is structured or what it needs to contain, and he walked me through all of it, guiding me every step along the way. And it’s just about ready!

 I’ll share more about it in future posts, but for now, I’d love to know what you think for a title! My idea is to make it a guide that closely follows my blog on how to make everyday a vacation; how to cultivate that sense of delight, adventure and playfulness in our everyday lives.  

Two titles I’m considering are:

           Vacation at Home – Cultivating Delight in the Every Day

Every Day a Vacation

 Oh, friends and readers, I’d love to hear your ideas on a title!

 And you know what else I’d love to hear from you? The books you have read that remind you a little of my writing and my ideas. My final task is to go to bookstores and copy down the titles of similar books; noting the publishers and establishing a list of places to send my proposal. Thank you, thank you for your support, enthusiasm and encouragement!